The 'Maggie' (1954)

Having seen other Ealing films, I came to this film with the expectation of quality, humor and charm, but this film devoid of all three. Watching four conniving and deceiving village idiots break a man's spirit and ruin his life is neither humorous nor charming. It is despicable. How this film could be called a comedy or even entertainment of any sort is a complete mystery to me. It paints a very grim picture of British people in general, and of Scottish people in particular. If they're anything like the people in this movie, you'd do well to steer clear of both. And above all, steer clear of this film. Tbere are Ealing films worth a look, but this is definitely not one of them.

It is hard for me to judge this movie because I enjoy old movies. This type of movie was done better in the 20's and 30's when all sort of contraptions were used for transportation. The humor falls flat for me because it is based on xenophobia. I have seen too many movies that have achieved much better results with that sort of humor. But that is just the surface of its problems.The real reason that I marked the movie so low is that I did not find the characters charming or the comedy gentle. None of the actors seem to be able to handle their roles with subtlety nor could the writer nor could the director. The destruction of the pier is supposed to be funny but I found it annoying. I found the captain very annoying from beginning to end.Where's the humor? A man tries to surprise his wife with a gift and the captain thwarts this effort. Should I laugh because the man fooled is rich? Should I laugh because Pusey was arrested instead of the real poachers? The humor is neither subtle nor original nor well done.I wanted to like this film but I didn't laugh once during it. I didn't find the characters interesting so I gave it two stars because the only thing I enjoyed was seeing Scotland in the 1950s. That's it. I kept thinking that it could have been an average movie if the writer or director added depth to their characters instead of plastering the screen with superficiality.

I feel extremely fortunate to have finally caught up with this beguiling little film. Good enough to rank among Ealing's best works, it has undoubtedly improved with age, giving us a snapshot of a time before technology shrank and homogenized our world.It's worth noting that this film is the work of screenwriter William Rose, who had created the delightful Genevieve a year earlier, and would go on, amazingly, to pen It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World some ten years later, and win an Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner a few years after that.It's unfortunate that movie fans track actors and directors so much more closely than writers. The Maggie, no less than his other works, proves that Rose deserves to be remembered one of the great geniuses of film comedy.

"The Maggie" represents the best of the gentle scots comedies of the 50s. In my opinion it is a better film than "Whisky Galore" by the same Director. Many of the locations in the film are little changed such as the splendid crinan canal in Argyll, scotland and the island of Islay. Most of the cast are no more but Mr Pusey, the lawyer, played by Hubert Gregg hosts Thanks for the Memory, a show on British Radio 2 for afficianados of music from the 20s-40s. Hubert Gregg is an octogenerian! Of the other cast members Tommy Kearins "the wee boy" may still be alive but I have been unable to trace details. Another film in this favourite format is "Laxdale Hall" filmed at Applecross village, scotland.