Jamaica Inn (1939)

Best movie of this year hands down!

recommended

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

2/4"You can't direct a Laughton picture. The best you can hope for is to referee."-Alfred HitchcockThis certainly rings true for this picture. Laughton owned the production company, funded the movie, and started as the villain. Hitchcock, at this stage, was just an on-call director who only got to carry out his visions to a certain extent.Due to Laughton having all of the power behind the scenes, he over acted as a silly antagonist and inconsistent with the mood of the story. While this played out very tounge-in-cheek, it turned our to be fairly entertaining.Laughton was reportedly so uncooperative with Hitchcock, that he eventually just gave up on the movie. This soiled the movie, as the twist was obvious after 10 minutes and some of the top-billed cast got next to no screen time in the midst of Laughton.After production was finished, Hitchcock left England for Hollywood, making Jamaica Inn his last British film. Whether this was purely coincidental or directly in retaliation to this movie is still unknown. While for Hitchcock, this is a pretty terrible movie, Laughton still entertains as one of early cinema's most memorable villains.

Recently a new Hitchcock's box came out with a complete restoration,among them Jamaica Inn and for first time l watch this Gothic movie....a pleasant time really about the Evil's Inn a hideout gang of smugglers who set a trap for ships that wreck into seaside rocks...they killing all survivors and taken the goods...inside the gang has an spy who hope try find who is the real boss of this barbarous crime...this spy agent played by Robert Newton has a help of newcomer woman ( Maureen O'Hara)who set free before the gang hanging him...they escape and finally arrived into a house of a famous judge played by Laughton...actually a ambiguous character funny and evil...this movie is really interesting and the dark atmosphere complete this artwork...underrated by many,but enjoyable to me besides it's a Hitchcock's movie anyway!!!Resume:First watch: 2017 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5

Alfred Hitchcock's last film of the 1930s, and his last film made in Britain before setting sail across the Atlantic, is this blustery Daphne Du Maurier adaptation about a very dangerous corner of Cornwall in the 19th century. Somewhere in Bodmin Moor is Jamaica Inn, a rural pub which houses a gang of vagabonds, who regularly head down to the coast to raid ships that wreck on the rocks. Crew killed, the spoils are stolen. The gang is fed information from above – namely, a very corrupt Justice of the Peace named Sir Humphrey Pengallon (Charles Laughton). One stormy day (they're all stormy around here), Mary Yellen (a very youthful Maureen O'Hara) arrives in search of her aunt, Patience (Marie Ney). Patience is married to Joss (Leslie Banks), who happens to be the leader of the Jamaica Inn gang. Mary, in the right place at the wrong time, ends up saving the life of a gangster named Traherne (Robert Newton).So, Mary and Traherne are on the run, while they try to uncover the identity of the big boss running the wrecker operation. In classic Hitchcock style, they are oblivious to Pengallon's secret, while we the audience are aware – and here Laughton excels, charming and disarming with his avuncular cheerfulness. Can they pull back the curtain before Pengallon and his crew are able to draw another ship to the rocks?The central problem with the plot is that it hinges upon the ignorance of possibly the dumbest and most naive law officer in the entire Cornish peninsula. How he cannot see the guilt of Pengallon, despite him being the only man with the connections and opportunity to pull off such an enterprise, is the film's greatest mystery. And that's before he's stumbling into a room full of fearless pirates, who've already tried to kill him once, armed only with a single-shot pistol.But still, these facepalm moments come later. What's apparent from the start is the beauty of the production design. Whether it's the intricate modelwork or the bold, crooked sets, the sense of location (without actual location shooting) is atmospheric and immersive; and the very unreal nature of those elements is typically Hitchcockian, creating a claustrophobic sense of dreamlike theatre.The performances are quite variable. O'Hara is fine, essentially an entity whose sole function is to propel the plot – although she does get one moment of bona fide bravery later on. The gang members are fun as an ensemble. I couldn't help thinking of Mad Max in their self-pantomiming posturing and the alpha disputes constantly threatening to tear their chaotic brotherhood apart. Of course, the real deal is Pengallon. He's the mythic crazy capitalist: the top dog who takes none of the risks but all of the spoils, driven by a scary belief in the hierarchy of men. Laughton's consummate skill means Pengallon's gentlemanly malevolence is revealed gradually, until we realise once and for all that he'll never find humanity because the world is all objects to him, not people. Even in his demise he gets the last hurrah.Jamaica Inn isn't top drawer Hitchcock, but even middling Hitchcock is better than most filmmaking. It's fun and fast-moving – an action movie, at bottom – and features a massive performance at its heart from one of cinema's great actors. Brace for its sillier elements and it is ideal for a wet and windy Sunday afternoon.

