Jamaica Inn

In early 19th century England, a young woman (Maureen O’Hara) comes to live with her uncle, whom she soon discovers is in league with a group of criminals who raid ships they lure to wreck on the nearby coast.

Jamaica Inn is an interesting Hitchcock film, mainly because it doesn’t feel like a Hitchcock film. It veers from pirate movie to horror to mystery to adventure before settling on odd drama, a roller coaster of styles that ultimately undoes the film.

The performances are fine all round—with Charles Laughton in particular chewing the scenery in his usual entertaining manner—but without a consistent theme behind them, they can sometimes seem off. Maureen O’Hara is perhaps the biggest victim of this, as she’s a refined damsel in her early scenes where the movie is veering to horror and echoing, of all things, Dracula, but fifteen minutes later the same refined damsel is shrewdly cutting a man from a makeshift gallows.

Still, even with its flaws, Jamaica Inn is an entertaining film, though I can’t help wonder what Hitchcock would have done with the material had he made the film later in his career.