Hitchcock’s British Films

Jamaica Inn (1939)

Hitchcock’s British period formally ends with the release of Jamaica Inn on May 20, 1939. As a division point, the film seems an arbitrary choice, as Rebecca, his first film for David Selznick in America, is just as English in its cast, source, and setting. Hitchcock returned to England in 1944 to make two short films in French for the Ministry of Education, Bon Voyage and Adventure Malgache, then again in 1949–50 to make Under Capricorn and Stage Fright. In 1972 he returned to London for his adaptation of—paradoxically—Arthur La Bern’s Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leicester Square, released as Frenzy. But Jamaica Inn does formally end the early period of Hitchcock’s career. Sadly, it is not a strong conclusion to his series of witty, thoughtful thrillers. Hitchcock found himself with some time before his American engagement, so he agreed to do Jamaica Inn for Erich Pommer and Charles Laughton,1 their Mayflower Production Company needing a success after the failures of Somerset Maugham’s Vessel of Wrath (a.k.a. The Beachcomber) and Clemence Dane’s St. Martin’s Lane. Jamaica Inn from the beginning fared badly with the critics: The assaults, adventures, shipwrecks and clashes of characters in this film are invigorating rather than suspenseful. They are Jamaica Inn 1939 Hitchcock’s British Films 198 striking in themselves, but have little value as part of accumulative suspense. In other words, this is a penny dreadful, all frightfully shocking on the surface but lacking dramatic unity beneath the spate of action. (Film Weekly, May 20, 1939) Devotees of Hitchcock will find little directional subtlety here, but rather straightforward treatment of meaty material, rousing storm sequences and a shadowy film of sinister corners and bleak coasts, finely photographed by Harry Stradling. (New York Motion Picture Herald, May 27, 1939) But the juicy melodrama fared well at the box office and warranted rerelease in 1944 and 1948. The orphaned Mary Yellen (Maureen O’Hara) comes to stay with her Aunt Patience (Marie Ney) and Uncle Joss Merlin (Leslie Banks) at an inn notorious for mysterious goings-on. Joss heads a ring of varlets who shipwreck vessels on the Cornwall coast, killing the survivors and plundering the wreckage. Lawman Jem Trehearne (Robert Newton , young and slender but already vixen-eyed) infiltrates the gang. Before his true identity is known, Mary saves Jem from being lynched by the gang. The power behind the gang turns out to be the local magistrate, Sir Humphrey Pengallan (Charles Laughton). The gang shoots Joss when he saves Mary from them. Pengallan shoots Aunt Patience before she can name him as the ringleader. Pengallan tries to escape with Mary as his captive, but Jem and the military give chase and arrest his boat. Pengallan leaps from the mast to his death, leaving Mary to Jem. Rare for a Hitchcock film, authorship problems arose from the power wielded by producer Pommer and star Laughton. Clemence Dane based the first screenplay on the popular Daphne du Maurier novel. It was reworked by Hitchcock and Sidney Gilliat. Laughton brought in J. B. Priestley for additional dialogue to plump up his part. Hitchcock had problems with Laughton’s slow pace in character development. Moreover, casting Laughton as the judge changed the film from a whodunit to a suspense film: “It was completely absurd, because logically the judge should have entered the scene only at the 199 Jamaica Inn end of the adventure. He should have carefully avoided the place and made sure he was never seen in the tavern. Therefore it made no sense to cast Charles Laughton in the key role of the justice of the peace. Realising how incongruous it was, I was truly discouraged, but the contract had been signed.”2 The star’s dominance over the director hurt the film.3 But the film remains a Hitchcock. Robber Harry Pedlar (Emlyn Williams), his dandy clothes a parallel to the criminal judge, is identified by his whistling. Both men project a larger presence by their style. The sailors’ helplessness is imaged in the unmanned ship wheel’s erratic spinning. Asides tweak both the torpid aristocracy and the petty lower class. The boy in the gang is eager to be handcuffed. When his wrists are too small for cuffs, he is fit to be tied. As his death nears, the lad dissolves from fright. Typical of a Hitchcock adaptation, he gives Mary a romantic undercover agent and the couple grows from bickering fugitives to lovers. To...