The Scottish film
Jan. 20th, 2021 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWhen the BBC followed Mark Kermode's programme about British film comedy with a screening of Whisky Galore I jumped at the chance to see a classic Ealing comedy I had somehow not already seen. Nor had I read Compton Mackenzie's novel on which the film is based; but (I am pretty sure, although I can find no record of it) I have drunk in the Politician pub on Eriskay.
I knew the story, in outline at least, and I had certain expectations of an Ealing comedy: that I probably wouldn't find it all that funny, but I was unlikely to find it particularly offensive, either. Your mileage may vary, but that pretty much worked out for me. The characterisation was, inevitably, very broad: I was not entirely comfortable with Mrs Campbell, the Calvinist battle-axe of a mother of the schoolmaster (played by a young Gordon Jackson) but Jean Cadell is clearly having a whale of a time, and she does finally get to unbend without anyone giving her a hard time about it, so fair enough.
I braced myself for some national stereotyping, too, but reckoned that if I can handle the Wee Free Men then I could handle this. In fact the most lampooned character in the film is the Englishman, the spoilsport authority figure, Captain Waggett as played by Basil Radford, who apparently built a career on playing 'the Eternal Englishman'. I was delighted, but not entirely convinced, to learn from IMDB that director Alexander Mackendrick (who was raised in Glasgow), later claimed that "I began to realise that the most Scottish character in Whisky Galore! is Waggett the Englishman. He is the only Calvinist, puritan figure - and all the other characters aren't Scots at all: they're Irish!" He isn't, in fact, the island's only puritan (how could you forget Mrs Campbell?) and the Western Isles are surely a staging point between Scotland and Ireland, but it's a welcome rejection of stereotype.
Despite which, it's a surprisingly Scottish film. It was filmed on Barra, about as close to the actual site as you could ask (we drove across a road link to Eriskay, but I don't think it existed in the 1940s). Ernest Irving's score incorporates folk music motifs, which made a pleasant background, but then came the celebration scene:
This was a total surprise (though part of it is long familiar to me from the singing of Robin Hall and Jimmie MacGregor). Later there's an entirely convincing engagement party, too. IMDB talks about the participation of locals alongside cast in these scenes, which may help create the party atmosphere; the sense of community runs all through the film, which makes it a very cheering thing to watch in a bleak January.
Also, it's short (82 minutes).
I knew the story, in outline at least, and I had certain expectations of an Ealing comedy: that I probably wouldn't find it all that funny, but I was unlikely to find it particularly offensive, either. Your mileage may vary, but that pretty much worked out for me. The characterisation was, inevitably, very broad: I was not entirely comfortable with Mrs Campbell, the Calvinist battle-axe of a mother of the schoolmaster (played by a young Gordon Jackson) but Jean Cadell is clearly having a whale of a time, and she does finally get to unbend without anyone giving her a hard time about it, so fair enough.
I braced myself for some national stereotyping, too, but reckoned that if I can handle the Wee Free Men then I could handle this. In fact the most lampooned character in the film is the Englishman, the spoilsport authority figure, Captain Waggett as played by Basil Radford, who apparently built a career on playing 'the Eternal Englishman'. I was delighted, but not entirely convinced, to learn from IMDB that director Alexander Mackendrick (who was raised in Glasgow), later claimed that "I began to realise that the most Scottish character in Whisky Galore! is Waggett the Englishman. He is the only Calvinist, puritan figure - and all the other characters aren't Scots at all: they're Irish!" He isn't, in fact, the island's only puritan (how could you forget Mrs Campbell?) and the Western Isles are surely a staging point between Scotland and Ireland, but it's a welcome rejection of stereotype.
Despite which, it's a surprisingly Scottish film. It was filmed on Barra, about as close to the actual site as you could ask (we drove across a road link to Eriskay, but I don't think it existed in the 1940s). Ernest Irving's score incorporates folk music motifs, which made a pleasant background, but then came the celebration scene:
This was a total surprise (though part of it is long familiar to me from the singing of Robin Hall and Jimmie MacGregor). Later there's an entirely convincing engagement party, too. IMDB talks about the participation of locals alongside cast in these scenes, which may help create the party atmosphere; the sense of community runs all through the film, which makes it a very cheering thing to watch in a bleak January.
Also, it's short (82 minutes).
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Date: 2021-01-21 10:50 am (UTC)