SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

zkonedog When one thinks of Alfred Hitchcock, the "period drama" genre does not immediately come to mind. Unfortunately, "Under Capricorn" does nothing to sway that perception, as (despite some decent character development) it can best be described as ponderous and too full of bloated dialogue.For a basic plot summary, "Under Capricorn" sees Lady Henrietta Flusky (Ingrid Bergman) of Australia struggling to maintain the household of husband Sam (Joseph Cotten). When childhood friend Charles Adare (Michael Wilding) comes for an unexpected visit, however, Henrietta begins to perk up and clash with current housekeeper Milly (Margaret Leighton). Along the way, a great deal of past history among all parties is drudged up.The trouble with "Under Capricorn" is simple: there is absolutely no action/suspense whatsoever. The character development is actually decent, but none of the typical Hitchcock suspense or thrilling sequences are present in this movie. Just too much talking and not enough "doing", in essence.The only redeeming factor for this film whatsoever is some great acting from Cotten, who truly carries this film. Bergman may be a great actress, but her character in this one just isn't all that intriguing. It is Cotten who is a joy to watch scene in and scene out.Put simply, "Under Capricorn" is a slow-moving Hitch effort that just fails to captivate. It isn't terrible, per se, but there is very little excitement involved in the process. Unless you are a huge fan of Victorian-style love stories, or are (like me) making your way through the Hitch collection, I would say you can skip this one.

Bill Slocum 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.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki Unusual genre change for Hitchcock, a suspense-less western, crossed with romance and costume drama/ stage play, in the Land Down Under.Long and lumbering mess of a movie, with Hitchcock more interested in setting up lengthy tracking shots than anything else. In the previous year's Rope, Hitchcock used the same trick to good effect, but here it seems to have no purpose, no relation to the story. In Rope, the long, unedited takes resembled an unblinking, all seeing eye.Here, it seems like the same unblinking, all-seeing eye refuses to look away, even though it knows it should have looked away long ago.The long, unedited takes look like master shots, or even just raw footage. It becomes somewhat hypnotic, dulling the senses to the dull screen story. It feels like we are just blankly staring into space, completely unaware of what is happening, but too bored to even look away. (Is that what the cinematographer felt?) It's like we are carrying on a dull conversation with someone, and that someone refuses to break eye contact, like they are waiting for us to suddenly become interested in the proceedings. A few close-ups were needed to bring out more detail, in the settings and performances, but as it is, it seems like the filmmakers couldn't even bother to do much editing.The set designs and costumes all look good, but that cannot support the entire movie on its own. The film could have benefited (slightly) from on-location photography, but everything was filmed on soundstages in California.Starts slowly, but then it looks as though it may get going and become interesting, but then it fizzles away, all within its first half hour. It doesn't really even have Hitchcock's usual sense of humour to liven the proceedings. A complete waste. Probably one of the few Hitchcock films that I could not sit through a second time.

Randy Cliff I've seen over 30 of Hitchcock's productions and there is plenty for everyone. Even so, most people vision his movies as suspense or thrillers or mysteries. Under Capricorn isn't really one of these. It should be compared to something like "Notorious" (1946), which also stars the amazing Ingrid Bergman.Reading other reviews shows a wide split on "Under Capricorn". My wife chose to do chores less than 15mins into the movie. It's a slow start that builds as it proceeds. I had to wonder about the history involved, a screen play written in the 40's based on a book written in the 30's about a man travelling to New South Wales 100 years earlier.Regardless of opinions about the Irish or the Australians, modern historians continue to describe a very real difference about the Nobility of those days and their belief of being truly better than the serving class. I feel that observation helps when watching a melodrama like this, and being able to enjoy it.By their nature, melodrama are life exaggerations, which often come across sad. This left like one of the saddest movies I've watched recently. The situations feel so out place from our reality. But maybe two centuries have isolated us -- Under Capricorn could be simply multiple examples of disparate people trying to survive the best way they know how.This movie left me wanting in the first several minutes, but I found myself getting drawn in. This may not be a movie for the majority to watch over and over, but I recommend everyone watch it at least once.