(a delightful comedy classic, Anchor Bay)
Again, I thank my late Dad for introducing me to so many film classics, this one originally released in 1949–my birthday year–(Compton Mackenzie’s book appeared in 1947), which we watched late night together on b & w tv in the 1950s.
“The sinking of the SS Politician in February 1941 has gone down as one of the funniest nights in Hebridean history–thanks to Compton Mackenzie’s novel Whiskey Galore!
When the Politician floundered on a hidden shoal just off the tiny islands of Eriskay and Barra in the Outer Hebrides, she was bound for America with 264,000 bottles of best Scotch whisky.
It was a cash-rich cargo designed to help Britain’s war effort. But by the time the islanders had helped to salvage it, 100,000 bottles had been ‘liberated’. The Politician bar on Eriskay has proof.
Mackenzie turned the episode into Whisky Galore! in 1947, writing from his home on Barra, overlooking the windswept beach.”
(by Sally Varlow, A Reader’s Guide to Writer’s Britain)
(1996, Prion, illustrated in color; covers all English, Welsh, and Scottish writers of note–highly recommended)