Whisky Galore! / The Maggie (Film Movement Classics)
Alexander Mackendrick directed one of the great landmarks of Hollywood cinema, Sweet Smell of Success (1957), starring Burt Lancaster as a sociopathic media star. But the Scottish director began in an entirely different key with two comedies for Britain’s Ealing Studio.
Set on a remote Scottish island during World War II, the humor of Whisky Galore! (1949) is dry and subtle. When the narrator mentions the islanders’ “pure and simple pleasures,” a long stream of children emerges from a family dwelling. The Home Guard-trained islanders use commando tactics to hijack a shipload of “the water of life,” whisky; and they must use their wiles to conceal the hoard from the authorities. On the new Blu-ray release, Whisky Galore! is coupled with The Maggie (1954), in which a crew of Scots get the best of can-do Yanks and fussbudget Englishmen.
