What did you rate ''Jamaica Inn'' (1939)?

6/10

definitely not one of Hitchcock's best

When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...

7/10 GOOD.

Doctor Mabuse, Evil Genius, King of Crime

I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. It has interesting plot twists and turns along with suspense and action.

Some of the more regrettable things:
-the hiding in plain sight scenes are so unbelievable
-that nobody can guess who is behind everything is preposterous
-the Laughton character shoots someone to keep them from telling Maureen O'Hara his identity and a second later walks into the room to reveal his identity -- wtf?
-it's so obvious when the boats are models, and there are too many waves crashing over the boat scenes anyway
-the sound quality and accents are difficult and in an unfortunate chicken-and-egg problem, there are not subtitles to help

7/10. Enjoyed it.

7/10. Enjoyed it.

4/10. It wasn't awful but it certainly wasn't a good film.

7/10. It's a fun film to watch.

Regarding "Jamaica Inn", I set my expectations very high, and the opening was the omen of a thrilling spectacle from the heart pounding wreck scene in the Cornish coast, to the gang of wreckers who live no survivors. And during the first act, the titular place was efficiently preceded by an aura of obscure terror: the carriage driver refuses to stop at the inn, knowing it was the headquarters of a non recommendable group, and leaves Mary, the mysterious stranger from Ireland, a few miles away from her destination, well, at that point, I thought the place would play some role à la Manderlay from "Rebecca", a sort of claustrophobic place where any false move or any indiscretion can immediately switch to a life-and-death situation

Unfortunately, "Jamaica Inn" is in the best case an interesting adventure story with a great villain, except that this greatness cancels out the other characters' chances to make the story absorbing or memorable, so if it wasn't for Laughton, the film would have been worse... or maybe better. I don't know. What I know though is that it's very difficult to have an objective opinion of the film because it is so unknown that only a fan of Hitchcock would be curious enough to discover it, but only a Hitch fan will be biased enough to try to like it, although it doesn't shine as his best work. Somewhat it reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Marge's painting teacher is impressed by her work and compliments her, but then he sees a banal sign painter and says "another triumph!".

Now, Hitchcock have made so many masterpieces, maybe more than any director with the exception of Kurosawa, that we're ready to find signs of greatness or of his suspense-instinct to come in every of his early films, but that mindset isn't really fair toward other directors whose work would be immediately dismissed if it was in the same vein than "Jamaica Inn". I'm not saying the film is bad, but it's not holding up very well, not by Hitchcock standards, and not by the standards of 1939, which wasn't the least significant year for film-making. And not to use it as a convenient alibi but didn't Hitch himself disown the film, claiming it looked absurd? Wasn't Daphne Du Maurier so displeased that she almost considered withholding her rights for "Rebecca"? Speaking of "Rebecca", Hitch would finally redeem himself by making a stronger and more impressive picture, one that would win the Best Picture Oscar. And despite the one-year lapse, you really feel like there was a whole decade of technical improvement between "Rebecca" and "Jamaica Inn".

Indeed, when I was watching "Jamaica Inn", I didn't feel like Hitch put all his spirit into the project, as if he had let some intern or replacement direct the film... which actually, isn't far from the truth. I just read on Wikipedia that Laughton wanted a bigger screen time and indirectly forced Hitchcock to reveal earlier in the film that the debonair and suave squire he played was the mastermind behind the engineered shipwrecks, and yes, this is one of the most blatant missed opportunities, because it would have made for one hell of a middle plot twist and would have kept a shadow of mystery on the character of Pengallan, Hitch wasn't too hot about Laughton's mannerisms because they gave away his vileness, not to mention these horrific and distracting eyebrows. No disrespect toward Laughton but a subtler performance would have served the film instead of depriving it from the one mystery that could have maintained a bit of suspense. So yes, this is not even a Hitchcock film we're to judge, but a Charles Laughton's film.

I suspect Laughton wanted to steal the show and pull a "Captain Bligh" in his acting, as his continuous "Chadwick!" (his imperious calls for the poor butler) had the same resonance than "Mr. Christian!" in "Mutiny on the Bounty", and to some extent, it manages to elevate the film to a sort of cult-like guilty pleasure, but Laughton took the lion share of one-liners and memorable moments, so that when you have Maureen O'Hara and Robert Newton, instead of acting like leading characters, they're just the foils to Laughton's Pengallan. Imagine, she's the naive niece from Ireland who discovers the activities of her aunt's husband, and he's the undercover man who must find the mastermind, but we are so ahead that when they discover the truths, there is no surprising effect whatsoever, worse, the truth doesn't even come from a sign, a scar, a message, anything... Hitch loved signs and rarely indulged to on-the-nose dialogues, but in the case of "Jamaica Inn", revelations are made through straightforward narration, without any form of emotional reward.

(And even when comes the biggest shocker, when the aunt is about to give the name of Pengallan, she's shot dead, by -guess who?- Pengallan himself. Hitch wasn't always the most subtle director, but he rarely challenged logic in his work, that he let such a thing happen in the film proves that he didn't care much and just let Laughton makes his show. Again, a Laughton's film.)

The film succeeds in providing the right period atmosphere of the early 18th century, and the action sequences are well-handled, but Hitch was no newcomer at the time and that technical quality was expected from his work, the element where he had to shine was the storytelling, something that relies on the script, the editing, the directing, and there was so much good material to explore: the relationships between Joss (Leslie Banks) and his wife, the identity of Traheme, since Pengallan was already revealed as the villain, the character of Mary deserved more development, but Maureen O'Hara is extraordinarily uninteresting, I mean, even the wreckers had better lines. So overall, "Jamaica Inn" is a disappointingly conventional movie, that throw overboard the only aspects of the plot that could carry some suspenseful elements, and can only provide thrills that consist on running away from the bad guys, big deal.

The best thing about the film though was its climax, with that grotesque sight of Laughton climbing to the top of a mast, and finally jumps to his death, as if the story was deliberately embracing its own zaniness for the sake of making an impact on the audience -let's just wreck the whole thing and have fun with it- and maybe it's the ending that redeems the film, a little. But such a literally over-the-top death would have been the perfect demise for a larger-than-life villain, and he was larger-than-life, that he dwarfed all the other characters and didn't leave us much to enjoy, as if he himself extinguished the beacon that could have guided Hitchcock's toward a better form of storytelling. So, yeah, this is one of the most memorable Laughton's movies, but a pretty forgettable Hitchcock's film.

At least, his honor is maintained, and the fans can give the film a 5 or a 6 without feeling too guilty about it.

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