Great Scot: Geoffrey O'Brien on Alexander Mackendrick.(FILM)

IN THE AUTEURIST heyday of the early '60s, when you could still rush out to see the new John Ford or the new Raoul Walsh alongside the new Godard or the new Antonioni, the American-born, Scottish-bred director Alexander Mackendrick was a singularly elusive sort of auteur. Between the whimsical joys of his Ealing comedies from the '50s--like The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers (but how whimsical or joyful were they, finally?)--and the corrosive New York noir of Sweet Smell of Success (underseen and underrated long after its 1957 release), it was hard to find blatant…