Simply A Masterpiece

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Filmed on an expansive budget, Under Capricorn has everything going for it except its script - a trite magazine story with soap opera characters indulging in lots of talk and dissension which involves very little action and which all comes to a ridiculously facile conclusion. Admittedly, it has all the gothic trappings of Rebecca (which is really a costume picture in modern dress), Great Expectations and Gaslight, but unfortunately the result is just plain boring. However, the credits are pretty wonderful. The film is always very attractive to watch with its fluid camera movement, long takes, stunning costumes (by Roger Furse), colorful sets and adroit cinematography (how about that long take in the middle of which Wilding takes off his coat and puts it behind the window-pane to show Bergman her reflection?). And Addinsell's music score shimmers with pleasing atmosphere. The players are very agreeable too. Michael Wilding with his odd air of hesitant confidence, has always struck me as an amiable and capable actor, and here he has a role well-measured to his talents. Ingrid Bergman is also ideally cast (although she doesn't maintain her Irish accent much past her most effective introductory scene about 30 minutes into the film). In an equally difficult role, Joseph Gotten manages a reasonable conviction and is given solid support by players like Cecil Parker and Dennis O'Dea. My one complaint against the acting is that Margaret Leighton's portrait of the sinister housekeeper is somewhat exaggerated, lacking the slyness someone like Judith Anderson or Gale Sondergaard would have brought to the part.

A young gentleman goes to Australia where he reunites with his now married childhood sweetheart, only to find out she has become an alcoholic and harbors dark secrets.This film did not o well at the box office when it first came out. One rumor is that audiences were unhappy with Ingrid Bergman because of events in her personal life. I find that story suspicious, unless audiences in 1950 were far more critical of celebrities than people are today. More likely, they were disappointed that there is nothing really "Hitchcock" about this film.If you want suspense, there is little to enjoy here. It is more of a love story, with a touch of history thrown in. I suppose if you wait long enough, you get to see a shrunken head, but that is hardly enough to really sell this to people.

Is "Under Capricorn" an underrated masterpiece, or a piece of something else? Opinion varies; understandable when you have a great director working so far outside his established milieu.In 1831, Sydney, Australia is something of a cowtown, except with sheep instead of cows, where ex-convicts make a new life for themselves in a rugged land. For one of them, Lady Henrietta (Ingrid Bergman), that life involves many bottles of strong drink wilting away in the care of her stern but loving husband, Sam Flusky (Joseph Cotten). A lifeline arrives in the form of a carefree man from back home in Ireland, Charles Adare (Michael Wilding), who with Sam's suspicious support seeks to restore some of Hattie's old spirit, and give her confidence.Funny how Ingrid always got stuck with Alfred Hitchcock's problem pictures. She never got the easy roles like Grace Kelly. Here, she's caught in a love triangle between two men while adrift in her own secret sorrows. And this time she has more than a bit of drinking problem to boot.Hitchcock lovers may well find "Under Capricorn" too much to take. Hitchcock is working here in the field of historical melodrama, not suspense, and sets himself an unusual hurdle in the form of long continuous shots, a carryover from his prior film "Rope." Some of these are quite masterful, going through walls and floors to capture long dialogues. But as other reviewers note, the absence of a quicker pace does make things tedious after not very long.In essence, as others note, this is a film about characters, not story, and the characters are not easy to like. Sam is the roughest of them, the sort of fellow easy to resent until you realize how deep his feelings for Hattie run. "She'd go at a fence like it had the Kingdom of Heaven on the other side of it," he tells a somewhat bored Charles. Charles' attraction for Hattie is clear - it's Ingrid Bergman, after all - but Sam's deeper love is tangled with jealousy and class resentment.Bergman does the best work, as she always did in the Hitchcock films she starred in, playing damaged goods like she did in "Notorious." "I lived on my will, and my will is exhausted," she tells Charles late in the film, by which time we finally learn the terrible secret that keeps Sam and Hattie miserable even as they remain together.Hitchcock really keeps you guessing as to which man Hattie should take up. You could write books on Hitchcock and love, and run out of pages before you run out of things to say. "Under Capricorn" offers a lot of material to that end. Too bad it struggles so much to tell its tale, decent as it is. There's plenty to admire here, like the technical brilliance of the many tracking shots, the understated supporting work by Wilding (here a cad, albeit with honor), and the exquisite lighting that draws you in like a moth to a flame. But those long tracking shots make one wish for more action.There is some suspense at the end, involving an altercation between Charles and Sam, which is in the end rather silly. There's a sinister maid, played by Margaret Leighton who telegraphs her untoward intentions in every frame so blatantly you wonder why Sam never notices. Running just under two hours, "Under Capricorn" takes much too long to get to the point, then resolves things a tad too neatly than it should.But accepting that this isn't one of Hitchcock's great films is not to say it's unworthy of his name. He directed some poor films, but this has enough going for it in its elegant cinematography (Jack Cardiff's one time working with Hitch) and a luminous Bergman performance, not to mention a strong turn by Cotton. I get why he didn't like the film, as it makes poor Sam too much of a lout in places, but the end result is a solid if secondary work by several name talents worthy of viewing without prejudice.

When we think of Alfred Hitchcock, we think of suspense: murders in showers, avian attacks, etc. "Under Capricorn" is a different turn for the Sultan of Suspense. Focusing on a love triangle in 1800s Australia, the emphasis is on the relationships between the characters, especially between a new arrival (Michael Wilding) from Ireland and the unhappy wife (Ingrid Bergman) of a businessman (Joseph Cotten). The plot does have a hint of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" but goes in its own direction. While watching the movie I didn't catch Hitch's cameo, which turned out to be more subtle than his more famous ones.The movie's strength lies in Bergman's and Cotten's characters. They play their roles forcefully enough to shock the audience, even though there's minimal suspense. There's a scene with a shrunken head that looks to me as if it may have inspired the notorious horse scene in "The Godfather". In the end I wouldn't call this one of Hitch's greatest movies, but still worth a watch.