Jamaica Inn

Marie Ney has the advantage over Robert Newton and Charles Laughton in Jamaica Inn

Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn, from 1939, is one of his lesser works, but I still found some felicities amidst the dubious suspense and hackneyed melodrama. This Daphne du Maurier adaptation would surely seem to be in Hitchcock's wheelhouse, but the script was bowdlerized before filming. The villain, played in supreme Smithfield fashion by Charles Laughton, was changed from a vicar to a magistrate to avoid the wrath of the Church of England. This and other changes to the scenario give it a jumbled and toothless feel. Much of the vinegar of du Maurier's prose was lost. What was left feels like a hollow repeat of the young lovers in peril trope of The 39 Steps. Not surprisingly, Hitchcock and Laughton did not get along and the shoot was an unpleasant experience. The film lacks the relish one finds in Hitchcock's better films. The film is a chore.

Still, there is delight to be found in the characterizations, if not the narrative. Leslie Banks and Marie Ney are striking as the proprietors of the titular inn, a front for smugglers. The pair serve as another Hitchcock portrait of an unhappy marriage. The director plays up the S and M nature of the relationship, both sadomasochistic and servant and master. Emlyn Williams is a delight as a scuzzy brigand. It is interesting to see Robert Newton as a romantic lead. He is serviceable, but, in retrospect seems more suited for villainy. His romantic partner in the film, Maureen O'Hara, is near perfect. Hitchcock captures her peculiar combination of tremulousness and grit. Ms. O'Hara's memoir 'Tis Herself is a bit cuckoo, but worth a read. Laughton's performance is the type that would overshadow most films, as Orson Welles did in his paycheck roles, but here his fussiness and tics throw the film off. He dominates the film instead of supporting it. Still, Hitchcock turns him into an appropriately loathsome embodiment of avarice.

Jamaica Inn is a lesser film by a master. A better treatment of similar material is Moonfleet, directed by Fritz Lang, once Hitchcock's primary influence and, eventually, his filmic twin of nightmare cinema.