Whisky Galore! is a British comedy film produced by Ealing Studios and released on 16 June 1949, starring Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon Jackson. The directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick, it was based on the 1947 novel Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie (pictured), and written by Mackenzie and Angus MacPhail. Inspired by the 1941 wreck of the SS Politician, the story concerns a shipwreck off a fictional Scottish island. The islanders, who have run out of whisky because of wartime rationing, salvage cases of it from the ship, against the opposition of the local Customs and Excise men. Like other Ealing comedies, Whisky Galore! explores the actions of a small group facing and overcoming a more powerful opponent. The film was well received on release; renamed Tight Little Island, it became the first film from the studios to achieve box office success in the US. It was followed by Rockets Galore!, a sequel. A remake was released in 2016.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisky_Galore!_%281949_film%29> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1819: A strong earthquake in the Kutch district of Gujarat, India, caused a local zone of uplift that dammed the Nara River, which was later named the Allah Bund ('Dam of God'). <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1819_Rann_of_Kutch_earthquake> 1904: Irish author James Joyce began a relationship with Nora Barnacle, and subsequently used the date to set the actions for his 1922 novel Ulysses, commemorated as Bloomsday. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce> 1936: A Junkers Ju 52 aircraft of Norwegian Air Lines crashed into a mountainside near Hyllestad, Norway, killing all seven people on board. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hav%C3%B8rn_Accident> 1997: The English rock band Radiohead released their landmark third album OK Computer. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Computer> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: sacrifice: 1. (religion) 2. Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity. 3. A human being or an animal, or a physical object or immaterial thing (see sense 1.3), offered to a deity. 4. (figurative) The offering of devotion, penitence, prayer, thanksgiving, etc., to a deity. 5. (Christianity, specifically) 6. Jesus Christ's voluntary offering of himself to God the Father to be crucified as atonement for the sins of humankind. 7. (by extension) The rite of Holy Communion or the Mass, regarded as (Protestantism) an offering of thanksgiving to God for Christ's crucifixion, or (Roman Catholicism) a perpetual re-enactment of Christ's sacrificial offering. 8. (figurative) 9. The destruction or surrender of anything for the sake of something else regarded as more urgent or valuable; also, the thing destroyed or surrendered for this purpose. 10. (baseball) Short for sacrifice bunt or sacrifice hit (“a play in which the batter intentionally hits the ball softly with a hands-spread batting stance at the cost of an out to advance one or more runners”) 11. (bridge) In full sacrifice bid: a bid of a contract which is unlikely to be fulfilled, that a player makes in the hope that they will incur fewer penalty points than the points likely to be gained by opponents in making their contract. 12. (business, slang, dated) A monetary loss incurred by selling something at less than its value; also, the thing thus sold. 13. (chess) An act of intentionally allowing one's piece to be captured by the opponent in order to improve one's position in the game. [...] <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sacrifice> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: Our national epic has yet to be written. --Ulysses <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ulysses> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe write to: [email protected] Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
