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 Whisky Galore (1949, UK), the classic Ealing comedy, is set on the fictional Hebridean island of Todday. Directed by Alexander MacKendrick and starring Basil Radford and Joan Greenwood, the film is set in 1943 when a cargo ship with 50,000 cases of Scotch runs aground. Racing time and the English Home Guard officer in charge of law and order, the whisky-starved islanders single-mindedly scheme to salvage what they can from the wreck. Whisky Galore is about to have a remake.
Known as "Tight Little Island" is the U.S., the true story behind the film is stranger still...
Whisky Galore - It was in 1941, two years earlier than the film was set, when the SS Politician ran aground at Calvay, just off of the island of Eriskay. The crew were landed safely and during the couple of nights they let slip news of the cargo they were transporting: 24,000 cases of whisky bound for the U.S. In no time at all rescue attempts were attempted by the islanders and enough cases of whisky were liberated to see them through the war. This much matches the film, give or take a few poetic licences.
The film itself had a difficult upbringing. It nearly didn't happen for a number of reasons. It had no ending until the last moment. Ealing Studio's chief, Michael Balcon suggested making it a second feature once he saw the rushes and wanted to edit it into 60 minutes. Many props - the wreck, the rocks (strangely constructed at Ealing to much local amusement) were washed into the sea one night before filming had begun in the worst summer for 80 years. Apart from a few leading players it was nearly everybody's first film - indeed most of the extras were the people of Barra with no acting experience whatsoever. The producer and director didn't get on. Compton MacKenzie's original book was a rambling, rush job of a work - his 64th - largely about the religious divide where the wreck doesn't happen until half way through. The director hated the script on moral grounds. The whole film, interiors and all, had to be shot on location due to lack of space at the studios. The whole film had to proceed at the pace of the local postmaster who became the chief of transportation - in the Hebridean tradition he had a number of other jobs as well, including the selling of fish. These took priority and he would often not turn up on set until the mid-afternoon. Weather, postmaster and other problems caused the film to be 107 days over schedule and with a 100% increase on the original budget. Apart from that, everything was tickety boo.
A number of liberties were taken with the plot and as for basing it on the real events - reality took a back seat. For one, the Roman Catholic island of Eriskay became the Protestant island of Todday, laird, Sabbath and all. This narked Alexander MacKendrick the director, a strict Presbytarian with a severe moral code who hated all the film stood for. The producer of the film, Monja Danischewsky, was quite the opposite, a free-drinking, free-thinking Russian emigre who fell in love with the islanders of Barra the moment he set foot on the island. This, to say the least, lead to a little creative tension.
So why did the film work so well? It was a mixture of happy accidents and clever intent. Being that the film was entirely shot on location and there being a lack of accommodation on Barra, the actors were lodged in the houses of the extras. So much so that the actors learnt how to "act Hebridean" and the locals became rapidly wise in aspects of film making: "I don't think I should be in this shot, Mr. Mackendrick. I wasn't in the other angle" said the Barra postmistress on one occasion. It showed a true reflection of Hebridean life at the time which the locals could relate to and so act their parts with a deal of gusto. It tells the story in the way Gaelic stories are often told - full of whimsy with a sure eye for humour. (One brilliant device is the way the narrator of the film gets increasing sloshed as the action progresses).
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