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The 'Maggie' (U.S. title: High and Dry; also known as Highland Fling) is a 1954 United Kingdom comedy film directed by Alexander Mackendrick and starring Paul Douglas, Alex Mackenzie and James Copeland. It was written by William Rose and produced by Ealing Studios. It is a story of a clash of cultures between a hard-driving American businessman and a wily Scottish Clyde puffer captain.
The story was inspired by Neil Munro's short stories of the Vital Spark and her captain, Para Handy.
Marshall is a wealthy industrialist, a stubborn and determined self-made man. When he eventually learns the truth, he sets out in pursuit by aeroplane and hired car. Catching up with the puffer, he puts Pusey on board to ensure the cargo is transferred to another boat. Pusey is no match for the captain and ends up in jail on a charge of poaching, after pushing the Laird in the canal. Marshall realizes that he will have to handle the matter personally. After another costly chase, he boards the boat himself to hasten the cargo transfer. The route and timing of the voyage however, are governed by MacTaggart, tidal variations, fog and local community priorities.
Marshall's hostile attitude gradually softens somewhat. He is particularly touched by the loyalty of the "wee boy", Dougie, to his captain. At one point, when Marshall threatens to buy the boat from the owner, MacTaggart's sister, and sell it for scrap, Dougie releases a folding table on him, knocking him unconscious. His mood changes again when the wily MacTaggart moors the puffer under a wooden jetty; as the tide rises, the jetty (due for dismantling anyway) is damaged, making it impossible to transfer the furniture to the deeper draught vessel when it arrives.
At one of the unscheduled stops, the crew attend the hundredth birthday party of an islander, and Marshall chats with a nineteen-year-old girl who is pondering her future. She has two suitors, an up-and-coming, ambitious store owner and a poor fisherman. The American advises her to choose the former, but she believes she will marry the latter, explaining that he will give her his time, rather than just things. This strikes a chord with Marshall. He is having marital difficulties, and the furniture is an attempt to patch things up with his wife.
As they finally near their destination, the engine fails. Marshall uses his engineering knowledge to repair the old, poorly maintained machinery. The engine fires up but only serves to drive the Maggie onto some rocks. Marshall asks MacTaggart if they can save her by jettisoning the cargo. MacTaggart then apologetically informs him that he neglected to insure the furniture, but Marshall orders it thrown overboard anyway. The Maggie is saved.
At journey's end, Marshall, with some prodding by Dougie, even allows MacTaggart to keep the money he so desperately needs. In appreciation of his magnanimity, MacTaggart renames the puffer the Calvin B. Marshall.
Variety wrote: "The yarn has been subtly written as a piece of gentle and casual humor. The pace is always leisurely, and the background of Scottish lakes and mountains provides an appropriate backcloth to the story. The picture has been directed without any attempt to force the pace. Fine camera work highlights the natural scenery.. ... General technical credits are up to standard although a little more scissoring in later stages would be an asset."
In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "average", writing: "Warm, whimsical comedy, occasionally very funny."
Leslie Halliwell said: "Mildly amusing comedy about the wily Scots; not the studio at its best, but pretty fair."
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "Ostensibly, this most underestimated of Ealing comedies is a whimsical story about a crew of canny Clydebankers giving a brash American a torrid time after being assigned to carry his property aboard their clapped-out steamer. Don't be fooled, however, by the leisurely pace, the gentle humour and the relatively good-natured conclusion. This is a wicked little satire on the mutual contempt that underlies Euro-American relations, and few could have handled it with such incisive insight as American-born Scot Alexander Mackendrick. Cruel rather than quaint." (2025). 9780992936440, Immediate Media Company. ISBN 9780992936440
In 1963 Colin McArthur criticised its representation of Scotland and its relationship with American capital, and of the failure of contemporary commentators to interrogate the narrative about the Scotland it constructed.McArthur, Colin (1983), The Maggie, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 12, Spring 1983, pp. 10 - 14, McArthur, Colin (2002), Whisky Galore! and The Maggie, I.B. Tauris,
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