ALL SCI-FI Forum Index ALL SCI-FI
The place to “find your people”.
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

A High Wind in Jamaica (1965)

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Movies in Other Genres
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Phantom
Solar Explorer


Joined: 06 Sep 2015
Posts: 67

PostPosted: Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:26 pm    Post subject: A High Wind in Jamaica (1965) Reply with quote



A High Wind in Jamaica (1965)

After a tropical storm destroys their home, English parents decided to send their children back to the mother country to be raised and educated in civilized society. Somewhere on the high seas, the ship is boarded by pirates. By a fluke, the children are transported to the pirate vessel where they remain undiscovered until it is too late to return them to their caretakers.

Anthony Quinn plays Chavez, a blustering pirate captain, who is marginally competent at best. Chavez isn’t a stupid man, just one with a childish streak. You have to wonder why the crew would follow such a wildly unpredictable character until you realize they aren’t very much smarter than he.

James Coburn as first mate, Zac, is the real brains behind Quinn, the strong man who is able to whip a disparate band of cutthroats into something resembling a functioning unit. His relationship to Quinn is never fully explained as they bicker like a seafaring Abbott and Costello forever sailing toward no future other than the next ship to plunder, which is probably closer to reality than most movie pirate epics.

Once the children are discovered, Quinn decides to drop them off at the nearest port while the superstitious pirates do their best to ignore them as potential harbingers of bad luck. It doesn’t help when one of the children playfully turns the head of the ships figurehead backwards. As the crew washes down the deck, the children amuse themselves by sliding along the wet surface in their underclothing. And when Quinn admonishes them to stop, “Who’s going to mend your drawers? Not me!” They are scandalized. “You’re not supposed to mention drawers.”

With the exception of Emily, played by 11-year old Deborah Baxter, the children are a nebulous group. Emily takes an interest in Chavez and begins to follow him about, much to his increasing annoyance and confusion. Seldom speaking, always observant, she becomes the catalyst by which Chavez discovers his own humanity. Still, she remains a cypher, enigmatic to the end, due to Baxter’s effortless performance that offers little explanation for her motivations and allows the audience to fill in the answers. Baxter made only seven features and television series between 1965 and 2000. She is quite good here, although it doesn’t measure what her full range might have been.

Up to now, the movie has been a grand adventure. Once the children are delivered to Tampico to be eventually turned over to authorities while the pirates make their escape, an accident forces Chavez to return them to the ship and the story takes a decidedly dark turn.

The movie is based (somewhat loosely, I believe) on Richard Hughes’ novel. Hughes seems to infer here that the children, and by extension most children, are basically amoral, neither bad seeds nor angelic moppets, who acknowledge the adult universe but remain emotionally disengaged from it unless directly imposed upon by circumstances. The children are able to weave in and out of society, alternately dependent and independent of the adults and completely careless about the effect they are having on the larger world around them. Under normal conditions, they thrive, mature and are replaced by the next generation. In extraordinary situations as outlined in Hughes’ novel, their effect on events can be quite the opposite.

Among the familiar faces on the voyage are Gert Frobe, Lila Kedrova and Nigel Davenport.

As directed by Alexander Mackendrick, it is spare and unsentimental in its downward spiral toward tragedy. As one reviewer on the IMDb wrote, we can be thankful that Hughes’ novel did not fall into the hands of Walt Disney.


Last edited by Phantom on Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:21 am; edited 5 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
The Spike
Astral Engineer


Joined: 23 Sep 2014
Posts: 266
Location: Birmingham. Great Britain.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 6:15 pm    Post subject: High on a Gallows Tree My Love. Reply with quote

A High Wind in Jamaica is directed by Alexander Mackendrick and adapted to screenplay jointly by Stanley Mann, Ronald Harwood & Denis Cannan, from the Richard Hughes novel of the same name. It stars Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Deborah Baxter, Lila Kedrova, Martin Amis, Dennis Price and Nigel Davenport. Music is by Larry Adler, with the song High on a Gallows Tree song by Mike LeRoy, and cinematography is by Douglas Slocombe. Out of 20th Century Fox it's a DeLuxe Color/CinemaScope production.

When a hurricane hits the isle of Jamaica in 1870, the Thornton family seek refuge in the basement. Here they discover the servants and workers performing a voodoo ceremony to ward off evil spirits. Horrified, Mrs Thornton decides to send the children and their two friends back to England to be educated away from what she deems savagery. However, during the voyage the youngsters are mistakenly taken captive by pirates, an event that will change forever the lives of captives and capturers alike.

He's afraid: he says that kids bring bad luck...

Richard Hughes' source novel was a one time part of the scholastic curriculum at Blighty seats of learning back in the day, the thematics of such a literary work no doubt inducing many a beardy teacher into lecturing over drive. Alexander Mackendrick's film adaptation manages to retain the literary feel whilst also entertaining by way of its intrigue. In many ways it's an odd film, a blend of pirates and children on board a ship screams out as something Disneyesque in make up, but it really isn't in any shape or form a frothy swash buckler movie. The pirates, led by Quinn's (wonderfully full of gusto) Chavez, are more human by motives and mannerisms, around them the children are realistic, they are not afraid, why would they be since they have not been taught that Pirates are bad? The youngsters merely see their stay with the bluff "n" ruff crew as an extended adventure.

Their spirit is infectious, and Emily (an impressive Baxter) has a particularly beguiling effect on Chavez, but his right hand man Zac (Coburn effectively mannered) senses trouble and it's not long before the crew begin to fret about the lasting implications of the children being on board. We just know that something bad is going to come out of this unlikely coupling of youth and pirates, and it's then, for the last third of the movie, that Hughes' literary themes start to tumble out of the screen. Emotional and psychological twangs are neatly etched into the narrative by the ever astute Mackendrick, and a quandary surfaces by way of the innocence of youth; it's power, which when confronted by guilt creates a moral void that closes the picture (though not the novel) on an edgy note.

Film looks great, with Slocombe's "Scope" photography out of the top draw, and Adler's score carries with it an ethereal quality that befits the haunting like nature of the story. Fox's Region 1 DVD release is double sided, giving a choice of full frame or widescreen, for those with big televisions the only way to see it is in widescreen, but the print is far from pristine. On release the film was met with much indifference, many were not sure what they had just watched, or were simply just upset at not getting a swash buckling adventure yarn. That uneasy reception goes some way to explaining why the film is largely forgotten and since over the years it has hardly ever been shown on television, it's certainly unseen. It deserves more exposure, very well put together all told, and definitely a picture that is strong in narrative as it puts human qualities firmly under the microscope. 8/10

_________________
The quality of mercy is not strnen.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17017
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2022 5:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________________________

A pair of magnificent reviews by the two best writers on All Sci-Fi!

After reading them both, I was delighted to find an excellent copy of it on YouTube. And now . . . I think I'll watch it!


-A High Wind in Jamaica (1965) ORIGINAL TRAILER


___________



______________ A High Wind In Jamaica (1965)


___________

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Movies in Other Genres All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group