Submitted by
Nicky Smith
Scotch Mist
By C.A. Lejeune
From: The Observer
18 November 1945
Michael Powell's new film IKWIG
[No mention of Emeric despite his having joint credit as writer,
producer & director]
is a disappointment, because it has all
the makings of a good picture, but has mixed them with some of the tricks
of a very bad one. It tells the story of a determined young woman (Wendy
Hiller) who goes up to the Western Isles to marry a rich business man. While
waiting on the mainland for the boat that will take her to her fiancé's
rented island, she meets and falls in love with the island's real owner
(Roger Livesey). Days of storm, after fog, give the pair a chance to do
some local sight-seeing, which is forced on the audience willy-nilly. Personally
I can stand, and even welcome, a certain amount of local atmosphere, but
it does shake me up when I find Captain Knight, F.Z.S. exercising his extremely
urbane golden eagle, Mr Ramshaw, in these misty fastnesses, and Graham Moffat,
the Fat Boy from the Will Hay comedies, shaking an ample leg at a Highland
ceilidh.
[So what's the problem. Aren't actors allowed to act? Or should all
dancers be slim and supple?- Mark Childs]
The real point of the picture, I take it, is bedded in a snatch of conversation, in which the hero tells the heroine that having no money is a very different thing from poverty. This is a fine idea, and the authors would have done well to develop it; at the risk of excluding the Fat Boy, the golden eagle, the family curse, the ceilidh, and all that fancy montage work at the beginning. While they were about it, they might also have printed the main title in decent capitals. To call a film, 'i know where i'm going' is a pretty clear sign that i don't quite.
[This is probably one of the least perceptive reviews I have ever read.
I don't really know much about C.A. Lejeune except that Halliwell was
forever quoting her, and I'm now quite glad I haven't read much. I can
accept people having different opinions, but to knock a film because the
director hasn't cast it the way you want it or developed the story the
way you want is not criticism. And how can you have IKWIG without the
curse???? - Mark Childs]
Back to index
