Things are bleak on a Scottish island during war times: They’ve run out of whisky. The fishermen are lifeless and miserable, and one elderly inhabitant is dying for lack of a drink. Without Whisky, life is intolerable. When a ship carrying a cargo of bottles of that most desirable liquid ends up on the rocks, the villagers see their chance. If only they can get around the stuffy commander of the home guard.
Whisky Galore is the iconic Ealing post-war British comedy. The war hovers over all, but takes no direct part. This is a comedy to escape the after effects of the war for an hour, not dwell on them. The situation is silly, and it is filled with gentle humor, but there are no big laughs. This is a comedy that generates nods and smiles, but not even a giggle.
Like many of the early Ealing entries, there is a large ensemble cast, with no character dominating, or even getting enough screen time to have more than one trait. There’s the straight-laced home guardsman, the upright soldier, the submissive husband to be, the overbearing mother, the sexy girlfriend, the wise doctor, and the grumpy bar-owner, along with a number of others whose only attribute is they need whisky. They may be quirkly lot, but they represented everyman (after all, isn’t there something just a bit odd about your neighbors?)
It’s all goofy fun, when not treading a tad too close to drama (the lives of a majority of these people are quite sad). That end result is partly due to the differing viewpoints of director and producer. First time director Alexander Mackendrick, raised in a strict and religious environment, sided with rule-obsessed Englishmen. Producer Monja Danischewsky sided with the depressed Scots: a bit of larceny is needed at times. For the most part, Danischewsky wins, or this would be an unbearable film, but Mackendrick manages to make sure that no one can ever profit from ignoble deeds.
Whisky Galore followed the successful Hue and Cry, and was released along with Passport to Pimlico and Kind Hearts and Coronets in 1949, and solidified both the new form of Ealing studios and the post-war comedy movement. Big hits in Britain, the films made a smaller splash in the U.S., where the comedy didn’t fit the population quite as naturally. They also ran afoul of the cencors. In the case of Whisky Galore, it was the title that was impermissible–alcohol is the Devil’s drink and all–so it was released as Tight Little Island.
The only post-war British comedy regular is Joan Greenwood, whose role, like most everyone else’s, is small. She had more substantial parts in Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit, and The Importance of Being Earnest.