Putting kids and animals into movies is traditionally fraught with peril, but Alexander Mackendrick makes it look easy. His kids in A High Wind in Jamaica are rambunctious but not brats, inquisitive and disobedient without being obnoxious. Even better, they behave naturally. The movie really is about innocence and knowledge, responsibility and irresponsibility. The pirates are able to function because of the scarcity of law and order in their part of the world. To them it's a business risk and they behave as if they're just in a shady area of activity. The logic of corruption shows in the fact that the two pirate partners hide the booty from their own men, a crew completely ruled by superstition.

The sheltered kids are accustomed to living in a state where adults tell them as little as possible about how the world works. In general, they're incredibly trusting. After witnessing their boat assaulted by pirates, they're gullible enough not to draw any conclusions, as if the change of ships must be part of their itinerary they weren't told about. When nothing in the world makes sense, one doesn't get upset over individual inconsistencies. The fact that Captain Chavez eats spoons of hot pepper and used the forbidden word "drawers" for pants makes more of an impression than the fact that they're in the company of unruly drunks and criminals.

Mackendrick conducts a rewarding investigation of the contact between the worlds of pirate and child, communcated in blocking, spacial relationships, and acting instead of dialogue. There isn't much official byplay between the pirates and their prisoners, just a lot of orders that aren't carried out. As far as the kids are concerned, Chavez and his crew are just more adults doing funny things. This leads to some odd but telling moments, as when, after being used for target practice in the wheelhouse, Emily verbally chastizes Chavez as if he'd broken a rule of etiquette.

A High Wind in Jamaica somehow avoids the credibility problem that comes with the thought that pirates with a price on their heads wouldn't think twice about murdering a half-dozen troublesome brats. It gets too personal too quickly for that. The kids are like mice investigating everything, making messes and swiping hats. The youngest of them has fun playing a voodoo dupé'e, a ghost with its head on backwards, to freak out the crew. The kids aren't symbolic of anything and the show is completely opposed to something like Lord of the Flies. An adventure is an adventure and the kids mostly have fun, even to the point of not worrying much about what's going to happen to them. It's the old-fashioned complacency that used to exist, when we really were children sheltered from most adult realities. These kids accept whatever happens because they have nothing to judge it against.

Director Mackendrick creates a highly believable pirate world, both on the boat and in the port of Tampico, in Lila Kedrova's house of ill repute. The kids wander everywhere underfoot. Pirates aren't exactly good babysitters, and these children aren't as street smart as they need to be ... and something unforseen eventually happens.

There's an interesting mix of English and Spanish cultures. Along with the English pack, the script sagely introduces two well-to-do Spanish kids and shows them to be better-behaved and mannered, even after they're separated from their nanny. The girl is a teenager of maybe fifteen or sixteen, and there's a constant tension that she may be raped by someone. Our younger heroine-witness is partially aware of this but mostly confused. She's just pre-pubescent, ignorant but certainly not too dumb to intuit things for herself.

The story ends up being about the gulf between innocence and guilt. Pirate Chavez falls in love with Emily, or at the very least makes her into the daughter his lifestyle could never allow. The way he unconsciously throws away his instinct for survival just by contact with her is beautifully conveyed without so much as a single expository line of dialogue. Alexander Mackendrick had just finished making Sammy Going South (A Boy Ten Feet Tall), an adventure about a pint-sized boy who crosses a continent on his own simply because he's too young to know how impossible it is. In A High Wind in Jamaica Mackendrick creates a fascinating rite-of-passage for a young female character.

Events are always scaled from the kids' point of view. The final naval confrontation all takes place off-camera, but we don't feel cheated: Emily is laid up feverish in her bunk, and the action is all heard from her perspective.

Anthony Quinn was waist-deep in loveable rogue or earthy peasant roles at this point in his career. His Captain Chavez is sentimental but doesn't beg the audience to be loved the way Zorba the Greek does. James Coburn is solid support, but he's also the rational center for the picture. We soon realize that if he can't control events, nobody can. This role was reportedly the one that convinced Fox to give James Coburn the star lead in the next year's Our Man Flint.

Nigel Davenport and Isabel Dean are the kids' worried parents. They and Dennis Price's London barrister give concise performances but the story keeps them on the margins while concentrating on the kids. Kedrova's madam and Kenneth Warren's cowardly captain are also effective in smaller roles. Gert Fröbe's part is so tiny, he should have done it as an unbilled cameo.

Deborah Baxter is the big appeal here. She's a beautiful child and her performance makes everything work, from her semi-comprehending stares to her angry outbursts. At one point she's injured in an accident and her screams of pain are completely convincing. We immediately side with Anthony Quinn's pirate when he drops everything to care for her. She's in only one other film (or so sayeth the IMDB): John Milius' The Wind and the Lion, where she plays Roosevelt's daughter Alice. That's a perfect two-for-two batting average of great performances.

Fox's DVD of A High Wind in Jamaica is a beauty. I'd only seen terrible pan-scan television prints, and viewers who want that experience are welcome to the pan-scan transfer on the A side of the disc. The B side has a handsome and richly-colored CinemaScope version that only played for a few weeks in theaters in 1965. It looks terrific.

The tasteful box art sells the film as top-notch goods with handsome portraits of Quinn and Coburn on the cover. This is one of Savant's favorite DVD releases yet this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, A High Wind in Jamaica rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Good -
Supplements: Trailers (English and Spanish : Ventada en Jamaíca)
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: March 26, 2004