Whisky Galore! and The Maggie: The British Film Guide 4 (British Film Guides)

By: Colin McArthur

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Synopsis: Alexander Mackendrick's first feature-length film Whisky Galore (1949), based on the novel by Compton Mackenzie, pits the crafty islanders of Barra against the Customs and Excise men trying to halt their illegal traffic in whisky. His film The Maggie, the adventures of a decrepit River Clyde cargo boat, was released in 1953. Both films offer distinctive representations of Scotland and the Scots, a theme that Colin McArthur pursues in this lively guide to the two films. He explores their wider context of a Britain going through the years of post-war austerity, as well as Ealing Studios, for which Mackendrick made botoh Whisky Galore! and The Maggie. He looks at the tastes and perceptions of the films' British and American film reviewers and audiences then and now. He gives particular attention to the career of Alexander Mackendrick and offers the controversial argument that the films are simultaneously suspect ideologically and of great artistic integrity and accomplishment.