Scotland in Film by Kyle Young ©
Mackendrick was a Presbyterian with a strong work ethic. He eventually fell out with producer Monja Danischewsky over the latter’s romantic vision of a remote community fighting foreign interference. But producers are the funders of a project and Danischewsky got his way. In America the film was retitled Tight Little Island, which encapsulates this vision.
The screenplay was written by Compton Mackenzie (who also wrote the book Monarch of the Glen.) He was inspired by the grounding of the SS Politician off Eriskay and the real theft of whisky supposedly bound for America. Ealing was busy at the time the film was made, so the cast and crew made the long trip to shoot on location on Barra. This was an inspirational move that made the picture more funny and realistic.
How many films can say they have inspired three sequels, a live action TV series and an animated series? Well it’s time to turn to Highlander directed in 1986 by Russell Mulcahy. This was another film that was hated by critics.
The film is a combination of swashbuckler and urban thriller. The action jumps between modern New York and 16th Century Scotland. We see Highlanders in multi-coloured kilts stride off to war across the causeway of Eilean Donan Castle, the famous castle in the middle of a loch that everyone knows. I would liken this film to sucking something sickly sweet through a straw that you know is bad for you, but feels so good at the time. Highlander is pure rubbish, some would say. Yet this is a film that carries the viewer along. Freddy Mercury singing ‘Who wants to live forever?’ and Sean Connery’s wife aging while he stays the same, are two scenes that are genuinely moving.
When you look at the history of Scottish films, one stands out as the crème’ de la crème’ and this is The Prime of miss Jean Brodie directed by Ronald Neame in 1969, based on the book of the same name by Muriel Spark. This is a middle and upper class Edinburgh showing up the scruffiness of the Glasgow proles and the ancient but romantic Highlanders.
This film captures the spirit of the 1930’s perfectly. Miss Brodie is a supporter of Italian fascism and Franco in the days before the rise of Hitler and the Second World War. She is also a snob, who teaches at the Marcia Blaine School for young girls and so has an inordinate amount of influence on growing minds. She admires art and culture but her sensibilities are rooted in a classic tradition that is about to be overthrown by modernity.
In one of the strangest pieces of casting seen, Frenchman Christopher Lambert plays Conner MacLeod, one of a race who are (virtually) immortal and must battle each other through the centuries for the simple reason that "there can be only one". Sean Connery is his Egyptian-Spanish mentor but naturally with his trademark Edinburgh accent.
