With:
  • Basil Radford as Captain Paul Waggett
  • Joan Greenwood as Peggy Macroon
  • James Robertson Justice as Dr Maclaren
  • Gordon Jackson as George Campbell
  • Wylie Watson as Joseph Macroon
  • Catherine Lacey as Mrs Waggett
  • Jean Cadell as Mrs Campbell
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Producer: Michael Balcon
Production co: Ealing Studios
Screenplay: Compton MacKenzie and Angus MacPhail
Photography: Gerald Gibbs
Editor: Joseph Sterling
Music: Ernest Irving
The setting is a remote Scottish island during the war. It's so serene that you'd never know there was a war going on at all if you walked its quiet shores and pleasant country roads. There's a volunteer second-string defense busy body (Basil Radford) keeping an eye open for submarines and subversives, but otherwise these farmers, fishermen and shopkeepers see little direct imposition on their lives from the conflict that's not too far away.

Except for when their entire supply of whiskey runs out.

Sweet relief comes when a ship carrying thousands of cases of whiskey for delivery elsewhere runs into rocks just a short canoe ride away. The bad news is that it happens inconveniently close to the Sabbath which means that everyone has to chill out for a whole Sunday and think about God while resisting the siren song of free liquor sitting out there in the water (they can see it from the front steps of the church!). The even worse news is that the aforementioned local uniformed busy body makes it his duty to guard the ship and bring down the law on anyone caught paddling off with some of that sweet nectar.

The good news is that our sturdy rural folk are very resourceful when it comes to procuring their drink, which is where much of the comedy comes in. And we cheer them on. We want this whole island drunk off their bagpipes within twenty-four hours. That's because it's not only about the alcohol. It's also about the scenario of the little guy vs. the big guy and that fantasy of the little guy's ingenuity challenging the big guy's resources and authority.

This is a little cupcake of a film and that's all that it wants to be.

Based on the novel of the same name by Compton Mackenzie, who was inspired by the real life story of the SS Politician, a ship loaded up with British booze and headed for Jamaica and the US in 1941, but that founded off the Scottish coast and was promptly looted by the locals.​
FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Hamilton
Monday, 5 December, 7:30pm