In 1821 spirited orphan Mary Yellan goes to live with her aunt Patience at the remote Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor, run by Patience's forbidding husband Joss. Since her father was killed by smugglers Mary is not happy to discover that Joss has made the inn the meeting point for a local smuggling gang. Joss's younger brother Jem gives Mary a horse and, although Jem warns Joss to suspend activities because a new magistrate is clamping down on smugglers, Joss ignores him and some of his men are caught. Mary reluctantly helps the gang to clear contraband from the beach before the revenue men can discover it and later sees Joss apparently kill the man who betrayed the smugglers. She is about to go to the law but falls into a bog on the moor, from which she is rescued by Jem.
—don @ minifie-1