The Bridal Path (film)

The Bridal Path
British 1-sheet poster
Directed by	Frank Launder
Produced by	Sidney Gilliat Frank Launder
Written by	Nigel Tranter Frank Launder Geoffrey Willans
Starring	Bill Travers George Cole Bernadette O'Farrell
Music by	Cedric Thorpe Davie
Cinematography	Arthur Ibbetson
Edited by	Geoffrey Foot
Distributed by	British Lion Film Corporation
Release date	5 August 1959
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Bridal Path is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Frank Launder and starring Bill Travers, George Cole and Bernadette O'Farrell. It is based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Nigel Tranter. A young man on a remote Scottish island travels to the mainland in search of a wife. Although another Highland story, the film failed to match the success of Launder and Gilliat's earlier Geordie (1955).

Ewan McEwan, an easy-going sheep and corn farmer on a remote Scottish island, is unable to marry his childhood sweetheart Katie as his hell-raising preacher uncle is opposed to consanguinity - all the islanders are related to each other. When Katie leaves for Glasgow to train as a nurse, he is persuaded to find a wife on the mainland (which he has never visited).

Withdrawing 400 pounds from a bank in Oban, he sets out to meet the local girls. He has been advised by the islanders of what they think he should to look for in a potential wife: strong legs, wide hips, knowledge of cows and sheep, and also not a Roman Catholic or a Campbell!

His innocent close inspection of the girls he meets raises their suspicions. The first girl thinks he's a white slaver and so informs the local police. He then becomes a wanted fugitive after he 'borrows' a policeman's bicycle. Then he is mistaken for the leader of a gang of salmon poachers. The police eventually arrest the innocent Ewan on a wide variety of charges, but don't believe his story. Held overnight at the local police sergeant's home (there is no jail), he easily escapes custody and resumes his flight, still examining all the girls he meets.

After two sisters that he takes refuge with come to blows over him, he 'borrows' their boat and hitches a passage with a fishing boat. The boat is taken over by fishermen from a nearby island who think they are encroaching on their fishing grounds, and Ewan is locked in a shed. He is rescued by a local girl and they row back to Ewan's home island.