Jamaica Inn

Alfred Hitchcock's last British film before leaving for Hollywood. Orphaned Mary Yelland (Maureen O'Hara, in her first major role) arrives at a lonely Cornish coaching inn run by her brutal uncle Joss (Leslie Banks) — headquarters of a gang that wrecks ships on the rocks and murders the survivors. Charles Laughton, who also produced, plays the local squire Sir Humphrey Pengallan with deliberate, scenery-chewing menace. Adapted from Daphne du Maurier's novel, the production was famously contentious — Laughton reshaped scenes around himself — but the wreckers' coast, the inn, and O'Hara's debut charisma carry it. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.