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.

"Under Capricorn", a 1949 costume drama by Alfred Hitchcock, stars Michael Wilding as Charles Adare, a penniless Irishman who arrives in 1830s Australia. Here he fraternises with various noblemen, and mingles with Sam Flusky (Joseph Cotton), an ex-convict who now heads a small business empire. Flusky's wife, Lady Henrietta (Ingrid Bergman), hails from a prestigious family. She's also an alcoholic, chronically poisoned by her maid Milly (Margaret Leighton), a woman who secretly pines for Flusky.Alfred Hitchcock's films often hinge on incredible emotional violence. In "Under Capricorn", we see a complex web of love, hate, guilt and class based insecurity. Sam's ashamed of his lowly social position, as is his maid, whilst Charles and Henrietta embody a aristocratic class who sacrifice wealth, land and even romance, for the betterment of those few they love.Slow, overly verbose and repetitive, "Under Capricorn" was a box-office flop. It would be mauled by critics, though several would hail it as a masterpiece. It's not, but Hitchcock nevertheless sketches a number of interesting moments. Sam's homestead, for example, is portrayed as a Gothic nightmare, complete with vampiric figures, creepy witches and shadowy conspiracies. Hitchcock also utilises a number of incredibly complex long-takes, some of which would require sets to open up and roll away, mid shot. Other sequences required all lighting equipment and cables to be quickly concealed and repositioned mid-shot, as Hitchcock's camera would often spin around and double back on itself. Such camera work is commonplace today, but in Hitchcock's era, an era of massive, bulky cameras, constituted a logistical nightmare. Bizarrely, this preoccupation with elaborate camera-work may be exactly what ruins "Under Capricorn"; Hitch pays little attention to dialogue, plot, pacing and seems oblivious to his film's unfolding drama."Under Capricorn" resembles several other Hitch flicks. It strongly recalls "Rebecca" and "Suspicion", whilst its tale of poisoning resembles a key subplot in Hitchcock's "Notorious". "Capricorn's" domineering housekeepers, and women who degrade themselves for their lovers, are also traits found in a number of other Hitchcock films. "Under Capricorn" was based on a comedic novel by Helen Simpson. There's no comedy in Hitchcock's film, though, which plays things as a straight, Gothic psychodrama.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

None of Alfred Hitchcock's films are terrible, even his weakest film(for me) Jamaica Inn. But that is not to say that Hitchcock, my favourite director, hasn't done any disappointing work, Jamaica Inn, The Paradine Case and this were. Under Capricorn is a very beautifully made film, as with all Hitchcock's films with the cinematography being Under Capricorn's best quality and the costumes and sets are very sumptuous. There are times where the score is not as fitting with the mood as it could have been, but much of it did and the score itself is marvellously orchestrated and overall very effective as a score. Ingrid Bergman is very good in a sensitive and magnetic performance, out of this and Spellbound I felt she was a little better here. Michael Wilding doesn't have much to do but gives his all and is very handsome. Margaret Leighton steals the film, wonderfully vicious she is. Under Capricorn does have its failings though. Hitchcock is one of cinema's greatest, but there isn't much in Under Capricorn to allow him to bring his own style to it, to the extent that like Jamaica Inn it didn't feel like a Hitchcock film. Joseph Cotten for me was miscast, too stiff and too much like a gentleman with not enough of the brooding persona that his character should have been, the latter of which he did successfully bring to Shadow of a Doubt so I don't know what happened here. The script has a lot of talk but a lot of it comes across as corny, emotionally cold and overwrought, while the story, the subject matter of which is actually great, is executed in ponderous and overly melodramatic fashion and seems rather thin also. Complex it is, but this is done with not that much depth. With the cast, the characters could have been interesting but suffered from being underwritten and characterless. In conclusion, well made but lacking and disappointing. 5/10 Bethany Cox