WHISKY GALORE! UK BluRay review
Whisky Galore! was based on the novel of the same name by the author Compton Mackenzie, who was inspired by accounts of the time a real cargo ship - the S.S. Politician - went down off the island of Eriskay. Locals mounted a series of raids on the wreck, much to the anger of Customs officials, who tried to track down the culprits but were hampered by the islanders' resourcefulness in hiding their loot. Mackenzie was a staunch Scot (though he was actually English by birth), active in politics, devoted to the country, and loved to collect this kind of story, by all accounts.
Ealing Studios' involvement came during a government attempt to promote the British film industry over American imports as part of cutting back on spending after the war. Monja Danischewsky, a publicist and occasional writer at the studio, was keen to take more of an active role in the business. He was given the opportunity to produce, as long as he could find something to film that could be shot entirely on location, and settled on adapting Mackenzie's novel, despite the logistical challenge of shooting in the Hebrides at the time - in the lack of resources as much as the difficulty of getting everything out there and dealing with the harsh environment.
Whisky Galore! streamlines both the novel and the actual events; in the film, the islanders are trying to fool the efforts of a pushy, hidebound Home Guard officer, Captain Waggett, who's determined no-one should get away with carrying anything off from the wreck. Mackenzie (who appears in a cameo role) was called on to punch up the script, and transplanted material from another of his novels, Keep the Home Guard Turning. Background on the islands was sidelined in favour of romantic sub-plots for the local storekeeper's two daughters, one involved with an English sergeant on leave, the other with a timid young islander terrorised by his domineering mother.
Again, seen today Whisky Galore! is a solid production, a gentle little film that trades in characters that were well-worn archetypes even back then but never lets them overwhelm the narrative. Mackenzie's passion for the region is still obvious, even commercialised; there's an emphasis on the islanders' innate goodness, their being the salt of the earth, but it never becomes outright patronising or condescending. Some of the cast struggle with the dialogue, and star Joan Greenwood's accent breaks the fourth wall fairly regularly, but it's a genial ensemble piece where even the bad guys are never demonised.
This was director Alexander Mackendrick's first film, and his work behind the camera still holds up, not least given the difficulties the shoot ran into. There's nothing hugely complex about Whisky Galore! by today's standards, and the lone FX sequence - the raid on the wreck - seems fairly simplistic now, but Mackendrick and DP Gerald Gibbs manage some beautifully atmospheric framing, setting off the island of Barra to great advantage in lush black-and-white.
But there's nothing challenging here, no depth or real exploration of the ideas raised. To be brutally honest, there's no actual look at what wartime hardships were like, just some comedy stereotypes timidly whooping it up at having put one over on The Man. Characters are simplistic - Captain Waggett doesn't have anything like the nuance or depth of a Charles Pooter, and he was created (for the comic novel Diary of a Nobody) more than half a century earlier. The UK TV series Dad's Army began around twenty years later, and though that revels in groaningly obvious clichés it still has far more wit, genuine pathos and insight into life in Britain during wartime.
Whisky Galore! deserves to be recognised given its production reveals so much about the period both it and the original novel were made, and it's a sweet, unassuming, smartly made little film that stands up surprisingly well decades after it first came out. But there's more than a touch of sentimentality in raising it up on such a gilded pedestal. The same plot devices have been done with far more skill and invention before and many times since, and while Mackendrick, his cast and crew display obvious craft and talent, there's nothing actually in the movie to warrant calling it one of the greatest ever made. Historians might (okay, probably will) disagree: anyone else interested should still see Whisky Galore!, but scale their expectations down somewhat.
THE DISC:
Optimum Classic's UK BluRay of Whisky Galore! (available to buy from August 8th) accompanies a limited re-release for the film in UK cinemas alongside several other much-loved Ealing productions (including The Lavender Hill Mob and The Man in the White Suit). Regardless of what you think of Whisky Galore!, this is a great disc - there are problems with the restoration, and other minor shortcomings, but it's a handsome presentation with some impressive extra features. There are no trailers and just a simple, largely static menu that's easy to navigate. The film has been divided into twelve chapter stops.
