Jamaica Inn (film)

Jamaica Inn
Film poster for the US release
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by	Erich Pommer Charles Laughton
Written by	Sidney Gilliat Joan Harrison Alma Reville J. B. Priestley
Based on	Jamaica Inn 1936 novel by Daphne du Maurier
Starring	Charles Laughton Maureen O'Hara Emlyn Williams
Music by	Eric Fenby
Cinematography	Bernard Knowles Harry Stradling
Edited by	Robert Hamer
Production company	Kino International, Ltd.
Distributed by	Mayflower Pictures (UK) Paramount Pictures (US)
Release date	15 May 1939 (UK) 13 October 1939 (US)
Running time	108 minutes (UK) 98 minutes (US)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Jamaica Inn is a 1939 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1936 novel of the same name, the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted (the others were her novel Rebecca and short story "The Birds"). It stars Charles Laughton and features Maureen O'Hara in her first major screen role. It is the last film Hitchcock made in the United Kingdom before he moved to the United States.

The film is a period piece set in Cornwall in 1819; the real Jamaica Inn still exists, and is a pub on the edge of Bodmin Moor. The score was written by Eric Fenby.

In 1819, Jamaica Inn is the headquarters of a gang of wreckers led by the innkeeper Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks). The wreckers are responsible for a series of engineered shipwrecks in which they extinguish coastal warning beacons to cause ships to run aground on the rocky Cornish coast. Then they kill the surviving sailors and steal the cargo from the wrecks.

The beautiful young Irishwoman Mary Yellan (Maureen O'Hara) is travelling to Jamaica Inn in a carriage, but the driver is afraid to stop there and drives a long way past the inn in spite of her repeated demands that he stop. Instead, he drops her off near the home of the local squire and justice of the peace, Sir Humphrey Pengallan (Charles Laughton). She meets him and requests the loan of a horse so she can go back to Jamaica Inn. Pengallan warns her not to go there. Nevertheless, Mary says she just came from Ireland, and as the orphaned niece of Joss's wife Patience (Marie Ney), she intends to live at Jamaica Inn. Unable to convince her to stay, Pengallan accompanies Mary to Jamaica Inn.