Ealing Studios had put out WHISKY GALORE! In 1949, and even the expression "whisky galore" turns up in conversation among the residents on a puny Irish island to where three old English ladies have fled, after deserting an old age home from where they were due to be removed and kicked over to various other destinations on the British map.
Instead, they ingeniously hide under the tarpaulin of a speedboat, even more ingeniously start it without knowing how and they are stopped only by the fuel which unceremoniously runs out at sea, where they are rather ceremoniously picked up by a USSR trawler whose captain knows only one official welcome sentence in English and hilariously reads all the sentences from a pocket book for the poor soviet sod who has the misfortune to meet English-speaking folk.
Well, the three ladies do not wish to go to Siberia and demand instead to be dropped off on a tiny island that turns out to be Irish and where they hit upon a very young Richard Harris kissing comely Olive McFarland, who has a lovely singing voice among other attributes.
What follows is a roller coaster of funny incidents involving Sybil Thorndike, Kathleen Harrison, Estelle Winwood, Liam Redmond, and Stanley Holloway, including a protest by the local population nearly lynching the three old dames after a local boy mistakenly refers to them as the three wives of the male newcomer on the isle.
I have never heard of Director Cyril Frankel but he certainly comes up with a delightful comedy. Great B&W cinematography and screwball screenplay. Definitely worth watching! 8/10.
Instead, they ingeniously hide under the tarpaulin of a speedboat, even more ingeniously start it without knowing how and they are stopped only by the fuel which unceremoniously runs out at sea, where they are rather ceremoniously picked up by a USSR trawler whose captain knows only one official welcome sentence in English and hilariously reads all the sentences from a pocket book for the poor soviet sod who has the misfortune to meet English-speaking folk.
Well, the three ladies do not wish to go to Siberia and demand instead to be dropped off on a tiny island that turns out to be Irish and where they hit upon a very young Richard Harris kissing comely Olive McFarland, who has a lovely singing voice among other attributes.
What follows is a roller coaster of funny incidents involving Sybil Thorndike, Kathleen Harrison, Estelle Winwood, Liam Redmond, and Stanley Holloway, including a protest by the local population nearly lynching the three old dames after a local boy mistakenly refers to them as the three wives of the male newcomer on the isle.
I have never heard of Director Cyril Frankel but he certainly comes up with a delightful comedy. Great B&W cinematography and screwball screenplay. Definitely worth watching! 8/10.