La taverna della Giamaica

(Spoilers possibly inherent)

I had no idea this film would prove such a curio and nigh-on almighty hoot to watch. I settled back on a familiar settee, late one night - after a meal at the finest Indian restaurant I know, Ocean Rd., South Shields, and after watching the heartening second "Office Christmas Special" - to play this film on DVD, a Christmas present from a good friend. Ironies are even in that; I bought him a DVD of the 1962 Robert Mulligan-directed "To Kill A Mockingbird": both that Harper Lee novel and Daphne Du Maurier's "Jamaica Inn" were texts we studied at school in our English lessons. They were by far the most enjoyable of the texts we studied in those five years - though I admit a partiality for "Cider With Rosie" and "Jane Eyre".

It was all for the better that I knew little of what this film was like; I knew only that it was directed by Mr Hitchcock, and differed quite a lot from the book. Oh, and how it does differ!

Quite frankly, Hitchcock's "Jamaica Inn" is a different thing altogether to that utterly splendid, barnstorming tale of smuggling. This misses the uncanny, eerie quality of Du Maurier's plotting and characterisation. Here, Joss Merlyn is only a slight reprobate; he is softened and thoroughly reduced in size and dimensions compared to Du Maurier's conception of him in her novel. There Joss was a towering, bullish, walking-talking threat of a man. Leslie Banks sadly fails to capture any of the preposterous, swaggering bravado of the Joss Merlyn forever etched into my mind.

That is really the biggest failing in writing, casting or such like. The more general approach too fails to ignite; the conceptualisation of a desolate Cornish coast is reasonable but unspectacular. there's never quite enough misty, frightening (or frightened) atmosphere; one does not get enough sense of things being at stake as they were in the novel: life and death, hell for leather. A further bone to pick is certainly the strangely wimpy portrayals of the crew of cutthroats and local degenerates; another failure of conception.

Maureen O'Hara... well, the damsel is feisty to an effective degree and acquits herself well, though is oddly over-mannered at times. It is an odd performance, that is half very effective, and half ineffectual. Now, Robert Newton; that wonderfully hammy actor of renown is excellent here as the dashing Jem Merlyn figure. He is one of the few performers to seem as if he is on anything like the same wavelength as Charles Laughton.

Charles Laughton? Well, he absolutely strides away with this film, and that is no understatement. This is so, to such an extent that his own vision overwhelms whatever there may have been of Hitchcock's, or indeed Du Maurier's. He plays Sir Humphrey Penhalligon - standing in effectively for the novel's eerie albino vicar, Francis Davey - a thoroughly sneaky, grandiose aristocrat, who is quite wonderfully playing the people of his county for outright fools. He doesn't so much as administer justice as pick and choose allies and inevitably seek to further his own ends. Sir Humphrey's condescending, subtle contempt for those around him sublimely passes the other characters by, while the audience is in on it. One feels entirely complicit in the seemingly jovial fellow's gleeful tricks and crimes; Laughton almost tangibly winks at the audience with his every sideways glance and jocund intonation. What Victorian Melodrama villainy is in the man here; implicitly sending up the limitations of all that is around him by claiming the centre of attention and having so much comedic fun from his privileged position. It completely unbalances any chance of us finding the wrecking *that* serious, as he is an obvious villain from the start, and unlike the otherworldly Francis Davey, Penhalligon is someone we can relate to. His intentions are selfish, but born of a paternalistic High Toryism; the character is manifestly a cultural and social elitist. He does not want to destroy the existing world, but to be happy in it. Only of course, his methods and complete disregard for others are 'not the way to go about it', tut-tut!

The ending simply lives up to what has become a Laughton picture; the narrative of the novel has been almost wholly jettisoned by this juncture, and our - or mine, anyway - interest in solely in hoping that the wicked Sir Humphrey will get away with his arrant, errant audacity. Suffice to say, Mary Yellan is not in our minds in the final frames, which are beautifully melodramatic and distinctly odd.

I can only conclude by saying just how much I enjoyed watching this film, late that night, recently... It was glorious fun, entirely due to the magnificent Charles Laughton. It is awful overall, if one is looking for a "Jamaica Inn" close to Du Maurier's great original; but one actor manages to steal the fairly creaky show and catapult it off onto a higher stage. Oh, there's no internal consistency here, but that's part of the delight! A part-marvellous fudge of a film; at least never dull, due to Laughton.

