Whisky Galore! is a 1949 Ealing Studios film directed by Alexander Mackendrick, based on the 1947 novel of the same name by Compton Mackenzie — which was in turn based on a real-life incident that occurred in 1941.
The setting is Todday, a fictional island in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, during World War II (the film was shot on the Outer Hebrides island of Barra). Life is grim in Todday, because there is no whisky due to wartime rationing and shortages, and to the people of Todday, life is not worth living if there's no whisky to drink.
There's romance going on, at least. Catriona Macroon, daughter of the island's postmaster Joseph, has gotten engaged to meek schoolteacher George Campbell, although George's domineering mother refuses to sanction the marriage. Catriona's sister Peggy, the telephone operator (Joan Greenwood), has also gotten engaged to Sergeant Odd, who has just returned after fighting the Germans in North Africa — but they cannot marry as her father insists that he cannot let either of his daughters marry unless there is whisky at the wedding(s). The only person on the island who seems to be having a good time is Captain Waggett, commander of the local Home Guard, who takes his job of guarding a barren, windswept island far too seriously.
The tedium of wartime life on Todday is suddenly interrupted when a cargo ship, the SS Cabinet Minister, runs aground offshore. It so happens that the ship was carrying fifty thousand cases of whisky. The islanders immediately mobilize to loot the whisky before the ship sinks, but they have to overcome the opposition of Captain Waggett, who takes it upon himself to prevent looting at all costs — and once they've got the whisky ashore, Waggett is determined to find it.
A remake was released in 2016; directed by Gillies MacKinnon, it starred Gregor Fisher as Joseph Macroon and Eddie Izzard as Captain Waggett.
Tropes galore:
- Adaptation Name Change: The SS Politician, the Real Life ship that was wrecked off a Scottish island with a cargo of whisky during the war, was renamed the SS Cabinet Minister in the novel and subsequent film.
- Adapted Out: In Real Life, the SS Politician was carrying a large consignment of banknotes in addition to the whisky, something that was dropped by Mackenzie from the novel, and thus not mentioned in the subsequent film. Additionally, the various Customs & Excise officers who went to the Hebrides to try and recover the cargo were replaced in the novel by Captain Waggett.
- Age-Gap Romance: Sergeant Odd is rather embarrassed when Peggy calls him old, and then specifically notes that he's 17 years older than she is. She marries him anyway.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Early in the film, Waggett shows what an officious fool he is by building a barricade on the island's only road (which goes around in a circle). Late in the film, that barricade is used to delay Waggett and the revenue officers while the islanders abscond with the whisky.
- Waggett is shown in his first appearance arguing with the captain of the supply ship that runs between Todday and the mainland. Waggett is trying to get the captain to take away his recently-delivered .303 ammunition, which is the wrong calibre for his unit's rifles. The captain refuses, as he requires special permission to carry live ammunition. Later, one of the ammunition boxes is used to hide some whisky, which gets Waggett into trouble when he finally sends it back to the mainland.
- Compressed Adaptation: The plot underwent some modification and condensation from the novel, a lot of the background being removed; in particular, much of the religious aspect of the novel was left out, the novel's Protestant Great Todday and Roman Catholic Little Todday being merged into the single island of Todday.
- Creator Cameo: It had been Compton Mackenzie's ambition to appear in a film, and he was given the role of Captain Buncher.
- Curse Cut Short: Fortified by Liquid Courage, George says to his mother, "I've told you my terms, and if you don't like them, you can go to — you can go to Glasgow!" This line is justified by the fact that earlier, his mother had threatened to go to Glasgow to live with her sister.
- During the War: The film is very much set during World War II, with rationing playing a key role in the development of the plot.
- Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: When Ma Campbell won't stop carping about his impending marriage to Catriona, George finally shuts her up by playing bagpipes right in her face.
- The Film of the Book: The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, which was written by Compton Mackenzie (whose other novels include The Monarch of the Glen) and published two years earlier. As well as dispensing with the religious aspects (see above under Compressed Adaptation), there was also an exclamation mark added to the title for the movie.
- Home Guard: The trope namer is shown here as a vaguely silly citizen militia (rather like it would later be depicted in Dad's Army, comparisons with which are very obvious in The Remake). George, the second-in-command, can't go out to the ship because he's grounded (although he escapes by climbing out of his bedroom window), and another soldier's mother uses his helmet to feed chickens. Captain Waggett is the sort of fellow who will put up roadblocks on the island just to look busy, despite the fact that the only road on the island is a circle — meaning that if the Germans were to invade Todday, they could just turn around and go the other way. Waggett takes his job so seriously that he decides to guard the wrecked ship and later find the looted whisky, even though it isn't really his business.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Waggett is not wrong when he vents his frustration about his having been sent the wrong calibre ammunition for the rifles with which his unit has been issued, and he also has a point that the supply ship captain should just take the wrong ammunition back, as he has after all just delivered it to the island.
- Liquid Courage: George can't face his mother and tell her that he's marrying Catriona whether she likes it or not — that is, until he's had five shots of the whisky liberated from the cargo ship.
- My Beloved Smother: George's overbearing, domineering mother who still treats him like a child even though he's now a grown man. She refuses to permit his marriage to Catriona, and at one point locks him in his room.
- Narrator: A narrator sets the scene in Todday, and closes the story by explaining how the islanders eventually ran out of whisky and were unhappy.
- The Remake: Released in 2016 after more than a decade in
Development Hell. Largely follows the plot of the original movie, but adds a sub-plot concerning a government red box that was also on the Cabinet Minister note and gets rid of the Sudden Downer Ending. - Serious Business: The islanders are very, very upset that they can't get whisky thanks to wartime rationing.
- Sleeping Single: Captain Waggett and his wife sleep in separate beds. This sort of fits in with Waggett's starchy, fussy personality.
- Stock Footage: The clip used for the sinking of the Cabinet Minister is the same as that used for the sinking of the Jervis Bay in San Demetrio London.
- Styrofoam Rocks: The way the islanders handle the crates, and the way they pile the crates high in their tiny rowboats, makes it clear that they're really empty boxes.
- Sudden Downer Ending: The closing narration talks about how the islanders had plenty of whisky, but that eventually they drank it all, following which "they all lived unhappily ever after". That is, except for Peggy and Sergeant Odd, who weren't whisky drinkers. This was no doubt due to the Hays Code, which was in force at the time and stipulated that no film where a crime is committed can end with the criminals profiting from it.
- Talent Double: One local, who was adept at Scottish dancing, stood in as the body double for Joan Greenwood in the rèiteach scene; Greenwood, a talented ballet dancer, could not master the steps of the reel, and the feet of one of the islanders were filmed.
- Tempting Fate:
- A sailor aboard the Cabinet Minister worries that they're too close to land. The captain barks: "I tell you we're nowhere near any island!" Immediately after he utters these words the ship runs aground.
- The revenue man says that Waggett's barricade wouldn't be very useful against Germans. Waggett says "If we were Germans, there would be snipers!" Cue people in the rocks sniping at them (although they're shooting blanks).
- Title Drop: The closing narration says that the islanders had "whisky galore" ... until they drank it all.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The story is inspired by the Real Life story of the SS Politician, a merchant ship that ran aground offshore of the Hebrides in February 1941, carrying 22,000 cases of malt whisky and around £3,000,000 in Jamaican banknotes (something the film omits). Not all of the cargo was recovered from the wreck.
