The Times (05/Oct/1949) - Under Capricorn: Mr Hitchcock's new film
(c) The Times (05/Oct/1949)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Helen Simpson, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Margaret Leighton, Michael Wilding, Under Capricorn (1949)
"UNDER CAPRICORN"
MR. HITCHCOCK'S NEW FILM
Miss Ingrid Bergman, Mr. Joseph Cotten, Mr. Michael Wilding, Miss Margaret Leighton, and, as director, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock — there is clearly a team here, if not of all the talents, at least of a considerable number of them; and the question is, are they going to play well together?
The answer, in the end, must regretfully be that they do not. Miss Helen Simpson set her novel in the Australia of 1831, when convicts were the main import, and the authorities at home seemed determined on a ferocious export drive; but the moral economics of the case are not the film's main concern. It is, it is true, explained that Sam (Mr. Cotten) is sentenced for a crime he did not commit, and the issue of convict labour is intermittently introduced into the script; but the film, which takes a long time to pose its problem and an even longer time to settle it, resolves itself, crudely, into the question as to whether or not Lady Henrietta Flusky will stay sober. Sometimes it seems she will; sometimes it seems she won't, although when pessimism looks as though it is going to be justified in the event there is always die consideration that Mr. Wilding, who knew Lady Henrietta when he was a boy, is at hand— and Mr. Wilding has a smooth, reforming way with him which banks on humour and discards self-righteousness. Miss Bergman, as Lady Henrietta, makes her entrance as a kind of Irish Ophelia in the first stages of delirium tremens, and, if that description sounds vague, Miss Bergman does her best to make it exact. There are moments, especially when she confesses how she came to love her husband, Sam, who was a groom in her father's stables, when Miss Bergman is not only a pleasure to watch, which she always is, but when she is on the verge of coming to grips with a part not inherently congenial to her. Miss Leighton is even more miscast as a diabolical servant plying her mistress with the bottle while she is supposed to be helping her into bed, and only occasionally is Mr. Hitchcock's cunning and dramatic hand visible in the direction. The colour, especially while the camera is indoors, is admirable, but Under Capricorn lasts far too long and has far too many loose ends.
The film will be seen at the Warner Cinema on Friday.
