Product Description

Among his wide range of skills, Hitchcock had an ability to spot raw talent. This was precisely the case with Maureen O'Hara, who plays an orphan girl living on the rugged coast of Ireland. After several vessels smash on the deadly rocks, she begins to suspect it's more than accidental.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46537 in DVD
• Brand: Kino Video
• Released on: 2003-09-02
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
In Jamaica Inn--a rip-roaring melodrama drawn from a Daphne du Maurier potboiler set in 1820s Cornwall--an innocent young orphan (the 19-year-old Maureen O'Hara in her first starring role) arrives at her uncle's remote Cornish inn to find it a den of reprobates given to smuggling, wrecking, and gross overacting. They're all out-hammed, though, by Charles Laughton at his most corseted and outrageously self-indulgent as the local squire to whom O'Hara runs for help. Since his star was also the coproducer, Alfred Hitchcock couldn't do much with the temperamental actor. He contented himself with adding a few characteristic touches--including a spot of bondage (always a Hitchcock favorite)--and slyly sending up the melodramatic absurdities of the plot. Jamaica Inn hardly stands high in the Master's canon, but it trundles along divertingly enough. Hitchcock fanatics will have fun comparing it with his two subsequent--and far more accomplished--du Maurier adaptations, Rebecca and The Birds. --Philip Kemp

Customer Reviews

Very poor picture and sound
Warning!this is the laserlight version and is cheaply made with very poor sound and a very poor picture.It certainly is NOT "mastered from the best available sources".In fact this version is shorter than the other available one,suggesting that the print it was copied from must have been cut due to a degraded print.The "introductions" by Tony Curtis to the laserlight copies look as if they were all filmed in one morning.Get the other version.

Missing links
It's a shame the quality of this video is poor. The movie is fascinating. The sound quality, however, is so variable that much of the dialogue vanishes. One key transition scene is missing entirely. Maureen O'Hara is seen dripping wet in her "chemise" in one scene, then the picture freezes and she is transported, without explanation and fully clothed, to Jamaica Inn. There must be a better print of this movie.

Laughton & Hitchcock are a winning team
Charles Laughton is delicious in this classic Hitchcock thriller as the stuffy, regal Humphrey Pengallan, a psychotic country squire who decides the best way to meet the high costs of royal life is to indulge his immodest talents as a criminal mastermind. Unbeknownst to his friends and peers, Lord Pengallan has assembled a grimy band of cutthroat thieves which he secretly directs to wreck and loot merchant ships on the rocky Cornwall coast. He is of course thwarted by plucky newcomer Maureen O'Hara and her goodlooking beau, an undercover policeman whose cover is blown after one of their heists seems a bit light. Some Hitchcock fans apparently find this film less than satisfying, but it's as classy and as offbeat as any he's made; perhaps it's because the film is a period drama that folks are thrown off track. At any rate, this is vintage Hitchcock, and the character acting is typically impressive, particularly Emlyn Williams as Harry, the most menacing of the pirate crew... his is one of the most sinister screen villains you're likely to see. Laughton, of course, brings his tremendous range to bear, appearing at first as an overbearing aristocratic boor, then modifies himself to become in turns magnanimous, ruthless and finally so homicidally crazed and delusory that he takes on an almost pathetic air. And O'Hara, in her screen debut is both beautiful and full of pluck -- no helpless female here, as she stops the brigands almost single-handedly. An offbeat film, and definitely worth checking out.