A High Wind in Jamaica
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Alexander Mackendrick
Anthony Quinn
James Coburn
Dennis Price
Gert Fröbe
Lila Kedrova
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
After a hurricane strikes Jamaica in 1870, the Thorntons are convinced that their five children--Emily, John, Rachel, Edward, and Laura--must leave for England in order to receive a proper education. Along with two Creole children, they set sail, but their ship is captured by pirates, and the children are accidentally locked in the hold where they are playing. Juan Chavez, commander of the pirate ship, becomes fond of the children (particularly Emily), but the crew believes them to be an ill omen, so Chavez sails for Tampico, hoping to leave the children with Rosa, madam of a local whorehouse. Upon arriving, however, Rosa warns Chavez that the authorities are searching for him, and after John slips and falls to his death, the pirates leave with the remaining children. When Chavez refuses to attack a Dutch vessel because the children are on board, the pirates mutiny and capture the Dutch captain. The Dutchman approaches Emily with a knife, asking her to cut his bonds, and in panic she kills him. Later, the pirates are captured by a British ship and brought to trial. Under strenuous questioning, Emily blames Chavez and his men for the accidental death of her brother and for the murder of the Dutch captain, which she herself committed. The pirates are subsequently hanged, and the children enter school.
Director
Alexander Mackendrick
Cast
Anthony Quinn
James Coburn
Dennis Price
Gert Fröbe
Lila Kedrova
Kenneth J. Warren
Nigel Davenport
Isabel Dean
Viviane Ventura
Benito Carruthers
Charles Hyatt
Dan Jackson
Trader Faulkner
Charles Laurence
Kenji Takaki
Brian Phelan
Danny Williams
Louise Bennett
Marion Ward
Philip Madoc
Maude Fuller
Elsie Benjamin Barsoe
Gordon Richardson
Deborah Baxter
Martin Amis
Karen Flack
Henry Beltran
Roberta Tovey
Jeffrey Chandler
Crew
Jerry Adler
Larry Adler
H. L. Bird
Bowie Films
Jim Brennan
Denis Cannan
Bryan Coates
Cecil Cooney
John Croydon
Stephen Dalby
Ronald Harwood
John Hoesli
John Howell
Bill Lodge
Christopher Logue
Stanley Mann
Philip Martell
Daphne Martin
Matt Mccarthy
John Mccorry
Clifford Parkes
Tom Pevsner
Tom Pevsner
Douglas Slocombe
Chic Waterson
Helen Whitson
Freddie Williamson
Derek York
Fred Zendar
Film Details
Technical Specs
Articles
A High Wind in Jamaica
The film follows a group of five children whose parents decide to send them from their home in 19th-century Jamaica to the more civilized world of Great Britain. When pirates attack the ship, they take the children captive. The pirate captain (Quinn) and his first mate (James Coburn) take a liking to the children, particularly Emily (Deborah Baxter), and they decide to drop them off in Tampico where the local madam (Lila Kedrova) will keep them safe. Once there, however, the pirates learn they are being pursued for the children's murders. That should be an easy situation to rectify until one of the children falls from a window and dies.
Welsh writer Richard Hughes published The Innocent Voyage in the U.S. in 1929 but changed the title to A High Wind in Jamaica for its British publication a few months later. The American publishers changed their title to match the British version. The tale of children taken captive by pirates received mixed reviews at first. Many critics were horrified at its depictions of the children's sexual abuse and madness, while others praised it for challenging Victorian myths of childhood innocence. Over time, it has become a highly respected work, ranked 71st in the Modern Library's list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Some have even called it an influence on William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
In 1943, playwright Paul Osborn dramatized the work, using the original title. The Broadway production was not a success, lasting only 40 performances. Oscar Homolka starred as the pirate captain, and Dean and Guy Stockwell played two of the children. James Mason was particularly keen on filming the piece and convinced 20th Century-Fox to buy the rights in the 1950s. Despite the book's adult content, the studio saw it as a light-hearted pirate romp, so Mason left the production. Nunnally Johnson wrote a screenplay along those lines, but it remained unfilmed for years. At one point, producer Jerry Wald signed John and Hayley Mills for the film, but Wald's death put the production on indefinite hold.
In 1964, the studio finally got the production moving with Quinn, by then an international star after the success of Zorba the Greek (1964). American-born British director Mackendrick was picked to direct on the strength of his 1963 adventure A Boy Ten Feet Tall (British title Sammy Going South) about a young orphan who grows up during a 5,000 mile trip to find his only surviving family member in South Africa. Mackendrick was excited to work on an adaptation of Hughes' novel but was horrified when he read the script. He approached Quinn about his concerns, and the star used his box-office clout to convince the studio to take a more serious approach to the material.
For the screenplay, Mackendrick turned to Denis Cannan, with whom he had worked on A Boy Ten Feet Tall, along with Canadian screenwriter Stanley Mann and British playwright Ronald Harwood. They created a much deeper work in line with Hughes' original. Mackendrick shot location footage around Jamaica and interiors at Pinewood Studios in England. To play the first mate who, with Quinn, bonds with the children, he cast Coburn, who had made a name for himself in The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963). Russian actress Kedrova re-teamed with Quinn, her leading man from Zorba the Greek, for which she had won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role; German actor Gert Frobe, who would score a hit the same year playing the title role in Goldfinger, took a supporting role as a lecherous Dutch sea captain captured by the pirates. Notable among the children was future novelist Martin Amis, making his only film appearance at the age of 16.
Despite beautiful cinematography by Douglas Slocombe and a score by harmonica legend Larry Adler, Fox was not happy with the finished product. They cut the film by 25 minutes, much to Mackendrick's dismay. As a result, some contemporary reviewers found the picture muddled. Variety complained that it was "a curious mixture of high melodrama and light overtones." More recent critics, however, have hailed the picture as a lost treasure. Time Out called it "pure cinema and pure entertainment, with comedy and tragedy ironically balanced in the combination of childhood dreams and adult dread."
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Producer: John Croydon, Clifford Parkes, Tom Pevsner
Screenplay: Stanley Mann, Ronald Harwood, Denis Cannan
Based on the novel by Richard Hughes
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
Score: Larry Adler
Cast: Anthony Quinn (Chavez), James Coburn (Zac), Dennis Price (Mathias), Lila Kedrova (Rosa), Nigel Davenport (Frederick Thornton), Isabel Dean (Alice Thornton), Gert Frobe (Dutch Captain)
By Frank Miller
A High Wind in Jamaica
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Copyright length: 135 min. Filmed in Jamaica and England. Opened in London in May 1965.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States Summer May 26, 1965
CinemaScope
Released in United States Summer May 26, 1965