Blu-ray Review: WHISKY GALORE - Ealing Studios Classic Still Holds Up Today!
By Ealing’s standards it might fall short of their immortal classics, but as with those films it has aged incredibly well, in part due to the anarchic glee the characters find in breaking the rules.
Throughout the classic comedies produced by Ealing Studios in the 40s and 50s run both a lightness of touch and a subtly unsentimental look at human character. Their classics all involve crime and greed: for money and the freedom that comes with it in The Ladykillers and The Lavender Hill Mob, for money and social standing in Kinds Hearts and Coronets. But the (amateur) criminals in the latter two are gentlemen; very English and very charming. In The Ladykillers, the gentility is merely a disguise for professional criminals. Often, the apparent civility of polite society helps their characters veil their repressed, anarchic sides. The first of Ealings run of classic comedies which also includes The Man in the White Suit and Passport to Pimlico was Whisky Galore!, the first movie directed by Boston-born Scotsman Alexander Mackendrick. It was produced by Ealings legendary Michael Balcon and co-edited by Charles Crichton, who would himself go on to direct The Lavender Hill Mob and another British crime-comedy classic, A Fish Called Wanda. For a comedy about a small local community, it turned out to hit a nerve internationally and became a surprise hit. Its more gentle than the sharpest of Ealing Kind Hearts, about someone murdering his way to dukedom, being their enduring masterpiece its spirit more aligned with Passport to Pimlico and The Lavender Hill Mob. The story, inspired by fact, involves a ship running aground near an island in Scotland. The locals, who have been suffering a whisky famine for months, discover that the cargo contains 50,000 cases of the stuff, and conspire to sneak it off the boat and keep it out of sight of any officials, hiding it under their babies, in their water tanks, and, largely, by drinking it. The only concerned official on the island is Paul Waggett, the English commander of the local Home Guard, played by Basil Radford. His earnest performance is sweetly funny, and is perhaps an inspiration for Captain Mainwaring in Dads Army. 
Among the rest of the cast, the nationalities are split fairly evenly; the decision not to use exclusively Scottish actors probably being out of concerns the accents would be too thick. So the English Joan Greenwood (whose voice in Kind Hearts is irresistibly sexy) and Gabrielle Blunt do passable accents alongside Scottish actors like Gordon Jackson and Wylie Watson. A few accents are thicker, and Gaelic occasionally seeps in (it was the first language of many of the locals used in the film). A scene of Gaelic singing in the pub at one point both showcases Crichtons editing and recalls the warmth of Bill Forsyths Local Hero (another work surely inspired by this one). As with other Ealing, there is little time for overt sentiment or stagy contrivance; their best comedies feel all-of-a-piece, and their pacing is wonderful. There are many subtle winks to the audience, from the faux-worthiness of the opening text to the faux-morality of the closing narration, yet it has affection for all of its characters, including the moralistic Waggett. It is not among the very best of Ealing; it has neither the teeth of Kind Hearts nor the giddy fun of The Lavender Hill Mob; it also doesnt have Alec Guinness. But it has a warmth and a charm of its own; even in the way it leans towards stereotypes it is affectionate (Mackendrick later wondered if the puritanical Englishman Waggett wasnt more Scottish by nature, and if the islanders werent more like the Irish). 
Mackendrick made three comedies for Ealing, all classics of sorts: after this there was The Man in the White Suit a slyly Kafkaesque satire and The Ladykillers. He went to Hollywood, where he had more freedom with projects than at Ealing but found the differences in business too different; he nevertheless made one great movie there, Sweet Smell Of Success, before the system got the better of him. His small body of work represents that of an important Scottish filmmaker, and Whisky Galore! was an important movie for Ealing Studios, and therefore British cinema. So many of their movies feature characters that hit on an idea, a plot, to get at whichever MacGuffin the screenwriter hangs in front of them. The pleasure lies in seeing their faces light up at the prospect of gold, dukedom, or a good dram. FILM By Ealings standards it might fall short of their immortal classics, but as with those films it has aged incredibly well, in part due to the anarchic glee the characters find in breaking the rules. FOUR STARS VISUALS While imperfect, with the odd bit of wear and tear on the print, generally the newly remastered picture is cleaned up, showcasing Mackendrick and cinematographer Gerald Gibbss handsome photography while retaining the texture of real film. THREE AND A HALF STARS AUDIO A clean-up of the original mono track, so obviously its not got much on modern surround sound, but for a British movie from 1949 I was surprised at how little hiss and crackle has ended up on the audio, and how sharp most of the dialogue is. FOUR STARS EXTRAS A curious handful of extras includes a good, if rather academic and dry, commentary from John Ellis, and an introduction by writer George Perry; both were available on the normal DVD. This version adds an interview with Hilary Mackendrick, widow of Alexander, and a photo gallery. There is also an appropriately sweet if dated 1990 Channel 4 documentary produced by Ellis which features cast and crew (Mackendrick, Crichton, Gabrielle Blunt) as well as islanders both from Barras, where it was shot, and from Eriskay, where the real SS Politician ran aground. The only complaint I have is that they dont have subtitles, and I suspect even many English-speaking people may struggle to understand the locals in spots. There is also an extended interview basically an outtake from the doc with islander Angus Campbell, for which even I could have done with subtitles, and Im Scottish. THREE AND A HALF STARS PRESENTATION Very straightforward, colourful menus and nicely designed packaging. FOUR STARS OVERALL The extras arent good enough to make this an essential buy if you already have the DVD, but I enjoyed the Channel 4 documentary and the movie itself has probably not looked, or sounded, this good since it was first released. FOUR STARS Whisky Galore is out this week on Blu-ray.