Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		5.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Jamaica Inn Blu-ray Movie Review

Is there a AAA discount?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 9, 2015

Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho. North by Northwest. Vertigo. Strangers on a Train. The Man Who Knew Too Much (and also The Man Who Knew Too Much). The Lady Vanishes. Rear Window. The Birds. Rebecca. This by no means exhaustive list helps to point out one salient fact when dealing with one of the most iconic film directors of the 20th century (and perhaps of all time): it often appears that Hitch simply sat back and cranked out one veritable masterpiece after another, even if some (like Vertigo) weren’t greeted as masterpieces at the time of their release. And yet, as with anyone who was toiled in the film industry for untold decades, there are bound to be peaks and valleys. It may well be true that a valley for Hitchcock would be a relative peak for any other director, but there’s no denying that some of Hitchcock’s oeuvre doesn’t quite rise to the giddy heights of the vast bulk of his output. Films like I Confess, The Paradine Case and Under Capricorn have long existed on a sort of second (or, frankly, even third) tier of Hitchcock films, sulking in the shadows created by their better known, more beloved, cinematic siblings. Jamaica Inn, Hitch’s last British outing before he departed for supposedly greener shores in Hollywood, is typically placed on that figurative lower shelf, and there’s no denying that it’s a problematic piece, one that offers the rare sight of someone in a Hitchcock film evidently wielding more power than the director himself. In this particular case, it’s star and co-producer Charles Laughton, who according to most reports surrounding the shooting of this film, created obstacles at virtually every juncture that Hitch found increasingly difficult to overcome. Hitchcock, who famously corrected having been misquoted as saying “Actors are like cattle” to “Actors should be treated like cattle,” may well have been wishing Laughton be transported to a slaughterhouse for egotistical, out of control actors, for there’s an almost palpable dialectic at play in Jamaica Inn that sees Hitchcock’s measured, meticulously planned approach colliding rather inartfully up against Laughton’s more florid, hyperbolic tendencies.

As with Rebecca and The Birds, Jamaica Inn was culled from a story by Daphne du Maurier, though it’s notable that evidently Hitchcock wasn’t overly enthused about the source novel, instead already having gotten his hands on an early copy of Rebecca, which was more to his liking. The guiding force behind Jamaica Inn from the beginning was reportedly Laughton, who not only arranged for Hitch’s involvement but who offered the female starring role to a newcomer Laughton had seen an apparently none too successful screen test for, a beautiful young Irish lass named Maureen FitzSimons. (It was reportedly Laughton himself who chose O’Hara for the actress’ “new, improved” surname.) Laughton, a larger than life presence who was a difficult collaborator in the best of scenarios, evidently wasn’t above throwing his considerable weight around, and Hitchcock either wasn’t in a position to argue or simply didn’t want to get that involved due to already being less than inspired with the subject matter.

It’s not hard to understand why Hitchcock may not have been overly excited about Jamaica Inn, for on its face the property offers little of the intrigue or psychological acuity which tends to flavor so many of the master’s greatest cinematic offerings. The titular roadhouse is an early 19th century establishment in Cornwall which provides a headquarters for a nefarious crew which snuffs out shore lights when ships approach, thereby guaranteeing the crafts will beach on the rocky coast’s precarious outcroppings. At that point, the bad guys descend upon the chaos, killing the surviving crew and then capturing loads of precious cargo. In a surprisingly early reveal which was evidently foisted upon Hitchcock by the preening Laughton, Laughton’s patrician character Sir Humphrey Pengallan turns out to be the brains behind the enterprise, using the lucre generated by his gang’s shenanigans to support his extravagant lifestyle.

A beautiful orphan girl named Mary Yellen (Maureen O’Hara) ends up at Pengallan’s estate one night, even though her ultimate goal is Jamaica Inn, where her Aunt Patience (Marie Ney) is married to the inn’s proprietor Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks). Mary soon finds herself caught up in the goings on of the shipwrecking crew, becoming an unlikely ally of one of the gang members, Jem Traherne (Robert Newton), whom the other gang members suspect of siphoning off profits (unaware that it’s actually Pengallan who’s taking the bulk of the loot for his own purposes). It turns out Traherne has a bit of a secret he’s been keeping, but unfortunately he and Mary confide in Pengallan, obviously the last person they should be trusting under any circumstances.

The pieces are there for a relatively interesting kind of quasi-pirate picture (it’s kind of ironic Newton should be the good guy in this enterprise, years before his iconic take on Long John Silver in Treasure Island), but Hitchcock seems to be directing (or at least attempting to direct) a more or less straight ahead action movie while Laughton seems to think he’s in some kind of winking, overarticulated comedy. The disconnect is almost palpable, leaving the greenhorn O’Hara to do little other than look pretty, while old pros like Newton and Banks pick up the dramatic heft. There are really no iconic Hitchcockian touches throughout most of Jamaica Inn, with only a couple of isolated sequences generating much in the way of suspense or anxiety.

