There aren’t a lot of upbeat movies about drinking. We’ve got 20,000 films that are about sloppy, depressing drunks who need help, but very few that make you root for a person’s God-given right to get soused on whiskey.
On the very short list of movies that depict the well-oiled lifestyle without judgment is this easy-going 1949 British comedy from Ealing Studios that’s mostly known as the first film directed by Alexander Mackendrick. It’s one of those films that breezes by, both because it’s entertaining and because it’s carrying very little weight. I’m talkin’ about a real feather pillow here.
The setting is a remote Scottish island during the war. It’s so serene that you’d never know there was a war going on at all if you walked its quiet shores and pleasant country roads. There’s a volunteer second-string defense busy body (Basil Radford) keeping an eye open for submarines and subversives, but otherwise these farmers, fishermen and shopkeepers see little direct imposition on their lives from the conflict that’s not too far away.
Except for when their entire supply of whiskey runs out.
OH, my God! Anything but that! They’d rather have the Nazis invade.
Because there’s nothing to do on this island except drink and go to church. It’s a serious pastime. Without it, nobody knows what to do with themselves. War rationing could be a motherfucker sometimes.
Sweet relief comes when a ship carrying thousands of cases of whiskey for delivery elsewhere stalls out just a short canoe ride away. The bad news is that it happens inconveniently close to the Sabbath which means that everyone has to chill out for a whole Sunday and think about God while resisting the siren song of free liquor sitting out there in the water (they can see it from the front steps of the church!). The even worse news is that the aforementioned local uniformed busy body makes it his duty to guard the ship and bring down the law on anyone caught paddling off with some of that sweet nectar.
The good news is that our sturdy rural folk are very resourceful when it comes to procuring their drink, which is where much of the comedy comes in. And we cheer them on. We want this whole island drunk off their bagpipes within twenty-four hours. That’s because it’s not only about the alcohol. It’s also about the scenario of the little guy vs. the big guy and that fantasy of the little guy’s ingenuity kicking the shit out of the big guy’s resources and authority.
This is a little cupcake of a film and that’s all that it wants to be. And I’m a man who enjoys a cupcake now and then.
Based on the novel of the same name by Compton Mackenzie, who was inspired by the real life story of the SS Politician, a ship loaded up with British booze and headed for Jamaica and the US in 1941, but that crapped out off the Scottish coast and was promptly looted by the locals.