Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

Whisky Galore! 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.

Another Mackenzie with undeniable Scottish roots, Compton Mackenzie, authored the book Whisky Galore! upon which the film is based, and rather interestingly Mackenzie portrays the captain of the grounded freighter whose vast shipment of whisky is central to the plot (I haven’t been able to ferret out whether Compton and Alexander were related in any way). Compton Mackenzie based his book on a real life 1941 shipwreck which occurred off the coast of Eriskay, one of the Hebrides, when a ship called the S.S. Politician ran aground with a vast stash of whisky aboard. In Compton Mackenzie’s fictionalization, it’s a ship called the S.S. Cabinet Minister which crashes, this time off the fictional island of Todday, where wartime rationing has left the local populace without their “water of life”, i.e., whisky. As commentator John Ellis gets into, the original source novel had a whole host of sociopolitical and even religious subtexts informing the general proceedings, and at least some of that content was more or less jettisoned, or at best only referred to discursively, in the film adaptation (which was interestingly co-written by Compton Mackenzie).

That said, the film version of Whisky Galore! manages to deliver some really tightly (no pun intended, given the film’s American title Tight Little Island) constructed introductions to both a host of Scottish characters, but in fact an entire village, replete with some interesting interrelationships that definitely do play into the proceedings. Among the interwoven subplots are the romantic misadventures of a Sergeant with the perhaps meaningful surname of Odd (Bruce Seton) who is courting Peggy Macroon (Joan Greenwood), daughter of local merchant Joseph Macroon (Wylie Watson). Ellis makes the case that this romance may have initially been planned as the main focus of the picture, given Greenwood’s stature, but the final film devotes at least as much time to the somewhat more complicated relationship between George Campbell (Gordon Jackson) and his harridan mother (Jean Cadell), who is not pleased that George is smitten with Macroon’s other daughter Catriona (Gabrielle Blunt). As different as the two films most definitely are, the fact that the film takes places in an isolated, almost feudal looking, village and involves a meek schoolteacher (George) involved in an unexpected romance may remind some people of a film by another British legend, namely David Lean’s Ryan's Daughter (still kind of maddeningly unavailable in high definition).

It in fact takes a while before the shipwreck even enters the picture and spurs the townspeople into action to “rescue” all that whisky in danger of sinking with the ship. By that time, the film has introduced a martinet captain named Paul Waggett (Basil Radford), and much of the latter part of the film details Waggett’s almost obsessive quest to keep the villagers from getting and then hoarding the whisky. Meanwhile, the romantic entanglements outlined above, as well as various other vignettes involving some townspeople, play into the proceedings.

While parts of Whisky Galore! are just a bit melancholic, and few will probably find the film outrageously hilarious, there’s a really trenchant sense of humor running through the film, with some jokes perhaps being almost subliminal in nature (Ellis points out one of these early in his commentary when Findlay Currie’s narration mentions the islanders are simple people with simple pleasures, at which point a gaggle of children enter the frame, with Ellis making the point that it’s probably right to assume the “simple pleasures” refer to the creation of the children). This is a charming, sweet natured picture that nonetheless paints an indelible portrait of some at times very gruff people.

Whisky Galore! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Whisky Galore! 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 excellent as many of Film Movement's releases are, one place they could arguably improve is in providing more information on the provenance of elements utilized and any restoration that was undertaken. As is the standard operating procedure for the label (at least in terms of titles I've personally reviewed), the insert booklet only states this is a "new digital restoration". The release has a StudioCanal masthead at the beginning, and StudioCanal's website featuring the title is similarly uninformative, stating only that the film is now "digitally restored and remastered to its former glory". My colleague Svet Atanasov reviewed the UK release put out by Optimum Home Entertainment, a release I'm assuming was culled from the same master (both that release and this one sport very similar insert booklet covers). Svet's review has the following information that was evidently included in Optimum's insert booklet:

Whisky Galore! was restored in high-definition for this release using the best original film materials available. Unfortunately, some technical issues remain in the form of occasional printed-in dirt and scratches, periodic softness and instability of picture caused by film shrinkage, and image flicker caused by density fluctuations. These issues are all as per the original film source materials and reflect both the nature of the original film production and the physical state of the materials.

Svet scored this at 4.5, and I'm evidently a bit more persnickety, coming in at 4.0. While a lot of this transfer does look splendid, especially in terms of some of the close-ups where fine detail really flourishes, there are still fairly recurrent signs of age related wear and tear, mostly in the form of admittedly small but still noticeable scratches (see screenshot 3 for one example). There are also noticeable variances in clarity and density, as mentioned above. When contrast is solid, blacks are nicely deep and gray scale nicely modulated, but there are some slightly washed out looking moments and other moments that look relatively soft. One way or the other, this is certainly the nicest I've personally ever seen Whisky Galore! looking, and I can't imagine fans of the film being less than generally pleased with its overall appearance, which is commendably organic and filmlike.

Whisky Galore! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Whisky Galore! features an LPCM 2.0 mono track. My curmudgeonly tendencies seem to include the audio on this as well as the video, since I'm once again coming in a little less favorably than Svet did in terms of the audio on the UK Blu-ray release. While there are in fact no real signs of age related wear and tear here, with a complete absence of pops, cracks or dropouts, I found the higher registers to be a little bright, and there is some very minor distortion in Ernest Irving's score, noticeable in moments like the opening credits. Dialogue is clean with an understanding that some accents are a bit thick (and unlike the Optimum Home Entertainment Blu-ray release for the UK market, this disc unfortunately has no optional English subtitles).

Whisky Galore! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by John Ellis is informative and full of background information. Ellis produced the "distilled" documentary (below).


• Distilling Whisky Galore! (480i; 54:18) is a fantastically entertaining and informative documentary from the 1990s hosted by John Ellis, who also provides this disc's commentary. This is full of fascinating interviews, including Mackendrick and Crichton, and gives some really nice context for the film's Scottish setting. This does exhibit some pretty flagrant interlacing anomalies, especially in some lateral pans, where things go pretty crazy for a second or two.


• The Real Whisky Galore! (480i; 20:36) unfortunately doesn't identify the first person speaker in this piece who talks about the real life incident sparking the novel and then the film, but StudioCanal's website mentions that his name is Angus Campbell. Both this piece and the documentary above arguably could have benefited from English subtitles, as some of the brogues are thick enough to cut with a knife and were hard for me personally to understand at times.

Additionally trailers for other Film Movement releases (as for Film Movement itself) are included, and the keepcase houses a nicely appointed insert booklet.

Whisky Galore! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ronald Bergan's essay on this film in the insert booklet paints a more or less straight line from Whisky Galore! to more contemporary outings like Bill Forsyth's Local Hero, and my hunch is anyone who is a fan of the newer film is almost certain to like this one as well. This is a wonderful release with generally commendable technical merits and some appealing supplements. Those with region free players may want to check out the Optimum Home Entertainment release linked to above, since it has a couple of different supplements and optional English subtitles. Highly recommended.