Richard Hughes' 1929 novel was made into a movie in 1963. Starring Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Martin Amis and a girl named Deborah Baxter, it has rarely been aired on television in the past decade and is not available on video. After making the list of 100 best books of the century in 1998, no one offered it for sale anywhere until Sept. 99. A few places pretended to, took orders for it an then shipped every book but it, including Amazon, who now reviews it, finally! |
A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA |
Richard Hughes' 1929 novel was made into a movie in 1963. Starring Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Martin Amis and a girl named Deborah Baxter, it has rarely been aired on television in the past decade and is not available on video. After making the list of 100 best books of the century in 1998, no one offered it for sale anywhere until Sept. 99. A few places pretended to, took orders for it an then shipped every book but it, including Amazon, who now reviews it, finally! |
The novel presents the viewpoint of Emily, a 10-year-old British girl leaving the heathen Jamaica she'd grown up on for some proper British schooling with her siblings and another family of children. The movie takes a more omniescent viewpoint. The children are sent by ship, which is overtaken by pirates who find that the adventuresome kids have been locked aboard their ship while they were plundering the other one. |
Chavez, the captain, takes a shine to Emily and won't let the others put the children off on an island to get rid of them. After one of the boys accidently dies and Emily is injured, the pirates mutinee. The children are eventually rescued, but on the bench, a frightened Emily implicates Chavez in a deed she did by accident but doesn't realize she is innocent of, and Chavez and his crew are hung. |
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