An atypical Hitchcock period drama, though not without suspense. Also features a highly gutsy and strong willed female lead - good stuff. It's Maureen O'Hara, in not quite her debut. And a quite wonderfully sinister and urbane Charles Laughton.
Rest of cast good too, especially Emlyn Williams in the pirate gang. With Robert Newton, Leslie Banks, Marie Ney, Horace Hodges (butler), Basil Radford, Mervyn Johns.
Hitch is having fun with height, shooting down - not only in the tense hanging scene but in the cave also.
It's well put together and edited by Robert Hamer - first wrecking scene for example is very lively. Photographed by Harry Stradling and Bernard Knowles, great design - of roads, inn, manor house and shipwrecks - by Thomas Morahan. It was an independent Mayflower production, produced by Laughton and Erich Pommer, and a big hit. The source is Daphne du Maurier, adapted by Sidney Gilliat and Joan Harrison with additional dialogue from JB Priestley.
Laughton's eyebrows are pretty crazy. He had cast Maureen O'Hara, fresh from the Abbey Theatre, and when he left for Hollywood took her with him, where she immediately won the lead role of Esmeralda in Hunchback of the Notre Dame opposite Laughton.
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