Film 36/52: Jamaica Inn (1939)

While I absolutely love a number of Alfred Hitchcock's films (Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, North by Northwest), there are still quite a few in his filmography that I have yet to see (particularly those from the 40s and earlier). I recently saw a promo for the restoration of Jamaica Inn, a film that I had in the library as part of a DVD collection of his British films (which I knew wasn't a top of the line transfers), so I decided to jump on the Blu Ray when I found an inexpensive copy for sale. As it was a recent acquisition, this series was the perfect opportunity to screen it.

Based on a Daphne Du Maurier novel (Hitchcock would later adapt another of her novels, Rebecca, and her short story which inspired The Birds), Jamaica Inn is the story of a gang of criminals who lead ships to crash off the cost of Cornwall, and then kill the surviving crew and collect their booty. Charles Laughton's Pengallan is the justice of the peace (and the criminal mastermind behind the gang). The film features Maureen O'Hara in her first major role (my first exposure to her was seeing The Quiet Man theatrically earlier this year), as Mary, the niece of the innkeeper who leads the gang. Needless to say, she gets mixed up in the events going on at Jamaica Inn and finds her life on the line. The gang is comprised of a number of colorful characters with unique personalities, and Leslie Banks, who plays Mary's uncle, portrayed Count Zaroff opposite Fay Wray in The Most Dangerous Game.

The film has some fun model photography for 1939 (of course not on par with 1980's Raise the Titanic), and some effective shots onboard the ships shot on a soundstage. While Jamaica Inn didn't break into my top tier of Hitchcock's films, we did find it entertaining, and the transfer on the Blu Ray looks fantastic on the big screen. Glad to have made the time for it as part of our 52 Pick-Up series, and I can definitely see myself revisiting this one again in the future. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Film 7/52: The Green Slime (1968)

Image
We've been singing The Green Slime theme song around The Slaughtered Lamb since first considering this as our 'G' entry in the 52 Pick-Up (if you've got an Amazon Echo, ask Alexa to play "The Green Slime"). That may have been one of the reasons why Vonna ultimately decided she could sit this one out, so I was left to face the green slime all on my own. I had a vague awareness that the film was a Japanese co-production, but I wasn't aware that it featured no Japanese actors in the cast! It does have the hallmarks of my favorite Japanese sci-fi films of the era, including cool (if not convincingly filmed) miniature ships and sets, and rubber men-in-suit monsters. Years later, director Kinji Fukasaku would go on to direct the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series (which I have yet to see), and his final film was the very influential adaptation of the novel  Battle Royale . The Green Slime setup is this — an asteroid (Flora) is on a collision course wi...
Read more

Film 3/52: The Collector (1965)

Image
The Collector  is a fairly recent addition to the library, and a film I've been interested in seeing for some time, so it was an ideal selection for my 52 Pick-Up series. Based on the John Fowles novel, but promoted as 'William Wyler's  The Collector ,' it's safe to say that it's  not what you might expect  from the director of Ben-Hur .  Terence Stamp plays a socially inept entomologist, Frederick, who decides to add a young woman who he's long been infatuated with, Miranda (portrayed by Samantha Eggar), to his 'collection.' It's a creepy film, but not in the same dark and disturbing manner that it would surely be handled in a contemporary film. Wyler makes light of Frederick's eccentric behavior, as opposed to presenting him as a true threat to a woman abducted by an unstable individual. Frederick assures Miranda that he won't do anything untoward, and for much of the film's running time we can believe him; that is, short of his hol...
Read more

Film 49/52: Warlords of Atlantis (1978)

Image
Growing up, Doug McClure was a staple of weekday afternoon television thanks to three Amicus Studios fantasy films he starred in based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs ( The Land That Time Forgot , The People That Time Forgot , and my favorite,  At the Earth's Core , in which he starred opposite Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro). I was surprised years later to discover that he did a fourth fantasy film (not for Amicus, and from an original screenplay), Warlords of Atlantis . I've had a copy in the library for years, but after showing Vonna the trailer (which showcases several of the films interesting creatures), we selected this one for our 'W' film. McClure is the creator of a diving bell helping a scientist and his son interested in finding the lost city of Atlantis. On their first dive, they're attacked by a sea creature, and after a narrow escape they find a golden statue — an artifact of Atlantis. The ship is attacked by a giant octopus, and several of the ...
Read more