Paul Douglas seems to play frustrated guys. I last saw him getting cuckolded by wife Barbara Stanwyck in 1952’s Clash by Night. Two years later, he is an easily agitated businessman in The Maggie (a.k.a. High and Dry).
The man has much to get worked up about. He is only trying to get his company’s cargo to an island. Alas, the worst little coal-burning boat, or “puffer”, has been hired and it is increasingly unlikely the cargo will ever reach the destination.
Hubert Gregg, an employee of Douglas, commissioned the titular boat accidentally, per a misunderstanding it was a different ship. The mayhem begins almost immediately, with the titular vessel so weighed down by the cargo that it doesn’t clear the “subway” at the bottom of the canal, necessitating the towing of the vessel. I won’t pretend to know what that is, expect they apparently could have cleared it if they had waited until the tide was in.
Realizing the mistake he has made, Gregg tries to intercept the boat, but it is already on its way by that point. The crew tries to lose him, but this very prim and proper man manages to delay himself by inexplicably getting arrested for assumed poaching. He sounds and even acts a bit like Anthony Daniels as C3PO. Think of any moment from Star Wars and you’ll have a good idea of Gregg’s performance.
Douglas will then decide to take matters into his own hands, only The Maggie’s captain (Alex Mackenzie) proves to be incredibly clever in his determination to make the delivery uninterrupted and unassisted. Eventually, Douglas will make his way onboard just the same, but not without some considerable effort.
Consider this long spiel by Douglas as he talks to his plane’s pilot and tries to outguess where Mackenzie will next dock: “If they thought I thought they were going there, where would they go? This may sound silly but, if they thought I think they’re going to Strathcarron because it looks as if they’re going to Inverness, where would they head for then? If there’s such a thing as a triple bluff, I’m betting MacTaggart invented it.” And yet, the captain anticipates Douglas anticipating both moves and, in fact, goes to the first place.
When Douglas finally intercepts The Maggie, he tries to move the cargo to another ship, only for a happy coincidence and a lie by omission to result in Mackenzie’s boat destroying the dock, which prevents any other vessel from taking on the load. Part of that ruse is an observation made by the young Tommy Kearins, who idolizes Mackenzie. It is a good performance by a child actor.
There are the expected idiosyncrasies in this Ealing Studios comedy, though not as many as I have come to expect from their best output, and this is not one of the best films made by the studio. Still, there are some intriguing moments, such as the “radar” used in heavy fog, which is just Kearins chucking rocks. Douglas asks how it works and the boy replies, “If it ‘plops’, we’re OK.”
What is especially odd about The Maggie is the tone at its conclusion. In a movie such as this, I would expect Doulgas’s rather humorless man of industry to learn about the simple pleasures of life and adopt a less stressful lifestyle. In a movie like this, the protagonist tends to gain his soul in lieu of gaining the world. Instead, a melancholy conclusion finds Douglas neither finding his soul nor keeping his fortune. It is an unsatisfying end to a curiously unsatisfying film.
Dir: Alexander Mackendrick
Starring Paul Douglas, Alex Mackenzie, Tommy Kearins
Watched on Film Movement blu-ray (where it is paired with the far superior Whisky Galore!)