Jamaica Inn (film) pub on the edge of Bodmin Moor. The score was written by Eric Fenby. In 1819, Jamaica Inn is the headquarters of a gang of wreckers led by the innkeeper Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks). The wreckers are responsible for a series of engineered shipwrecks in which they extinguish coastal warning beacons to cause ships to run aground on the rocky Cornish coast. They then kill the surviving sailors and steal the cargo from the wrecks. The beautiful young Irishwoman Mary Yellan (Maureen O'Hara) is travelling to Jamaica Inn in a carriage, but the driver is afraid to stop there and
Daphne du Maurier her father. On meeting Tallulah Bankhead, Du Maurier was quoted as saying that Bankhead was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. The novel "Rebecca" (1938) was one of du Maurier's most successful works. It was an immediate hit, selling nearly 3 million copies between 1938 and 1965. The novel has never gone out of print, and has been adapted for both stage and screen several times. In the U.S. Du Maurier won the National Book Award for favourite novel of 1938, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association. In the UK, it was listed at number 14