In the Nineteenth Century, in Cornwall, a group of pirates leaded by Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks) uses false beacon to misguide ships to wreck on the rocks of the coast; then they kill the survivors to rob the cargo and gather in the Jamaica Inn, a place of ill fame. When the Irish orphan Mary Yellen (Maureen O'Hara) travels to Jamaica Inn to live with her aunt Patience (Marie Ney), the coachman of her stagecoach refuses to stop in the infamous inn, and Mary asks for help in the house of the magistrate of the Justice of the Peace Humphrey Pengallan (Charles Laughton) that rides with her to the inn. Her aunt had not received her letter but lodges her in a room. During the night, Mary overhears the pirates hanging their mate Trehearne (Robert Newton); however, she saves his life and escapes with him. They run to the house of Sir Humphrey, where Treheame identifies himself as Officer of Law. However, they do not know that sophisticated and arrogant Sir Humphrey Pengallan is the head of the gang of pirates.

"Jamaica Inn" is an underrated work of Alfred Hitchcock. The story is too dark, especially considering that it was released in 1939. The cinematography in black and white is magnificent, and Charles Laughton has an awesome performance in the role of the ambiguous Sir Humphrey Pengallan. Maureen O'Hara is also amazing in an unusual role in 1939 of a strong woman in her first lead role. The DVD released in Brazil by Continental Distributor has 89:41 minutes running time and it is visible the edition of the movie when Mary and Trehearne are lodged by Sir Humphrey. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Estalagem Maldita" ("The Damned Inn")

Nota: On 15 October 2024, I saw this movie again.

While Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's "Jamaica Inn" has some interesting features, overall it deserves its reputation as one of the great director's lesser efforts. While it has some good moments and a good performance by Maureen O'Hara, it is rather clunky and often implausible.

The story holds some possibilities. At the beginning, we find out that there is an old inn along the coast of Cornwall, which serves as the meeting place for a gang of criminals, who deliberately cause shipwrecks and then rob and kill the survivors. O'Hara is the niece of the innkeepers, who comes to stay with them and then gradually discovers the inn's sinister secrets. This gives rise to a melodramatic series of chases, escapes, and showdowns in the inn and along the nearby seacoast.

Unfortunately, the pacing is quite irregular and often too slow, and some of the more fast-paced scenes sometimes seem implausible. Just as one example, there are too many times when someone slips away solely because whoever is doing the chasing forgets to look in a rather obvious place. There are also not enough interesting characters. O'Hara is good, and Charles Laughton is entertaining as Sir Humphrey. But Laughton over-plays his role for all it is worth, and he swallows up most of the other characters. There are some pretty good actors in the rest of the cast, who just don't get very much to do.

There are still some interesting developments, and a couple of decent twists. Hitchcock fans will probably still want to see "Jamaica Inn" at least once. But it is hardly one of the director's better films, and not really good enough to be of more general interest.

Even though it is one of the weakest works of Hitchcock, the film surprisingly provides rich cinematic flourishes. For a 1939 film, it captures on screen the atmosphere and dark mood of the novel quite vividly—the stormy scene, the cave, and the inn (with the name board flapping in the wind). It is another matter that the albino parson of the book is transformed into a squire (with an unbelievable eyebrow make-up) in the film who commands his steed to be brought inside his dining hall. Daphne du Maurier's novel was adapted for cinema by the trio of Sidney Gilliat, Joan Harrison and J.B. Priestley, and reportedly the author did not approve of the end-product.

As in many Hitchcock films there is a recurring reference to marriage. Here a good woman remains faithful to her boorish and cruel husband through thick and thin.

As in most Hitchcock films there is a lot of sexual innuendo without any sex on screen, especially when Pengallen (Charles Laughton) makes the young girl (Maureen O'Hara) his prisoner. (The only film where Hitchcock showed sex on screen was "Frenzy.") And as in many a Hitchcock film, a bad guy turns out to be a good guy. This is one of the rare films of Hitchcock where the director does not make a cameo appearance.

The best cinematic flourishes were—-the focus on the thin hands of the 17 year old who cannot be shackled by the soldiers as the handcuffs are too big, the opening "prayer" that serves as a grim introduction and finally the last scene of the film: Chadwick, the squire's butler, who thinks he can hear his dead master calling him for help in death.

While this picture is not one of Hitchcock's more memorable pieces, it is nevertheless well worth a look simply to view the acting genius of Charles Laughton. The man is larger than life as the revolting yet oddly fascinating Sir Humphrey and provides the audience with far more insight into the character than a lesser actor might have done. This is not simply a one-dimensional villain that we are so used to seeing in British movies of this period. In addition to a superb reading of the script, Laughton is clearly ad-libbing in various scenes, further breaking down hitherto scrupulously maintained boundaries between audience and actor. I urge anyone who is weary of today's usual line-up of blockbuster big names to observe a true master at work and wonder where it all went wrong!