The one movie Alfred Hitchcock was forced into making: “I tried to get out”
Before Alfred Hitchcock became one of the most iconic filmmakers of all time, defining Hollywood with classics like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, and North By Northwest, he started his career in his native Britain, where he worked on various silent films. As the industry changed, so did his work, and he made the first British sound film, Blackmail, in 1929.
The director continued to find acclaim in the 1930s with movies like The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, and Sabotage, but it was The Lady Vanishes that guaranteed his longstanding success. Released in 1938, it allowed him to attract the attention of a wider audience, and he subsequently signed a contract with David O Selznick, leading to his career within Hollywood.
However, Hitchcock told director Peter Bogdanovich that “After I’d signed with Selznick, I had time to make another picture,” which led him to Jamaica Inn. “I was talked into it,” he admitted to the Paper Moon filmmaker, although the movie would mark the first of several Daphne du Maurier adaptations that Hitchcock would come to make.
The finished film was not particularly well-received, although it might have looked different if Hitchcock hadn’t experienced such significant interference from Charles Laughton, who co-produced and starred in the movie. The actor demanded his character to be changed, as well as asking for more screen time, which left Hitchcock understandably annoyed.
Paired with the fact that Hitchcock wasn’t particularly interested in adapting Jamaica Inn in the first place, the movie didn’t turn out at all as he’d planned. “When I saw what this was going to be, I tried to get out, but I’d already taken money from them so I couldn’t. The root problem was that there was no mystery. This is the story of the parson who preaches in the pulpit; and the mystery of who is the wrecker, the man who puts a light on the rocks, causing ships to approach the rocks and be wrecked so they could be looted.”
Hitchcock continued: “Of course, the parson turns out to be the wrecker. And in Jamaica Inn, you have Charles Laughton playing the parson. Who’s the wrecker? Who’s the wrecker? What are you going to do – have a little bit-player turn out to be the central figure? Doesn’t make sense. It’s very difficult to make a who-done-it. You see, this was like doing a who-done-it and making Charles Laughton the butler.”
Struggling to balance Laughton’s demands with staying faithful to his own ideas and the original novel, Hitchcock had to make significant changes to the way the story unfolded on screen. Du Maurier was not keen on the film, either, but luckily, she allowed him to adapt Rebecca the following year, which proved to be a huge success.
With Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier in the main roles, the gothic tale played out spectacularly, winning ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy Awards. It marked a turning point for Hitchcock, who had not yet received this much success, and he even adapted a third du Maurier story to much acclaim 23 years later in the form of The Birds.
