Courrier pour la Jamaïque

This film was not favored with a notably munificent budget but cinematographer Lionel Lindon's work, using the Technicolor process that may still have been three-strip (around the time the transition was being made to a single strip negative), camouflaged that fact quite well, principally aided by the ravishing red-headed beauty of Miss Arlene Dahl. The whole enterprise looked very studio-bound - no location work in the Caribbean here - and the pulpy plot didn't give the cast of professionals, including leading man Ray Milland, much to work with. But, oh my!, Miss Dahl is such a lovely camera subject. It does not appear to be available on video and I can't recall seeing it scheduled on a TV broadcast after I caught it as a supporting feature at the neighborhood Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades, California, after its initial run.

This film from Lewis R Foster is the pure example of what Paramount Pictures offered us during the fifties in terms of adventure films. He and Edward Ludwig were the best in that domain. Forget the story, only focus on the settings, locations or studio lots, music, atmosphere, color, photography and the fabulous beauty of those actresses: here Arlene Dahl, and it could have been Rhonda Fleming...Universal had Maureen O'Hara. So, each time I see this film, I totally skip the plot, and always forget it, because I am too much enchanted by this pure magical spirit from the fifties. A forever lost kind of movies. And Ray Milland in the underwater scene, as a diver, is - I suppose - a tribute to him in a similar scene for the movie REAP THE WHIRLWIND. Also for Paramount Studios.

While "Jamaica Run" has got a few problems, on balance, it's a very good picture and one worth your time. Currently, it's available streaming from Netflix, though the copy isn't great due to film degradation. I'd love to see the film after some sort of color restoration.

The film begins with a guy (Patric Knowles) approaching the Dacey family in Jamaica to buy their plantation. However, it's been in the family for generations and they aren't interested in selling. A bit later, he returns and here is where the plot gets weird. He brings along two distant relatives of the Dacey's and a diver (Ray Milland). Why? Because more than a hundred years earlier, relatives were in the process of buying the plantation and no one was sure if the deal was completed or not. This is because the two branches of the family (those buying and those selling) had met on a ship that subsequently sank--and no one survived to tell whether money had changed hands or the contract signed. Now, Knowles' character proposes to have his diver explore a ship wreck to see if proof can be obtained. Not surprisingly, with so much at stake, it's not surprisingly when a murder occurs. But who is responsible? And, what happens when a treasure chest IS found? The film has some decent acting but in particular, I liked the script. This is because although the plot WAS complicated and strange, it had lots of twists and surprises. I particularly liked the ending--now THAT was a big shock. Apart from one or two minor quibbles (such as the romance involving Wendell Corey's character--it just happened too fast to be realistic as well as WHY would a servant be called 'Human'--what sort of name is that?!), the film is a dandy adventure that is well worth seeing.

Jamaica Run has come down to us as the film where Errol Flynn's estate was used as a location. From the looks of it, Errol lived pretty well, but he was getting money from Paramount to film there because the IRS was on his case pretty bad. It's the closest Flynn ever got to doing a film at the white mountain studio.

Not that a lot of his films were doing good at this time, but Flynn missed nothing real special with Jamaica Run. Ray Milland stars as a charter boat captain who once tried to marry into the Dacey clan who own a large plantation that is going to wrack and ruin. Mother Carroll McComas sits and drinks and reminisces about the good old days when her husband was alive. Her son Wendell Corey just takes after mother and has become a true wastrel. Only Arlene Dahl who literally and figuratively wear's the pants in the family keeps the place earning some kind of income. She and Milland were once and item, but mother and brother helped kill that.

Now Milland is bringing Patric Knowles who is a developer and wants the Dacey property for a resort. They won't sell, but Knowles digs up some cousins who say they are the real owners of the place and the proof is in an old wreck at the bottom of their harbor. Milland who is also a diver goes to find it. In the meantime Corey starts wooing Laura Elliot who is a kissing cousin in case the claims decision goes bad for the family. The other cousin, Michael Moore, is killed and the body found when Milland makes one of his dives.

Some truly abrupt changes in character during the story renders it almost incoherent toward the end. And the end is truly melodramatic and over the top.

Not a terrible film, Jamaica Run is never going to be in the top ten for any of the principal players.

Cargo ship owner Pat Fairlie (Ray Milland) loves Ena Dacey (Arlene Dahl), but her unconventional mother (Carroll McComas) and supercilious brother, Todd (Wendell Corey), don't approve of their relationship.

Real estate developer William Montague (Patric Knowles) engages Pat to help prove that the Daceys are not the rightful owners of their sumptuous Jamaican coastal estate, which he claims actually belongs to his clients, siblings Janice (Laura Elliott) and Robert Clayton (Michael Moore).

The conflict between promoter William Montague and the Dacey family over their estate for a resort hotel project leads to murder, a modicum of plot twists, good scenery and suspense - oddball family, mystery, drama and a treasure hunt is found in Jamaica Run, and it's quite engaging and fun, especially with some barmy characters like Mother Dacey in tow. The milieu of genre tropes is done very well, reassuring the plot changes and hence keeps your interest.

I thought it would be just a routine adventure/family conflict yarn but it turned out to be anything but that. Great performances around and the drama is good - maybe, the underwater scenes should've been lengthier, more suspenseful, but I guess it would mean a bigger budget.