Movies
A High Wind in Jamaica, A (TCF 1965, Anthony Quinn, James Coburn)
In A High Wind in Jamaica a ship transporting a clan of British school kids is plundered by a Caribbean pirate (Anthony Quinn) and his crew in the 1870s.
The children stow away unknowingly on Quinn’s ship, and the tender Spaniard captain refuses to dump them overboard, though members of the superstitious crew want to do so. He tries to pawn them off on a whorehouse madam (Lila Kedrova) and then a Dutch steamer. Both attempts fail and the second one sparks mutiny on Quinn’s ship. Problems further complicate when one of the fearful 10-year-olds kills the Dutch captain.
A High Wind in Jamaica was based on Richard Hughes’s 1929 classic novel of the same name that was noted for comparing the unthinking heartlessness of hardened pirates with the amorality of children. Director Alexander Mackendrick had met Hughes when both worked at Britain’s Ealing Studios in 1950.
production details
USA | Twentieth Century Fox | 103 minutes | 1965
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Script: Ronald Harwood, Stanley Mann,
cast
Anthony Quinn as Chavez
James Coburn as Zac
Dennis Price as Mathias
Nigel Davenport as Mr. Thornton
Gert Fröbe as Dutch Captain
Deborah Baxter as Emily
Lila Kedrova as Rosa