Film Review
The last film that Alfred Hitchcock directed in England before moving
on to bigger and better things in the United States was this creaking
adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's novel
Jamaica Inn.
It is by no means regarded as one of Hitchcock's better film from this period - the
pace is uneven and the exterior sets are far from convincing - but it
has a certain charm and novelty value in that it is one of the
director's few period dramas. Du Maurier loathed the film,
which bears only a passing resemblance to her Gothic masterpiece, although Hitchcock would
quickly redeem himself in her eyes with his next film, his masterful
adaptation of the same author's
Rebecca.
If
Jamaica Inn lacks the
Hitchcock touch, this is partly down to the director's bad working
relationship with his lead actor, Charles Laughton, during the making
of the film.
Laughton was also the film's producer and it was at
his insistence that the screenplay be rewritten to give his character a
much greater part in the story (thereby destroying much of the atmosphere, tension
and dramatic focus of Du Maurier's original novel). Hitchcock was unimpressed by
Laughton's excessively camp portrayal of Pengallan, which shows the
actor offloading enough ham to supply at least five national chains of
delicatessens. The film's lead actress Maureen O'Hara
would accompany Laughton to Hollywood for their next film, in which she
played Esmeralda to his Quasimodo in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1939).
Jamaica Inn
marks a disappointingly lacklustre end to Hitchcock's
British period, and it betrays not the slightest hint of
the great cinematic achievements that were to follow.
© James Travers 2008
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Next Alfred Hitchcock film:
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Film Synopsis
After the death of her mother, a young Irish girl named Mary Yellen
travels to England to stay with her aunt Patience, who lives at an inn
in Cornwall. Little does she know that Jamaica Inn is the
meeting place for a band of ruthless ship wreckers, led by Mary's Uncle
Joss. When she sees the wreckers about to lynch one of their
group, a man named Trehearne, Mary risks her own neck to save
his. The two escape and head for the local squire and magistrate,
Sir Humphrey Pengallan, to report what they have discovered. Unfortunately for
them, Pengallan is not only in league with the wreckers, he is also
their mastermind...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.