This film was shot in part in the New Hebrides Islands and those island folk have little enough to do to relax and unwind. So the Scots congregate at the local pub, looks like few even have a radio. So when World War II comes spirits among other things are put on a quota. Four bottles a month for the pub. War is hell, but this is ridiculous.So when the HMS Cabinet Minister founders and eventually sinks and its cargo being a few tons in crates containing whiskey it's manna from heaven. A way to endure the war so to speak. If only that pompous idiot Basil Radford of the local home guard would stop thinking he's in the Coast Guard and try to spoil all the fun.In a role that would have been ideal for Cecil Parker Radford does well in the part. He plays it absolutely straight, he's a man just doing his duty as he sees it. Trouble is he just can't convince anyone else.Another favorite in the screen in total sympathy with Radford's temperance crusade is Jean Cadell, a stern Scot's Presbyterian woman if there ever was one. Not even to break the Sabbath will she allow her grown son Gordon Jackson out to salvage the cargo. Jackson who is on leave after serving in North Africa is going against this formidable woman. So it's Whiskey Galore for the lucky people here and Ealing Studios came up with a real winner in their comedy stable. Whiskey Galore holds up remarkably well today.The film is based on a true wartime incident, but I doubt it was as much fun as this film was.

Scottish islanders try to plunder 50,000 cases of whiskey from a stranded ship.This was Alexander Mackendrick's directorial debut, and a solid one at that. There is humor, to be sure, and something of a dark humor at that. Apparently, Scotland is a dreary place when whiskey and cigarettes are scarce.But although I liked it, I think I missed something, because it did not jump out at me as anything much beyond the average films of the day. I guess maybe I should watch it again or in the context of Mackendrick's career, but oh well.

The island of Barra doubles for the fictional Isle of Toddy, where the God-fearing locals sweat over the sabbath before launching a mission to unload 50,000 cases of whisky from a shipwreck under the fastidious guard of the sassenach Home Guard captain, Basil Radford.Beautifully paced, wonderfully shot, Whisky Galore creates a genre of Scottish/Celtic-themed comedies and refuses to relinquish its crown to the pretenders. Local Hero, Restless Natives, Hear My Song, and Heavenly Pursuits are all funny films that exploit the wry, laconic humour established in Whisky Galore. The epitome of this is the scene where the Sergeant tells his fiancé's father of his honourable intentions. More than his daughter's betrothal, the father's mind is on salvaging the whisky, and he plots to make it happen.The English-Scottish tension would have been easy to overplay but it hardly surfaces, the writers instead allowing the characters to develop three-dimensionally. Each scene is a gem. No rural Scottish comedy can ever be made again without referencing this timeless classic.

Along with classical music Compton Mackenzie certainly knew his stuff when he wrote Whisky Galore, basing it on true events that happened in 1941. I always preferred the film. The quality of the video I made from UK BBC2 on 28th Dec 1988 was excellent, but there are budget editions out there so if interested best be careful. This is one of Ealing's handful of timeless first class classics, one that is always shown on TV and has passed into British movie folklore. Its depiction of the Sabbath-keeping Scottish islanders is only just passing into history as the inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides are only gradually establishing Sunday communications with the mainland.Insular isolated island runs out of whisky but a cargo ship with 50,000 cases of the muck runs aground nearby. Happy times return, against all the efforts of Basil Radford as the local snooty (English) Home Guard Captain. Bruce Seton was actually a rather weather-beaten 40 to Joan Greenwood's 28 but they surely made a splendid non whisky drinking couple especially at the dance. Favourite bits: The church clock striking for the arrival of Monday morning and the consequent sudden activity; The group of men singing lustily and making hay with their first drink for ages; Hiding the muck from the Excise men, and so much more to watch and savour over and over again.Ealing Studios went to Barra in summer 1948 and filmed this in 3 months for £80,000 - over-budget, too! When I think of the enormous pleasure that it's given me and so many others over the decades I would think that it was money very well spent, unlike any that might be spent on a pointless remake.