Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

The Maggie Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 25, 2020

Note: This version of the film is available as part of Whisky Galore! / The Maggie.

If the IMDb is to be believed, Alexander Mackendrick and Charles Crichton only “officially” worked together twice, first on Whisky Galore! where Mackendrick was the director and Crichton was the editor, and a year later on Dance Hall, where Crichton directed and Mackendrick contributed to the screenplay. But the two men’s careers have some interesting parallels, with both of them arguably achieving their first real renown at the venerable Ealing Studios, and both making an at least intermittently somewhat rocky transition to the perhaps slightly more rough and tumble world of Hollywood. While there were certainly a number of other directors who helped establish Ealing’s considerable post-World War II reputation, like Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets) and Henry Cornelius (Passport to Pimlico), even a cursory listing of films helmed by either Crichton (The Lavender Hill Mob and The Titfield Thunderbolt) or Mackendrick (aside from the two titles aggregated in this release, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers) prove what a significant contribution these men made to the emerging Ealing “style”. Something else that connects Crichton and Mackendrick is their evident love of Scotland. Many tend to assume Mackendrick was Scottish, though perhaps surprisingly he was American born if ultimately raised in Scotland, and as a documentary included with this release gets into, retired to the Hebrides. Crichton also reportedly spent some of his “golden years” in Scotland as well. Mackendrick’s connection to the nation is probably more cinematically evident, with both Whisky Galore! and The Maggie featuring Scottish locales and characters.

According to an essay by Ronald Bergan included in the insert booklet that comes with this release, The Maggie was Alexander Mackendrick’s own favorite film from his long and influential career. That may come as something of a surprise, since The Maggie is often kind of curiously overlooked in both accounts of Mackenzie’s oeuvre as well as at least some histories of Ealing Studios itself. Despite its general lack of renown to modern day audiences, it was quite well received in its day, even getting a trio of BAFTA nominations, including Best Film. Like Whisky Galore!, The Maggie offers some surprisingly heart warming portrayals of characters who might charitably be described as a bit hardscrabble, in this case including the captain of a so-called “puffer” boat named The Maggie, MacTaggart (Alex Mackenzie, not the director, who evidently went by Sandy). Interestingly, the perceived focal character here is not one of the Scotsmen, however, but a hard charging American industrialist named Calvin B. Marshall, essayed by reliably gruff but still weirdly sympathetic Paul Douglas.

This is another film that, like Whisky Galore!, kind of oddly has a plot element with trying to get cargo off of a ship. In this case, however, it’s not a stash of whisky but instead some expensive furniture that belongs to Marshall which MacTaggart kind of cheekily takes charge of when Marshall’s uptight assistant Pusey (Hubert Gregg) mistakenly thinks MacTaggart has a more upscale freighter than The Maggie to transport the cargo to its destination. To say that MacTaggart perhaps aids and abets that misapprehension on the part of Pusey may only help to convey that MacTaggart is a bit of a schemer, and in fact he’s desperately trying to make ends meet and to keep his aging and dilapidated boat “legal”. When Marshall discovers the subterfuge, he sets out to "rescue" his goods, leading to a somewhat similar cat and mouse game between "natives" (the Scots) and an outsider (Marshall) that echoes some plot points in Whisky Galore! (where the uptight Captain Waggett is the perceived interloper).

The “indigenous” actors like Mackenzie and those playing his crew (including an impressive Tommy Kearins, as Dougie, the “wee boy” quasi-bosun in training) are all hugely enjoyable, but The Maggie may kind of ironically be Paul Douglas’ finest hour (or hour and a half, as the case may be) on screen. This American character actor had a rather long career, and is instantly recognizable, but he never really seemed to really grab the brass ring of stardom stateside, though that might have changed had he ended up with the Fred MacMurray role in The Apartment, which was evidently Billy Wilder’s original casting choice before Douglas died suddenly of a heart attack right before shooting was set to begin. Douglas certainly had any number of memorable performances in films like Angels in the Outfield or Panic in the Streets, two films different enought to demonstrate Douglas’ range, but in The Maggie he gets to show a bit of a vulnerable substratum to his more traditional blustery persona.

The Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Maggie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics, an imprint of Film Movement, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. As with Whisky Galore!, the insert booklet states only that this is a "new digital restoration". While The Maggie did get a British Blu-ray release, though unfortunately it hasn't been reviewed here yet, so I don't have access to any extra verbiage that that release may have contained. I did find a site that mentioned the restoration was funded by StudioCanal in collaboration with the BFI's Unlocking Film Heritage (and this presentation does indeed begin with both a StudioCanal and BFI masthead). To my eyes, this is an at least slightly better looking presentation than the already excellent one afforded to Whisky Galore!. Damage on Whisky Galore! was minor, but recurrent, and there's noticeably even less throughout this presentation. Densities seem more consistent, as does contrast, and detail levels are uniformly precise looking, including in some fairly dark scenes. There is occasional quasi-flicker, quite noticeable at a couple of junctures including around 1:08:00, where a few bright flashes intrude at regular intervals every second or so for a moment or two.

The Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I'm scoring The Maggie's LPCM 2.0 mono track at the same 3.5 level I gave Whisky Galore!, but this track, like the video element, is arguably at least a bit better quality. While there's some of the same brashness evident in upper registers that I mentioned with regard to Whisky Galore!'s track, it didn't chafe against my ears quite as much. The track definitely has an overall boxy sound redolent of its recording era, but dialogue is cleanly if not always clearly presented, the latter deficit due to some extremely thick accents. Unfortunately, this presentation, like Whisky Galore!, does not offer any helpful optional English subtitles. My score is 3.75.

The Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Aside from the About Film Movement menu option that is on most Film Movement Blu-ray discs (which includes both text and a trailer), there is no supplementary content on this disc, which is a bit of a shame. The insert booklet included with this release does contain some information on the film.

The Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This film may not quite have the narrative momentum and gaggle of characters that Whisky Galore! does, but it's an immensely enjoyable film that scores several substantial laughs while also providing a ton of heart. Technical merits are solid (video more than audio), and even without any supplemental material, The Maggie comes Highly recommended.