A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA
A film review by Shane R. Burridge
Copyright 1996 Shane R. Burridge
(1965) 104m.
An excellent adaptation of Richard Hughes' novel, and one of my all-time favorite films. If you've ever wondered what might have happened to the Lost Boys if they'd left Neverland and taken up with the pirates then this one-of-a-kind drama may show you some possibilities. An English family living in Jamaica decides to return home after a hurricane destroys their house; also, the mother of the family believes her children have lost the civilizing influence of life in England. The children barely make it out to sea before they inadvertently end up on a freebooters' ship, captained by Anthony Quinn and first mate James Coburn, from which point on the storyline moves in quite unexpected directions.
Story is not told exclusively from the point of view of either the adults or children, but rather from the ambiguous area where both viewpoints meet in conflict. We accept that each character's behavior is completely rational (partly because we recognize the conventions of adult life and still remember the world of childhood) but the characters themselves fail to comprehend each others' differing world views. It's this conflict that eventually creates a strange power play on board ship between the pirates and the children. The sailors' superstitions and fears become realized through the games and antics of the youngsters - placed within a different context their innocent capering takes on new, ominous dimensions - and it isn't long before the entire crew is on edge. Soon there is mutiny in the air.
Quinn and Coburn make great pirates, but it's Deborah Baxter as Emily who you'll really remember - whatever happened to her? Emily's concerned eyes and searching expression tell us more about what's going on inside her head than any other character: here is a girl who is uncertainly taking the first steps into that nebulous zone between childhood and adulthood - this voyage could be interpreted literally as her rite of passage. As this area is where the film's perspective lies it could be that we are approaching the story from her viewpoint.
Unbelievably, one recent television screening cut the scene in which Emily sits aloft with legs astride the mast, singing a love song while the Captain gazes up at her. Surely the sexual subtext in this scene was too subtle to warrant it being censored - without it, the film's final moments lose their real meaning: Emily, like Jenny Agutter at the conclusion of WALKABOUT, looks back on a strange, dreamlike event in her life and wonders if she has lost something, yet gained something because of it. Film's narrative is constantly engaging. Director Alexander Mackendrick handles the intelligent screenplay with a deft touch that keeps the film from self-consciously recognizing it's own offbeat quality. Harmonica player Larry Adler wrote the score, which makes good use of swoony, seductive Spanish themes and contributes even further to the dislocated overall effect of the film.
A winner. See this one if you can.
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