Still, the film is generally stylish, with a few dashes of Hitchcock’s expert use of framing and editing on display (commentator Jeremy Arnold likens an early use of quick cutting during a storm and shipwreck to the iconic shower scene in Psycho in a perhaps “over enthusiastic” effort to find signs of the master at work). Laughton, as odd as he undeniably is, is also a force of nature throughout the film and pretty much impossible to take your eyes off of when he’s on screen. O’Hara doesn’t quite have the grace and spunky gravitas she would assume in later roles, but she’s obviously beautiful and acquits herself reasonably well for a first timer ingenue. The supporting cast, which includes a glut of fantastic character actors, provides most of the color that the rest of this middling picture sadly lacks.

Jamaica Inn Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jamaica Inn is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Cohen undertook a new 4K restoration in collaboration with the British Film Institute. The label's Tumblr feed contains this interesting blurb about the restoration and new scan:

This is a 4K restoration via a collaboration between Cohen Film Collection and the BFI. RRsat and Finishing Post Productions Ltd were tasked with achieving the best possible restoration at the highest suitable data rate. The original nitrate negatives were sourced from the BFI. These elements were then scanned at 4K resolution by RRsat utilising the ArriScan to create a DPX file sequence. The film was suffering from shrinkage and warping and as such had to be scanned without pin registration as the perforations would not allow.

Once scanned, the 4K sequence required huge amounts of stabilisation to combat the shrinkage. Image warping also needed to be electronically pinned as the images were effectively bouncing around the screen. The nature of these issues required multiple software fixes on a frame by frame basis before the dirt and scratch removal could begin. The density within the image also fluctuated creating a pulsing effect which again had to be mapped and removed digitally.

Once these pre-fix stages were complete we moved into traditional restoration utilising multiple software packages including PFClean, AfterFX, MTI and Dark Energy to treat the dirt and scratches. Grain treatment was applied with a mind to keeping as close to the original cinematic feel to the film.

The audio required significant restoration. Our senior technician, Nitin, removed hiss, crackle and pops as well as dramatically improving the "noise" from the original tracks. The audio was digitised and then treated in the software domain in a completely non-destructive process.

Jamaica Inn was Alfred Hitchcock's last film to be made in the UK and as such we spared no effort in creating the highest quality master which our award winning colourist Ray King, graded on the DaVinci Resolve system, producing the fantastic results you can see on screen. Finishing Post Productions attended the grade and play out to ensure the theatrical integrity of the project.

Once approved the grade was rendered in to the sequence and transcoded into a 4k ProRes for DCP creation.

The results here are by and large stupendous, offering a wonderfully stable, organic looking image which preserves a natural grain field while offering excellent amounts of detail and fine detail. Contrast is solid, providing support for some lustrously deep blacks and impressively gradated gray scale. Resolution is so much improved that at times it seems possible to see little snippets of spirit gum affixed to Laughton's face in order to give him his comically bushy eyebrows. The increased resolution does tend to point out the use of miniatures and some tank work in the seagoing sequences, however. The elements, while perhaps not in absolutely pristine condition, are amazingly damage free and clean looking. Densities are still just slightly variable, but what appears to have been near heroic restoration work has ameliorated the bulk of any issues and this certainly stands as one of the more laudable efforts of a mid-level (if historically relevant) film in recent memory.

Jamaica Inn Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jamaica Inn features an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 mono track which, while probably not at the near miraculous levels of the video restoration, sounds surprisingly full if unavoidably boxy given its era's recording technologies. Eric Fenby's (rather brief) exciting score is very well rendered, sounding just a tad brittle in the upper registers. Dialogue is very cleanly presented. Any age related wear and tear has been largely mitigated by the restorative process, and the result is a very commendable and listenable track.

Jamaica Inn Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature Length Audio Commentary offers historian Jeremy Arnold with a really interesting assortment of background information on the shoot, the actors, and the relationship between Laughton and Hitchcock.


• Shipwrecked in a Studio: A Video Essay with Donald Spoto (1080p; 13:06) offers Hitchcock biographer Spoto with more interesting background on the film, including the relationship between Laughton and O'Hara.


• 2014 Re-Release Trailer (1080p; 1:28)

Jamaica Inn Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cohen's press materials tout Jamaica Inn as a "rediscovered classic," which may be just a bit of wishful thinking. One of the least Hitchcockian of the master's many films, there are elements to enjoy here, but the overall aggregation is somewhat haphazard feeling, undercut continually by Laughton's mugging. Cohen's restoration is a real marvel, however, and anyone who has seen previous, at times shoddy, home video releases of Jamaica Inn will probably be amazed at the results. As Hitchcock's (temporary) swan song to England, Jamaica Inn is bittersweet at best, but Hitchcock completists will no doubt be thrilled to include this lesser outing in their collections. Recommended.