The Maggie - 1954

First in a series on some of the greatest films of all time: the Ealing Comedies

Because I truly believe I have the most awesome taste in films and music, I shall endeavor to hurl my opinions at you with great irregularity. You can thank me later.

I will start with a small collection of mid-century British gems collectively known as the “Ealing Comedies” named for the studio where they were made. These are true gems but as with any gem, some are more true than others, so I will list the best first and go from there. They are really all wonderful films.

The Maggie - 1954

The Maggie a/k/a High & Dry for it’s US release, is my favorite. Perhaps it’s because I’m a die-hard fan of most things Scottish — especially their importunate and thoroughly un-English ways of being and doing. A bit of history first.

The Scots were some of the truest champions of American liberty. In 1746 Scotland was finally subdued by the English in a horrid battle at a place called Culloden: a boggie waste where the pride of the Highland clans fell to their doom. It was all Bonnie Prince Charlie’s fault because he insisted the Scots charge directly at the English lines. At that time the English line infantry was the most devastating force on earth. They would soon destroy Napoleon at Waterloo but they got some early practice doing the same to the Scottish Highland clans — some of the most noble, communal and rascally bastards you’d ever want to know. Scotland is a land of beautiful contradictions and mad genius.

So anyway, Bonnie Prince Fauntleroy insisted despite the urging of his experienced highland generals that guerrilla warfare, which the Scots excelled at and had used effectively to ward off the English for hundreds of years (and who generally outnumbered them 10:1 or more), must not be used. Little Lord Fuckpants insisted it weren’t honorable and since the Jacobites had pinned their fight against the English as a fight for the true king of Britain (against those ugly Hanoverians who had usurped the throne) they felt compelled to honor his wishes. The little shit got away while the flower of Highland military might died in the mud. They even wrote a beautiful folk song about his escape called The Skye Boat Song telling of his flight to the Isle of Skye (most beautiful place on earth btw). In the aftermath the families and clans (basically the same thing) of the Highlanders were scattered to the winds for all time. Highland culture was viciously eradicated by the English though it’s spirit lives on and there are still clan gatherings to this day. They may even finally regain their independence soon after almost 300 years.

Back to the true champions of American liberty. Ever heard of Thomas Paine? He was the firebrand Scot circa the revolutionary war who most eloquently laid out in his pamphlet “Common Sense” why we needed to be free from the British empire. He was not alone. Much of the language of liberty written into the US Constitution was argued for by Scots. The Scottish rebel spirit can be found to this day in the American sense of equality expressed here (use an Appalachian twang): “well I may not be much but you’re no better ‘an me!”.

What’s more, without the guerrilla fighting tactics taught to General Washington by his Scottish military advisors we might still be a “commonwealth” country. Let’s leave aside whether that would’ve been better or worse. The point is the Highland Scots, probably out of some modicum of anger at the English for destroying their culture 30 years prior, and also due to their love of liberty and sheer cussedness, were instrumental in the founding of this revolutionary republic and in keeping it. Ulysses Grant, the general who won the Civil War against slavery, was a descendant of the highland Scots. Of course the Grants were known as a rag-tag bunch of disreputable cattle thieves back home but in America it’s one of those names that evokes solidity, rectitude and permanence. Grant. Almost sounds like granite don’t it?

Scottish highland culture has influenced US culture in profound ways to this day. The clans were split up and most of the poorer members were shipped off to Appalachia by the English where they sang sad lonesome songs about their lost culture and the awful coal mines. They are some tough, unruly bastards. They fought the mining companies in bloody Harlan up to the early 1970’s and there’s a wonderful John Sayles film called Matewan that portrays how they fought the Pinkertons and The Man back in the early 20th century. There’s a hidden gem recommend right there.

So I could go on all day about my love of Scottish Highland culture. They were true socialists in the best sense in that the clan was family and the family was the clan. Leaders led due to merit and those who took advantage or proved incompetent were soon removed and replaced with more capable and fair men. Men chose to follow the laird into battle or not. It really was their choice. And don’t let me start on Scottish women. Well maybe a bit: fierce, shrewd, loyal, wise and fearless. That hit show Outlander, in it’s first season, gets at some of the spirit of the people and the times leading up to Culloden. Highly recommended for that alone. Of course the picture I’m painting here is the rosy part. If you want an image to counter it, read up on Simon Fraser a/k/a Lord Lovat a/k/a the Fox (and learn the etymology of the phrase “laughing his head off”); or see Robert Mitchum’s bit as a brutal Scotch-descended factory owner named John Dickinson in Jim Jarmusch’s classic “Dead Man”. That’ll take a bit of the luster off.

