Jamaica Inn (1939) 6.3
In Cornwall, around 1800, a young woman discovers that she's living near a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecks for profit. Director:Alfred Hitchcock |
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Jamaica Inn (1939) 6.3
In Cornwall, around 1800, a young woman discovers that she's living near a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecks for profit. Director:Alfred Hitchcock |
|
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Charles Laughton | ... | ||
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Horace Hodges | ... |
His Butler
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Hay Petrie | ... |
His Groom
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Frederick Piper | ... |
His Agent
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Herbert Lomas | ... |
His Tenant
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Clare Greet | ... |
His Tenant
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William Devlin | ... |
His Tenant
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Jeanne De Casalis | ... |
His Friend
(as Jeanne de Casalis)
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Mabel Terry-Lewis | ... |
His Friend
(as Mabel Terry Lewis)
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A. Bromley Davenport | ... |
His Friend
(as Bromley Davenport)
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George Curzon | ... |
His Friend
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Basil Radford | ... |
His Friend
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Leslie Banks | ... | |
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Marie Ney | ... |
Patience - His Wife
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| Maureen O'Hara | ... |
Mary - His Niece
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Set in Cornwall where a young orphan, Mary, is sent to live with Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss who are the landlords of the Jamaica Inn. Mary soon realizes that her uncle's inn is the base of a gang of ship wreckers who lure ships to their doom on the rocky coast. The girl starts fearing for her life. Written by Claudio Sandrini <pulp99@geocities.com>
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.