Movie Review – Jamaica Inn

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Spoiler alerts - 1939 Daphne Du Maurier wrote the novel Jamaica Inn while staying in the real pub of that name in Bodmin Moor, Cornwall. Thanks to the success of the book and this Hitchcock movie, the pub is still a major Cornish tourist attraction to this day. I have yet to visit it though. The 18th century set story features Maureen O’Hara in her first ever film, visiting her only surviving relative after the death of her mother. The inn proves to be a literal den of thieves, or more specifically smugglers. The men set false lights to lure ships onto the rocks, kill the crews and plunder the cargos. The shipwreck scenes feature the most pathetic toy boats ever commited to celluloid. O’Hara arrives in time to save a man from hanging by the thugs. He (Robert Newton) proves to be an undercover government inspector. Together he and she try to warn the local lord of the manor, played by Charles Laughton stupidly oblivious that he is he so blatantly obviously the ring-leader of the entire criminal enterprise. They must now escape him, stop the next wrecking, and alert the real authorities. Laughton was given second directorship status by Hitchcock, who was planning his move to the US (this was his last British movie for over a decade) and Laughton, given free reign, largely hijacked the film, beefing up his own role, and giving away many plot twists way too early in the film. Du Maurier and Hitchcock were both very unhappy about it and the film is regarded as Hitchcock’s worst ever production. It has its moments, the swim escape from the gang, the arrest when the smugglers react in very different ways to their pending execution fates, and the sudden arrival at the end of Laughton’s servants who are so good it makes you wish they were in more of the film. Laughton is fun for all the wrong reasons, especially in his insane and spectacular suicidal final moments, but his rampant egotism stole the film and helped gain Hitchcock some very negative publicity for the first time in his career. The film is regarded as one of the worst ever made though it isn’t that bad – just not as good as it should have been. Arthur Chappell