The point I’m not really getting at is the Scots are an enigmatic people with a contradictory character: at once they have a deep reputation for skill, excellence and achievement while also embracing the God-given right to be a total slacker. There is a place for everyone and for those for whom there isn’t a place, room is allowed for them to make a place. For more insight into this I highly recommend you check out the philosophical wisdom of much-beloved Scottish fictional character Rab C. Nesbitt — an unrepentant waster played to perfection by actor and Scottish national hero Gregor Fisher.

So how does this all tie back to The Maggie? Well, by the mid-20th century Scotland was a thriving ship-building industrial juggernaut full of brilliant engineers, scientists and the most awesome fighting men in the British military. They invented the special forces and the ghillie suit. They commanded the high seas as a key part of the British navy, acted as shock troops in the British assaults on Germany and taught the modern Americans in guerrilla warfare and spec-ops.

After the Allied victory in WWII the ship-builders and seamen of Scotland were at the top of their game: able and capable men who kept commerce afloat during the hard times in Britain after the war (no Marshall Plan for our #1 ally). And who comes puffing up the Clyde in this dynamic and robust era of grand ships and daring seafarers but The Maggie, a sad old puffer run by a gaggle of threadbare wasters and a small boy known for most of the film only as “the boy”.

A puffer or “Clyde puffer” was a coal-fired (later diesel) steam-powered coastal freighter popular in that region for a century before the war. They are cute little boats with a mighty spirit.

A sad old puffer:

In better trim:

They have a cargo-hold and a crane (that bit that kind of looks like a mast and boom up front) and were designed to run in all kinds of coastal and inland waterways. If you’ve ever looked at a map of Scotland you might have noticed the incredible number of lochs (lakes and inland seas) and connecting rivers. Puffers can run in all these waters due to a relatively shallow draft; and since they have a flat bottom can even cope with the extreme tides found in Scottish waters simply by resting on the sand and waiting for the tide to come in:

Not to get too romantic about it but puffers, in a way, represent the indomitable yet humble and always-humorous spirit of Scotland. They were first made famous via a series of pre-WWI short stories by Neil Munro. So by the time of The Maggie, they would’ve been seen as a throwback to a simpler time and a bit of humorous nostalgia.

But not to the captain and his crew. The Maggie is serious business to them: the captain was born and raised aboard the Maggie and they are all kinsmen who together have crewed and raised hell throughout the waterways for decades. And as the only form of livelihood they’ve ever known, they’re desperate to keep her going.

So the Maggie docks in town for a rest and her crew finds the nearest pub. During this short R&R the harbor master, who had noted her arrival earlier, comes to check out the sad, dilapidated boat and upon their return the crew is notified they will need to make £300 worth of repairs to keep her licensed for carrying cargo. They barely had enough for their beers — well actually they didn’t and the boy winds up paying for them. In other words, they’re sunk unless they can rustle up all that dough in a hurry.

So in true Scottish-rogue fashion, they manage to con this out-of-his-element Englishman, who happens to be the agent for an American transport magnate, to allow them to carry the magnate’s treasured furnishings and bath fixtures up to his highland manse where his new bride is waiting for him and the furnishings to arrive. They do this using a bit of half-intended trickery that is charming and roguish all at once. And so the plot is set in motion. What happens next I shall not give away but you can imagine all sorts of shenanigans and feats of something-do to come. Suffice to say there is a meandering journey through the Scottish waterways and culture that most excellently portrays the seeming contradiction at the heart of any True Scotsman. Paul Douglas, in one of his greatest roles, plays the American magnate and serves as a stand-in for both American and Scottish high competence in it’s interaction with, shall we say, those of lesser ambition. The film performs the magic of making you see all sides in this ages-long friction.

What makes this film such a masterpiece is not the setup, nor the plot, though those are all first rate and worth watching for them alone. It’s not even the actors who are all brilliant as well. It’s the way we get to know all the various levels of Scottish culture and character, perfectly set off against the can-do hyper-competence of the American and how everyone comes off as completely human and worthy of living room despite their differences. Even the benighted English agent — the one guy you’d think the Scots would have it out for — is a human and empathetic character. We see the values and culture of the Scottish people in all their seemingly contradictory glory and we see the brilliant American… well I’ll leave that out for now. The film never devolves into inadvertent bathos or false sentimentality. It’s far too honest and smart for that and I chose this film to start my Ealing comedy series not just because it’s my favorite, but because it manifests the perfect light-touch artistry and humanism embodied in all the greatest Ealing Comedies. If you want to laugh and cry and root for the underdog and the overdog all at once this film is for you. And any kids, especially the little rascal-spirited ones, will love it too. You should be able to find it somewhere online and if you can’t find a copy to rent I always recommend, in true Scottish-pirate-rogue style, thepiratebay.org or yts.mx and a vpn. Look for it as High and Dry if you can’t find The Maggie.

If you do manage to catch it let me know what you loved or hated or anything in between. It’s my absolute pleasure to share this gem. It offers a promise of a better world where there is place for all and for all a place.