La taverne de la Jamaïque

If it weren't for the cinematography we wouldn't recognize Hitchcock. He must have liked Daphne DuMaurier, using the Birds and Rebecca later. This is just a pretty confusing, pedestrian film, with some great actors. The story is, however, quite bland. It involves the arrival of a beautiful young woman at the evil Jamaica Inn. The inn is the hiding place for a band of pirates who lure ships unto the rocks, murder the crew, and pillage. The head of the organization is Charles Laughton at his pompous, Henry VIII best. He is in control of every scene, overacting and winking at the audience. The young woman is caught up in her trust for this man, and finds herself in his clutches by the end of the movie. The rest of the band, including Robert Newton (A-a-a-r) from Treasure Island are quite photogenic. It's an OK movie but just a little too much to swallow. I had always been curious with it and am investigating the Hitchcock films I had never seen.

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.

Some have ranked Jamaica Inn among the worst of Hitchcock's films, including Hitchcock himself, but I don't think it's that bad. The story is interesting, and I think Maureen O'Hara does a great job as the plucky protagonist, while Charles Laughton holds my attention whenever he's on the screen. I don't understand why this film is so disliked.

Charles Laughton was brilliant as Sir Humphrey Pengallon, a local Cornish squire and Lord of the manor. He led a double life where he is respectable and admired while he is the local mob leader for a gang of local pirates led by Joss who lives with his wife Patience at the Jamaica Inn with a notorious reputation. When Mary, Patience's Irish niece, comes to live with them in Maureen O'Hara's film debut. She is brilliant as Mary. Actually the entire cast is first rate especially Charles Laughton in a masterful performance of such a diabolical character. Marie Ney is perfect as Joss's loving wife. You can see how Alfred Hitchcock's film career evolved from the silents and over the decades. His Jamaica Inn is an absolute classic!

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!