I watched a DVD (1942) of A.J. Cronin's Hatter's Castle (1931) last week - as I intend to read not only the book but the novel many said gave Cronin's the basis for his plot, The House of the Green Shutters (1901) by George Douglas Brown. More in future Blogs about the two books. Watching the film made me concentrate on the main actor, Robert Newton.
I dimly recalled Newton's role as Treherne in Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) but had never seen his most famous part of Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island (1950) or as Bill Sykes in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948). Newton was born in Shaftesbury, Dorset in June 1905 and was educated at St. Bartholomew's School, Newbury. He began his acting career, aged 16, as an assistant stage manager and in small parts for the Birmingham Repertory Company, making his first film Reunion in 1932. and some 44 films in all, ending with Around the World in 80 Days in 1956, the year he died. His erratic film career was down to his excessive drinking, his unreliability often resulted in unemployability. His death was due to alcohol related causes.
Typically, I then also purchased and have just finished watching Jamaica Inn, Obsession (1949) and Treasure Island. Jamaica Inn was his eleventh film and he looks remarkable young as the government 'spy' amongst the smugglers.
Newton has been called a 'much marinated ham' in several of his films, but in Jamaica Inn he was relatively restrained. The outsize porcine behaviour came from Charles Laughton (no wonder Hitchcock disliked the film) who waddled through the scenes like a ripe, ugly pumpkin. Moreover, Leslie Banks was over-theatrical as Josh Merlin, the innkeeper, and Emlyn Williams, did his bit as a very Welsh Harry the Pedlar.
The still above shows Newton with Maureen O'Hara (whom I loved in The Quiet Man) in her first major film role. Watching the film for the second time in three years, I formed a slightly higher opinion of it. Yes, melodramatic; yes, cardboard sets; but Banks was quite impressive, O'Hara was beautiful and Newton? Subdued and straightforward to start with (though his 'give me a drink' at one point brought a wry smile to my lips), one could see the later eye-rolling and teeth-gnashing of Long John Silver in embryo when he was tied up in the Inn.
Hatter's Castle, released only three years later, shows a much older looking Newton in a much more powerful role. Set in the 1880s, the film and book are both melodramatic in many places. In fact, until towards the end, it shows Newton in his more controlled moments as James Brodie - for a long while the only hatter in a small Scottish town. He rules through brutality and arrogance - a tin pot tyrant. Tragedy follows tragedy - his daughter Mary (a young Deborah Kerr), like his wife terrified of him, loses her lover (another interesting cameo played by Emlyn Williams) to the Tay Bridge railway disaster; his son, Angus, who is awarded the only sliver of humanity in Brodie's cruel outlook, commits suicide; customers flock to a newly-opened larger hatters next door; and the young Doctor (James Mason) is unable to save Brodie's wife. The melodramatic ending, near Gothic in its playing and in its 'castle' backdrop, sees Newton at last able to give full rein to his eye-ball rolling and large helpings of ham. However, he 'fits' the storyline and, if you have a taste for 'Gothic', it is a strong finale. After dying in his burning keep, Brodie's funeral delivers the moral: no-one has a good word to say about him and the doctor is able to walk off into the future with Mary.
Beatrice Varley - James Mason - Deborah Kerr
To be continued
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