Under Capricorn

With the long-take experiment of Rope still fresh in his mind, Alfred Hitchcock turned his attention to romantic melodrama: Under Capricorn, a novel of 1830s Australia. Having little of the usual suspense to rely on, Hitchcock used the elegant long-take method to draw out Ingrid Bergman's harrowing performance. As a fallen aristocrat who married a former stable boy (Joseph Cotten) and moved Down Under, Bergman gives a fine portrayal of a woman hemmed in by a sour marriage and a guilty secret. The actress also felt hemmed in by Hitch's elaborate camera movements; she hated them. This expensive picture flopped on its first release, but it has a hypnotic flow despite a tendency toward talkiness. Hitchcock fans will recognize, beyond the details of plot, a couple of the director's key motifs: the jaundiced view of marriage, and the anxieties underlying social status. And, of course, the worship of an actress. --Robert Horton