The residents of a Hebridean island endure many months without alcohol as a result of wartime rationing. When a ship runs aground carrying thousands of cases of Scotch, the locals are determined to keep it to themselves, despite the best efforts of a puritanical English home guard officer to confiscate it. Ealing comedy, starring Basil Radford, Gordon Jackson and James Robertson Justice.

Based on a true story. The name of the real ship, that sunk Feb 5 1941 - during WWII - was S/S Politician. Having left Liverpool two days earlier, heading for Jamaica, it sank outside Eriskay, The Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in bad weather, containing 250,000 bottles of whisky. The locals gathered as many bottles as they could, before the proper authorities arrived, and even today, bottles are found in the sand or in the sea every other year.