Jamaica Run

Jamaica Run has come down to us as the film where Errol Flynn's estate was used as a location. From the looks of it, Errol lived pretty well, but he was getting money from Paramount to film there because the IRS was on his case pretty bad. It's the closest Flynn ever got to doing a film at the white mountain studio.

Not that a lot of his films were doing good at this time, but Flynn missed nothing real special with Jamaica Run. Ray Milland stars as a charter boat captain who once tried to marry into the Dacey clan who own a large plantation that is going to wrack and ruin. Mother Carroll McComas sits and drinks and reminisces about the good old days when her husband was alive. Her son Wendell Corey just takes after mother and has become a true wastrel. Only Arlene Dahl who literally and figuratively wear's the pants in the family keeps the place earning some kind of income. She and Milland were once and item, but mother and brother helped kill that.

Now Milland is bringing Patric Knowles who is a developer and wants the Dacey property for a resort. They won't sell, but Knowles digs up some cousins who say they are the real owners of the place and the proof is in an old wreck at the bottom of their harbor. Milland who is also a diver goes to find it. In the meantime Corey starts wooing Laura Elliot who is a kissing cousin in case the claims decision goes bad for the family. The other cousin, Michael Moore, is killed and the body found when Milland makes one of his dives.

Some truly abrupt changes in character during the story renders it almost incoherent toward the end. And the end is truly melodramatic and over the top.

Not a terrible film, Jamaica Run is never going to be in the top ten for any of the principal players.