Sometimes a Grey Ocean
*OF COURSE* I welcomed the chance to see Alexander Mackendrick’s debut, WHISKY GALORE! on the big screen at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. I’ve reviewed it for The Daily Notebook here.
Something I don’t get into is Mackendrick’s odd obsession with the sea, perhaps a product of his transatlantic rearing (born in Boston, raised in Glasgow) but from WHISKY GALORE! to DON’T MAKE WAVES at either extreme, there’s a lot of water in his pictures. THE MAGGIE and A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA are both seafaring yarns, the shoreline features prominently in SAMMY GOING SOUTH, and even THE LADYKILLERS has a nautical theme, with Mrs Wilberforce’s late husband being a captain who heroically yet needlessly went down with his ship.
UK: Whisky Galore (Single Disc) [DVD]
US: On Film-making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director
June 22, 2011 at 9:41 am
Don’t we even get some shots of Regents Canal in his masterpiece THE LADYKILLERS? Not quite the same thing, I know, but the best you can do in London…short of a day trip to Clacton-on-Sea.