"Jamaica Inn" (1939) is remarkable in many ways as almost every movie directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock. It was the last movie he directed in England before he moved to Hollywood. It was his first screen adaptation of the book by Daphne Du Maurier - his next movie, the Oscar winning "Rebecca" is also based on Du Maurier's novel as well as the later "The Birds" (1963). "Jamaica Inn" introduced 18 years old Maureen O'Hara in her first starring role as Mary, a young orphan girl who arrives to stay with her aunt at the inn located at England's Cornish coast around 1820 to quickly find out that the inn is a headquarters of the of the pirate band. Finally, "Jamaica Inn" was the first collaboration of two cinema giants, Alfred Hitchcock and Charles Laughton. While "Jamaica Inn" may be not the best or most memorable Hitchcock's film, nobody would argue that Laughton, a performer of an incredible range stole the movie as Sir Humphrey Pengallon in the performance that mixes "elegant grossness, gallant and sardonic, pure madness, and certain grandeur to his defiance".
6.5/10
6.5/10