horrible knowledge
by Douglas Messerli
Stanley
Mann, Ronald Harwood, and Denis Cannan, screenplay, based on the novel by
Richard Hughes), Alexander Mackendrick (director) A High Wind in Jamaica / 1965
Filmmaker
Alexander Mackendrick’s 1965 film, A High
Wind in Jamaica is a remarkable blend of terror, humor, and tenderness that
also is revolutionary in its questioning of the Victorian-based concept of
childhood innocence.
The several little monsters of the
Thornton and Fernandez families are all being sent away from their Jamaican
home after a hurricane has destroyed the Thornton’s island home. But what we
also discover in that first scene is that these children, particularly young
Emily (Deborah Baxter), have grown up on the island as nearly feral beings,
who, having easily associated with natives and their children, know nearly as
much about Jamaican superstitions as they do about their parents’ Christian
religion, in particular the belief in the return of the dead as a duppy
(described, inexplicably as “stuppy” in this film), often with his face turned
in the wrong direction.
Even during the destruction of their own
home, which ends in the death of an elderly black who has worked with the
family, the children seem inattentive to parental restrictions, afterward citing
rhymes to protect them from the dead.
Less frightened than curious, the
children treat the ridiculous pirates—who throughout this film behave more
childish than the children—with open-eyed wonderment, riding the lift from the
cargo hold to the pirate ship as the intruders take away their hauls of the
stolen wares and goods. The pirate captain Chavez (Anthony Quinn) and his
associate Zac (James Coburn) try to determine from the absurd Marpole whether
there is any money aboard, threatening at one moment to even shoot the children
dead. When freed, the children sneak off to the pirate ship, bolding exploring
its hold.
It is only as the pirates sail off that
they discover they have hauled off the children as well. And once the children
have been released from the hold, they quite literally overrun the ship,
climbing its sails and sliding down the deck even during a heavy rain-storm.
The boys usurp Chavez’ Napoleonic-like captain’s hat, while Emily shows up time
and again even in the Chavez’ quarters. In short, the pirates cannot control
these young hellions any better than could their parents.
After a late night drinking and dancing spree
the drunken adults slip into the hold where the children, including a young
teenage sister, are sleeping—obviously with the intent of sexually molesting
them. But the complete startlement of the seeming innocents, and Emily’s stated
recognition that they are drunk, after which she bites Chavez’ finger, stops
them in their tracks, as they retreat in abashment.
Stopping at the wild trading and whoring
center of Tampico, the pirate’s intend to drop off the children and run. The
local brothel owner, Rosa (Lila Kedrova) tells them of the outrageous reports
of Captain Marpole, including his report that Chavez and his men have murdered
all the children, but is willing to put up the children until they can be
rescued. But before she can even agree to the act, Emily’s brother, staring
from a window of Rosa’s bedroom, falls to the concrete courtyard below and is
killed. Rosa, now faced with the death of a child in her personal realm,
declares that Chavez, his crew, and the children must leave immediately.
Back on ship, Chavez attempts,
ineffectually, to explain to the children that their brother and friends has
had an accident—but the children seem already to sense the truth. Their lack of
fear or sorrow over the event reminds one of the early scene in the film, and
calls up the kind of childish obliviousness to the meaning of death that
William Goulding put forward in The Lord
of the Flies. Both Richard Hughes 1921 novel, and the film based on it,
begin to cast the innocents as a kind of “curse” to the adults; a bit like
British novelist’s Ivy Compton-Burnett, in which children are seemingly far
more knowing and dangerous than the grownups surrounding them; these children
have a kind of horrible knowledge—having blankly witnessed so many strange ways
of behaving and inexplicable deaths—that attests to the hypocrisies of the
adults.
The superstitious sailors began to plot mutiny,
particularly after, as the children are ordered back into the hold, a heavy
piece of metal falls upon Emily, whose obviously broken leg begins to become
infected. Chavez takes her, once more, into his own room, mildly drugging her
to allow her to sleep, and even holding her when she becomes
frightened—strangely fathering her at the very moment when he cannot even
control his own men.
The sight of an approaching Dutch
ship—another perfect target for the pirate’s plunder—calms down the rebellion;
but when Chavez orders that there will be no plundering, but simply the
turnover of the children into the Dutch captain’s hands, his companions become even more determined to
challenge him. In order to save his friend, Zac orders Chavez to be chained,
and the guns to be released.
The Dutch captain, upon being bound,
somehow escapes to the pirate boat, encountering the slightly drugged and
feverish girl in Chavez’s room, and grabbing a knife, attempts to explain to
her that she should cut his bonds. Mistaking his sudden approach as a
terrifyingly hostile act, she takes up the knife and stabs him to death.
By coincidence, as the men begin to
empty the Dutch ship of its valuables, a British warship appears on the horizon
and captures the pirate rig, discovering aboard not only the children but the
dead Dutchman.
In the final scenes, the children,
having been reunited in England with their parents, are being questioned about
their adventures aboard the pirate ship. Because of their youth, they are not
able fully to answer the sometimes subtle and vague accusations of the British
lawyer, hoping to build a case against the accused. Emily is forced to appear
in court, but despite her own “horrible knowledge” of events, she is unable to
properly focus on the meaning of what she is asked, speaking instead on Chavez’
mention of her “drawers” (which he warns her earlier on that, if she rips them,
he will be unable to mend), and is unable to appropriately describe her
semi-conscious condition during which she, not the accused Chavez, stabbed the
Dutch captain.
In any event, Mackendrick, in this film
further reveals his true talent as a director. If only he could have chopped
the de rigour Hollywood-inspired
theme song, composed by Larry Adler and sung by Mike LeRoy!
Los Angeles,
February 26, 2016
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