Jamaica Inn

(Alfred Hitchcock, UK 1939, 108 min., DCP)

Based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, this film is about a young woman (Maureen O’Hara) who discovers that her uncle heads a gang of ship-wreckers and murderers under the secret patronage of the local squire. Her efforts to stop their wicked ways leads her down a path filled with murder and betrayal. Jamaica Inn was the first of Hitchcock’s three adaptations of du Maurier’s work—the others being Rebecca (1940) and The Birds (1963). It was also Hitchcock’s last film made in the UK before coming to America.