Waggett is called to the mainland to be questioned by his superiors after the discovery of several bottles of whisky (planted by the islanders) in a case of ammunition which Waggett had shipped to the mainland. While he is away, the weddings of both couples take place during the summer solstice, the celebrations being enlivened by liberal supplies of the "water of life". [2] Cast [ edit ] Some may baulk at the Scottish clichés on display, but fun is poked equally – even at the English. In the end the good humour and craft win the day in what is a thoroughly enjoyable production.

A battle of wits ensues between Waggett, who wants to confiscate the salvaged cargo, and the islanders. Waggett brings in Macroon's old Customs and Excise nemesis, Mr Farquharson, and his men to search for the whisky. Forewarned, islanders manage to hide the bottles in ingenious places, including the ammunition cases that Waggett ships off the island. When the whisky is discovered in the cases, Waggett is recalled by his superiors on the mainland to explain himself, leaving the locals triumphant. At first, the authorities were not hugely concerned. The eight cases containing the money were first reported to be covered in fuel and water; then presumed swept away by the seas. At one point, the head of the salvage operation was said to have given a few away as souvenirs. On the morning of 5th February a young man was combing a beach in South Uist when he saw the ship in trouble and beginning to list. After a valiant struggle by the Captain, Beaconsfield Worthington, to keep his ship on course, the SS Politician eventually ran aground in the storm onto sandbanks off the Isle of Eriskay where she began to flood. Unfortunately as the ship had veered off course an incorrect location was given to the lifeboat crew on Barra. Local islanders were roused and they set forth in a sailing boat to offer assistance to the crew. The lifeboat finally reached the ship and all the crew were rescued. Despite a difficult production beset by often appalling weather, and a slow start at the English box-office, it became a worldwide hit and Ealing's most profitable film. It is also one of its most fondly remembered, particularly in Scotland. Its success owes much to its remarkable feeling of authenticity: with the exception of Basil Radford and Joan Greenwood most of the cast were Scots, with the extras coming from among the islanders of Barra where much of it was filmed. The constant attentions of the islanders helped the cast to perfect their accents. Ian Buxton is one of the country's best known and most prolific whisky writers and he writes on the subject with a fondness and knowledge, not to mention humour, which comes from a lifetime surrounded by whisky. His relaxed and conversational style makes the book a very enjoyable read'

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Whisky Galore! has gained theatrical distribution in UK and US by Arrow and was scheduled to be released in cinemas in the UK on 5 May 2017. [ citation needed] Critical reception [ edit ] To the locals, beset by the privations of war and rationing, this was too good an opportunity to miss. Unofficial local ‘salvage parties’ began to form, with the men even donning their wives’ old dresses to prevent their own clothes becoming stained by incriminating ship’s oil.

The film is set on the fictional Hebridean island of Todday during the Second World War. The pompous Captain Waggett commands the local Home Guard unit, assisted by Sergeant Odd, an experienced soldier. Odd is engaged to Peggy, the daughter of Joseph Macroon, the local postmaster. Macroon's other daughter, Catriona, would like to marry George Campbell, the mild-mannered local school teacher, but he lives under the thumb of his domineering mother who opposes the match. You will learn far more in this offbeat odyssey than in a hundred more straightforward whisky books' When the locals learned from the crew exactly what the ship was carrying, a series of illegal salvage operations took place at night, before the customs and excise officials arrived. The islands supplies of whisky had dried up due to war-time rationing, so the islanders periodically helped themselves to some of the 260,000 bottles of whisky before winter weather broke up the ship. Boats came from as far away as Lewis as news of the whisky travelled across the Outer Hebrides. No islander regarded it as stealing, as for them the rules of salvage meant that once the bounty was in the sea, it was theirs to rescue. By June 1941, four months after the SS Politician’s demise, branches of the Barclays and Midland Banks in Liverpool began reporting the presentation of water-damaged Jamaican 10-shilling notes.People came from as far afield as Lewis and, according to reports at the time, few if any regarded what they were doing as stealing; the foundering of the ship made its cargo theirs to save under the ‘rules of salvage’. Unlike the gentle comedy of Passport to Pimlico, Whisky Galore!'s humour has an often cruel bite, most of it at the expense of the pompous English Home Guard commander, Waggett ( Radford), whose efforts to frustrate the islanders' pursuit of whisky result only in his own undoing. Possibly the highlight is Lyzzie Dell’s monstrous Mrs Campbell. Anyone who has ever spent any time in Scotland will find her Holy Wilhelmina act horribly familiar as well as hugely funny. good humour and craft A tour, an investigation, a fact finding mission, done with the utmost geniality by a man whose blood is most probably a pale amber hue… you can almost smell the peat, hear the clink of glasses and see the wind on the heather!' The authorities, however, did not share this view, not least because the whisky was destined for the United States – and so no duty had been paid on it.