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.

I had heard that this movie was a classic, and I was anxious to see it. After all, I've seen others Ealing comedies such as "Kind Hearts And Coronets" and "The Man In The White Suit", and those were good. But this movie was an unfunny dud.Perhaps it was funnier to Britons, but my mother and I hardly laughed. The whole concept could have been good, but the humor was dry as the proverbial funeral drum, and the concept of the officer trying to retrieve the whiskey and suffering for doing his duty, well, the idea is more cruel than amusing. Avoid this one and stick to the much better, later ones which are genuinely funny.

The people of the little village of Toddy on one of the Outer Hebrides runs out of whiskey and there is no prospect of any coming in. A shroud descends on the island. No one smiles. The elderly waste away.Then, through the seasonable interposition of a gracious Providence, a ship is wrecked just offshore while carrying a cargo of 50,000 cases of scotch. The villagers, champing at the bit while waiting for the Sabbath to end, finally manage to save some 250 cases before the ship goes down.The sun shines again and the islanders are happy -- except for the comically strict captain of the Home Guard who learns of the theft and calls in the authorities to confiscate the goods. He almost does it, too.It's a fine farce. The comedy is understated and flows naturally from the unnatural situations. The laughs are never forced. I'll give just one example.As the men of the village are finishing the transfer of all that booze from the ship to a fleet of rowboats, the ship itself gives a lurch and lists heavily. The cargo hold, still full of stone-heavy cases of whiskey, is filled with tumbling cartons. One man is trapped below and when his rescuers hurriedly pull the crates away from him, they find him sitting there with a resigned but not at all unhappy expression. If you're going to lose your life, this is the proper way to do it -- crushed by the water of life.There's a dumb coda, but it's sarcastic and can be ignored safely. Otherwise this is a truly heart-warming movie that belongs to the "happy peasant" genre. The outsiders are cold and repressed, while the peasants dance, sing, drink, and feast. There are far worse examples of the genre. I particularly like the fact that, at the end, the moralistic outsider isn't converted by the peasants. He simply goes away in frustration.

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.