The film carries the original mono soundtrack, which performs largely as you'd expect - somewhat tinny and given to dissolving into fuzz at busy points, but largely perfectly clear and with nothing to tax anyone's speaker setup. Removable English subtitles for the hard of hearing are large, well-positioned and easy to read, largely free from any grammatical or spelling errors.
Optimum are at pains to point out the condition of the original film stock meant there was a limit to what they could do with their digital restoration, and while I can't offer a technical analysis the picture has definite highs and lows. Much of the running time has been impressively spruced up; interiors and close-ups are often startlingly sharp for a sixty-year-old film, with some excellent clarity and definition on even the heaviest blacks, and many of the establishing shots look quite beautiful. A handful of scenes, though (particularly exteriors at night, during the raid on the wreck) are in particularly poor shape, drowning in shadow and there's a fair amount of light dirt, grain and flutter throughout. It's a fantastic effort overall, with no obvious signs of being rushed: just bear in mind the results vary considerably.
Extras are all in fairly standard TV quality, and the aspect ratio on some seems to have been cut or stretched, plus there are no subtitles on any of them. This may - understandably - annoy some of Optimum's customer base, particularly given elderly people talking in fairly broad Scots accents aren't too easy to follow even if you're not deaf or hard of hearing. Despite that, this is an impressive collection, that's sure to keep film buffs as well as first-time viewers happy.
Most substantial is the 1991 TV documentary Distilling Whisky Galore, running roughly 52 minutes. Though showing its age, looking fairly cheap and cheerful and a little awkwardly put together, it has the benefit of being made when several of the principals behind the film were still alive, and proves admirably comprehensive - including interviews with Mackendrick, Danischewsky, an explanation of the cottage industry surrounding the wreck of the real S.S. Politician, a history of Compton Mackenzie's love of the Scottish islands (talking to people who knew him) and much more besides.
An audio commentary is included from John Ellis, who produced Distilling Whisky Galore as well as wrote a history of Ealing Studios in the 1970s. Ellis is very obviously reading from a script - either that or he's an extremely awkward conversationalist - and does cover a lot of the same ground as his documentary, but his enthusiasm for the material is obvious and worth listening to at least once, even if his eulogising the movie for its supposed subtlety and lightness of touch ends up unintentionally amusing.
Alexander Mackendrick died in 1993, and Hilary Mackendrick in Conversation with Anthony Slide is a thirty-six minute interview with his wife about her memories of her husband's work on the film. Hilary Mackendrick seems somewhat uncomfortable with being filmed, struggles to recall things exactly on occasion and sometimes contradicts the documentary, but she's articulate, likeable enough and contributes a fair amount of intriguing ephemera about the production as well as her opinion on more significant details.
The Real Whisky Galore! is a twenty minute conversation with Angus Campbell, an islander who went out to the wreck of the S.S. Politician as a young man, and talks about the experience to an unseen interviewer. Now fairly old (obviously), he's still voluble and self-assured but speaks very softly and rambles to some extent, making it a fascinating monologue but one that's a struggle to keep track of at points.
Lastly, there's a Photo Gallery, which is roughly a minute and a half of production shots; there are some great pictures in there, though the only option to admire any of them at length is to hit pause.
Whisky Galore's reputation may well have been conflated over the years with the British love of sentiment as well as putting one over on authority and the post-war can-do spirit. It's obvious what influenced the people who made the film, but none of those influences are anything like as present on screen as you might expect from the praise it receives. All the same, it's still a warm, gentle comedy, pleasingly unassuming and always entertaining, that still comes recommended for anyone interested. Optimum Classic's UK BluRay gives this much-loved film a quality makeover and an excellent presentation, despite some minor shortcomings, and if you want to experience the film at its best, this has got to be the way to go.
(Thanks go to Optimum Home Entertainment for facilitating this review.)
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