Search - Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Violence, Adult Situations, Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1939 DVD Release: 09/02/2003 Format: DVD - Black and White Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 38 mins Studio: Kino Members Wishing: 5 Genres: Adventure, Romantic Adventure, Costume Adventure See Also: Jamaica Inn [Special Edition], Jamaica Inn, Jamaica Inn

Alfred Hitchcock directed this disappointing misfire, memorable solely for the fact is that it is the final film from Hitchcock's early British period before he left for the Hollywood studio system and David O. Selznick. In the England of the 1800s, a group of ruthless smugglers, led by Sir Humphrey Pengallon (Charles Laughton), prey on ships by blacking out warning signals. When the ships crash on the rocks, the nefarious group loots the remains and kills the sailors. The plot kicks in when the beautiful orphan Mary Yelland (Maureen O'Hara) goes to visit her uncle Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks) at a creepy hotel called the Jamaica Inn, the home of the gang of smugglers. Mary doesn't realize that Uncle Joss is one of them. Meanwhile, Lloyd's of London sends one of their ablest men, Jem Trahearne (Robert Newton), to investigate the recurring shipwrecks. Jem checks in to the Jamaica Inn, and when the coven of smugglers finds out who he is, they capture him and attempt to kill him. But Mary comes to his rescue and saves him. Through the inn, the smugglers try to recapture Jem -- along with Mary. Thrown together by dire circumstances, the two fall in love. Meanwhile, all the shenanigans occurring at the Jamaica Inn appear to be driving Pengallon insane. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Charles Laughton - Sir Humphrey Pengallan
Maureen O'Hara - Mary Yelland
Hay Petrie - Groom
Emlyn Williams - Harry the Peddler
Robert Newton - Jem Trehearne
Leslie Banks - Joss Merlyn
Basil Radford - Pengallan's Guest
Frederick Piper - Broker

There are dozens of different DVD editions of Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn out on DVD, its copyright having lapsed in the United States in 1967 -- Kino Video's is different from all of the others in that it is actually licensed from a quasi-legitimate source, the Estate of Raymond Rohauer, a film collector and classic film enthusiast who often went to the trouble of securing proper 35mm sources and even the rights derived from the underlying literary properties. As a result, Kino's edition of the movie is easily the best looking and sounding on the market, with usable picture information even in the darkest shots and rich detail throughout, and with the most easily understood dialogue of any of the various rival discs. Unlike other, more ambitious Kino titles, there are no extras (apart from an essay by Eliot Stein of the once-great Village Voice), but the quality of the movie's presentation makes this a worthwhile purchase -- watching this disc, this reviewer was reminded of how the movie looked and sounded in legitimate television showings in the days before "public domain" prints crowded them out, and that's quite good. The disc opens automatically to the picture start-up, but there is a menu through which one can select from the dozen chapters dividing the picture. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide