Even though these people keep returning like a bad smell congrats to Ciao for a job well done on qui...
Even though these people keep returning like a bad smell congrats to Ciao for a job well done on quickly banning cheating members! BUT the rest of the site is just a nightmare - new layout is terrible & extremely problematic!
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Jamaica Inn was Alfred Hitchcock’s last film he directed in the UK before leaving us for the US and it seems his mind wasn’t really in it as you might be able to tell from my review below. The film was an adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel (which had the same name) and starred Maureen O’Hara, Charles Laughton, Robert Newton, Leslie Banks and Marie Ney.
In the 1800s Bodmin Moor in Cornwall was rife with smugglers, Jamaica Inn was famous for being a base for smugglers and smugglers would deliberately lure ships in order to wreck them so they could plunder them for the goods on board. This film is set in a time before British Coast Guards existed.
Mary (O’Hara) turns up at the home and inn of her aunt Patience (Ney), Jamaica Inn as she has been orphaned. Patience is married to the brutish Joss (Banks) who is not happy to see Mary. To Mary’s dismay she finds out pretty quickly that her uncle Joss is a smuggler and is running a smuggling ring from the back of the inn but she is unaware that her uncle is not the chief smuggler. On her journey to her aunt’s home she had come across Sir Pengallon, a local squire, who is actually the recipient of most of the booty from the sale of the smuggled goods, who is quite taken with her. Mary manages to save the life of Traherne (Newton) who is left for dead by the smugglers gang as they think he is the one who’s taking more than his fair share of the booty. Unknown to them all, he’s actually an official inside man planted in order to investigate the forced ship wrecks and bring the smugglers
to justice. Sir Pengallon is not one to be trifled with and now he has set his eyes on Mary, he wants her for himself at all costs.
Will the squire get the girl? Will Traherne be able to report the smugglers without losing his life? Will Mary be able to escape the lustful intentions of both the squire and her aunt’s creepy husband Joss?
Being generally a fan of all things Hitchcock, I hadn’t heard much about this film before I watched it. To be perfectly honest, I should have read some reviews about it before purchasing it to add to my collection but the DVD was so cheap that I thought I’d just buy it and watch it and make up my own mind about it.
The character of Mary is supposed to be in her early 20s when she arrives to live with her aunt completely unannounced. The behaviour of her “uncle” Joss towards her is quite vulgar and one wonders why a wife would put up with her husband being so lustful towards her own niece. They say love is blind and well, this was another era, so one can I suppose ignore that part of the story not being credible. Maureen O’Hara, as Mary, goes through the film getting from one scrape into another and spends much of her time in less than full attire but still managing to be clothed from neck to toe albeit in soaking wet underclothes which made me chuckle. O’Hara looked stunning throughout the film but her acting was not really something to write home about. I found her scenes to be rather wooden although it felt as if this was a direction fault and not a fault of the actress herself. Honestly, I cringed at pretty much all of the acting skills of the main characters as well as of the supporting actors.
Charles Laughton was one of the producers of the film and apparently he demanded a bigger part than was originally planned which as far as I’m concerned was of detriment to the film as I felt his acting was the worst of them all. He initially plays the local squire who is also the law of the area somewhat pompously but we see his true colours very soon afterwards when he starts acting the villain – none of this acting was convincing though and I just found him thoroughly irritating in every scene he appeared in which ended up being far too many. When he goes into villain mode you just have to laugh at him. He comes across as a stark raving lunatic and although it wasn’t supposed to be comical (or at least I seriously doubt it was supposed to be), I found myself roaring with laughter at his escapades in the latter part of the film. I have to add that the image of Charles Laughton on my DVD cover with his big apple like cheeks is almost cartoon character-ish – this is exactly how he seems in the film.
Newton looked pleasant enough as the “hero” but he didn’t really have much screen time to prove his worth. His character comes across as charming and cheeky but as I said earlier I found myself also cringing at his acting and dialogue delivery from start to finish. Leslie Banks and Marie Ney were just not convincing as a married couple and Ney’s devotion to her smuggler husband is just ridiculous as she comes across as more of a religious nun type than a devoted wife who’ll stop at nothing to let her husband get away with murder. Some of the smugglers were slightly more convincing in their roles than the main characters, especially in a scene where they complain about their ill gotten gains not being enough to feed their families and one smuggler who is quite a young teenager who fears for his life if they get caught. When you think about their plight and then see the local squire keeping most of the money from the ship wrecks you see how the rich control the poor and think really how little times have changed overall. Ok so I might be getting carried away here comparing smugglers with big corporate raking in the big bucks and paying their hard working staff low wages in return, but I’m trying to find something positive to come out of the film for me and if that’s making comparisons between the way the rich and poor behaved 200 years ago and now, please forgive me!
Jamaica Inn is definitely not Hitchcock’s finest hour by any stretch of the imagination. I’d go as far as to say that this is the worst Hitchcock film I’ve seen and I’ve seen quite a few. I found the music in the film quite intrusive and it could certainly have done with being toned down a few notches. All in all I would give the film a weak 4 out of 10 and not recommend it unless you’re a diehard Hitchcock fan and have to see everything he was ever involved in!
TECHNICAL STUFF: Film released in 1939 Run time is 98 minutes Screenplay by Sidney Gilliat and Joan Harrison Music by Eric Fenby Format – black and white DVD release date: various versions 2000 and after
Pictures of Jamaica Inn (DVD)
Poster of Jamaica Inn
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Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
It's generally acknowledged that the Master of Suspense disliked costume dramas andJamaica ... more
Inn--a rip-roaring melodrama drawn from a Daphne du Maurier pot-boiler, set in 1820s Cornwall--is about as costumed as they come. So what was he doing directing ...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
It's generally acknowledged that the Master of Suspense disliked costume dramas andJamaica ... more
Inn--a rip-roaring melodrama drawn from a Daphne du Maurier pot-boiler, set in 1820s Cornwall--is about as costumed as they come. So what was he doing directing ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
![Jamaica Inn [DVD] [1939]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78521227.jpg "Jamaica Inn [DVD] [1939]")
![Jamaica Inn [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/83042330.jpg "Jamaica Inn [DVD]")
Mar 10th, 2009
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