If you read one of Hitchcock's biographies (or just the Truffaut interview in that book), the director didn't really care for or have a particularly great time making Jamaica Inn, an adaptation of Dapne Du Maurier's novel - albeit he might have made it in part to cozy up to Du Marier/her estate in order to make Rebecca, so in short it was worth it though - and it doesn't appear to be like that many other films he's made. It has some suspense but not in a way that seems as tightly calibrated in the mis-en-scene or in the pacing. And yet I probably enjoyed it more than many, in large part because it does become more interesting the more it goes on, and the identity of Charles Laughton's character to people around him (the Robert Newton character especially, an undercover officer basically) gets slippier.Supposedly the book was very different (Laughton's character was totally different), and of course this being Laughton he gets a full course of ham with his major-school villain. His whole thing is that he appears to be a sophisticated dandy, a high-society guy (or rather a wannabe deep down), and he gets his money by having a group of on-shore pirates arrange (somehow) to get ships ship-wrecked and then the gang goes to vandalize and take whatever loot is theirs. His usual plans get in some trouble when the niece of his main underling Joss (the late, achingly beautiful Maureen O'Hara in one of her first roles), and she starts to notice some funny things going on at this Inn she is told not to go to (initially, anyway).This is kind of a cat-and-mouse game and a story of an undercover cop (it's a period piece so he's not called that, but basically that's what he is), and the sort of damsel-in-distress caught in the middle. I'm glad O'Hara was cast in the film; I don't know if Hitchcock had the say or Laughton as producer, but she is really excellent at making Mary never seem like a victim, even when she gets tied up or bound/gagged. She looks like she can (and does) hold her own, and how she gets away from this gang at times, like on a rocky coast-line, is rather creative to see. She helps to make up the sort of serious, emotional backbone of the movie.Meanwhile, if you want a full load of Laughton, this is a good place to get it. I'm not even sure he's particularly *good* in the role, as far as selling me early on some of his line readings and such. But he really gets to have fun playing this duplicitous role of this uptight, foppish aristocrat (the kind that loves to get angry at his butler, see the scene at the top of the staircase where he knocks over a bunch of papers flying about), and then the brains of a criminal operation. As far as giving the audience a truly memorable, meaty, unapologetic and yet rather human villain, there's a lot to enjoy with him in the role, especially when he has to obfuscate who he is to the Robert Newton character (see his face when the man pulls out his badge/paper saying who he really is, it's a priceless piece of hammy acting).I can see why this is not looked at as one of the films people return to over and over again with Hitchcock, much less one of his better British films. It probably isn't - it's no 39 Steps or Sabotage or Lady Vanishes, and I might even like Man Who Knew Too Much a bit more - but for what it is, a thriller with lots of 'who IS this person' logic and the theme of trust being thrown about a lot, it succeeds. I liked that there was a relatively serious back-drop, with Mary's aunt being stead-fastly supportive of her husband Joss, even after she is told point blank that he is a criminal (she has to stay by her man and all, he's not all THAT bad, you know, despite how friggin dastardly and cunning Leslie Banks makes this character). And it all leads up to an actually intense climax on a ship that is about to pull away from port.So in short, its not something great overall, some of its predictable and the opening ship effects haven't dated well. But it is nothing short of fascinating to see Hitchcock work with a more conventional thriller that gets better the more the character dynamics get twisted with Laughton trying to hide who he is (sometimes in front of his own gang!)