I have just seen brave daddy Laughton in a couple of his movies, only a bit antiquated. I got interested in daddy Laughton when I was 17by way of Pacino, in whose life Laughton had the place of a mentor, it is said. <br /><br />The first of the these two movies is JAMAICA INN. (The name might suggest exotic meridians; yet it is but a Cornish story about the barbarous deeds of the coast people.) The second is THE BEACHCOMBER, which reunites on screen Laughton and his pretty wife, Mrs. Lanchester. Take this from a Laughtonianthey're both movies to be seen.<br /><br />JAMAICA INN is a Gothic swashbuckler in a Victorian dress (--as a matter of fact, the 1820s, not quite yet the Victorian era--), a thundering Victorian show oozing with that peculiar brio of this director, a rogues melodrama; and a proof that the lesser Hitchcock is vastly preferable to others' accomplished outings. In this melodrama, Hitchcock is amply rhetoricaland it begins in force, in what could be termed Hitchcock's 2nd style (that of the '40s), with discussions of beauty, etc.. There's, of course, Laughton who indulges himself in one of those peculiar, colorful, overthetop performances of his ; and this period movie introduces Maureen O'Hara, whom Laughton, liking the girl, wanted in. (I can't refrain from quoting what Elsa Lanchester, Laughton's wife, said about Mrs. O'Hara:'--She looks as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, or anywhere else'.)<br /><br />As usually, Hitchcock had a difficult relation with his actorhere, with Laughton. <br /><br />I often think Laughton's only follower, in terms of style and gusto, could have been Burton; but Laughton was uglier, wholehearted and, I believe, more endowed.