I MIGHT need a wee dram to settle my nerves. I’m a tad anxious. Filming has just started on a remake – sorry, a “retelling” – of Whisky Galore! (the exclamation mark, by the way, is in the title, but I might have added it even if it weren’t).
WG1, as I shall refer to it from now on, is one of my very favourite movies. It has cheered up a few rainy Sunday afternoons down the years – even on its umpteenth viewing, it raises many an affectionate smile, if not full-blown belly laughs. It’s full to the gunwales of great character actors: Basil Radford as the pompous Home Guard officer, Duncan Macrae with the face that launched a thousand quips, mummy’s boy Gordon Jackson, and James Robertson Justice as the GP delivering one of the most sagacious lines ever penned for the movies: “It’s a well-known fact that some men were born two drinks below par..."
Messing about with it would be like cutting up a favourite old jumper. And remakes rarely work.
The one crumb of comfort is that WG2 will not be a scene-for-scene reboot – it will, we are promised, be very different from the 1949 Ealing original, closer to the spirit of Compton Mackenzie’s novel. So here’s hoping.
WG1 is just one of several Ealing comedies that are old friends of mine, not to be trifled with. I’ve never really forgiven Tom Hanks for mucking up The Ladykillers.
I suppose, though, that some might lend themselves to “retelling”.
Passport to Pimlico – in which an ancient charter proclaiming the titular London borough to rightfully belong to Burgundy is rediscovered, prompting the locals to proclaim that Westminster has no legal jurisdiction – has obvious contemporary possibilities – just so long as the script doesn’t get bogged down with wrangling about the euro.
Then there’s The Lavender Hill Mob, in which a banker with insider knowledge pulls off a massive heist. Nah, surely no-one would believe a storyline like that?
I could see, too, that there might be mileage in a reboot of The Titfield Thunderbolt. For those not familiar with it (shame on you), it’s a tale of a group of villagers who attempt to run their own railway after British Rail decides to axe their branch line. It might resonate with those who live along the route of the Borders Railway, axed in 1969 and due to re-open in September.
In the 1953 original, the Titfield venture is financed by rich local worthy Stanley Holloway, whose prime motivation is the provision of a well-stocked and well-run bar. Those of us still trying to compensate for being born two drinks below par can empathise.
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