Under Capricorn

Theatrical Release Poster

Joseph Cotten

Margaret Leighton

Cecil Parker

**Under Capricorn** is a 1949 British historical thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock about a couple in Australia who started out as lady and stable boy in Ireland, and who are now bound together by a horrible secret. The film was based on the novel Under Capricorn by Helen Simpson, with a screenplay by James Bridie. This was Hitchcock's second film in Technicolor, and like the preceding color film Rope, it also featured 10-minute takes.

## Plot

In 1831, Sydney is a frontier town, full of rough ex-convicts from the British Isles. The new Governor, Sir Richard, arrives with his charming and cheery but indolent second cousin, the Honorable Charles Adare.

Charles, who is hoping to make his fortune, is befriended by gruff Samson Flusky, a prosperous businessman who was previously a transported convict, apparently a murderer. Sam says that because he has bought the legal limit of land, he wants Charles to buy land and then sell it to him for a profit so that Sam can accumulate more frontier territory. Though the Governor orders him not to go, Charles is invited to dinner at Sam's house.

Charles discovers that he already knows Sam's wife, Lady Henrietta, an aristocrat who was a good friend of Charles' sister when they were all children in Ireland. Lady Henrietta is now an alcoholic who is socially shunned.

Sam invites Charles to stay at his house, hoping it will cheer up his wife, who is on the verge of madness. The housekeeper, Milly, has completely taken over the running the household, and is the one who secretly feeds Lady Henrietta alcohol, hoping to destroy her and win Sam's affections.

Gradually, Charles restores Henrietta's self-confidence. They become closer and closer, and eventually they share a passionate kiss. But Henrietta explains that she and Sam are bound together most profoundly: when she was young, Sam was the handsome stable boy. Overcome with desire, they ran away and married at Gretna Green. Henrietta's brother, furious that aristocratic Henrietta had paired up with a lowly servant, confronted them. Her brother shot at them and missed; she then shot her brother fatally. Sam made a false confession to save her, and was sent to the penal colony in Australia. She followed him and waited seven years in abject poverty for his release.

After listening to Milly's greatly exaggerated stories of what Charles did in Lady Henrietta's bedroom, Sam becomes furious and orders Charles to leave. Taking Sam's favorite mare in the dark, Charles has a fall and the horse breaks a leg. Sam has to shoot her dead and, in a subsequent struggle over the gun, seriously wounds Charles. Sam will now be prosecuted again for attempted murder. At the hospital, Henrietta confesses to the Governor that Sam was wrongly accused of the first crime of murder; she was the one who shot and killed her brother. By law she should be deported back to Ireland to stand trial.

Milly, still plying Henrietta with drink, is using a real shrunken head to fake hallucinations. Milly then attempts to kill Henrietta with an overdose of sedatives; she is caught in the act and ordered out in disgrace.

The Governor, Sir Richard, has Sam arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Charles. Sir Richard ignores Henrietta's claim that Sam is innocent of both crimes. However, Charles decides to bend the truth; he says, on his word as a gentleman, that there was no confrontation, and no struggle over the gun. It was all an accident.

Finally we see Sam and Henrietta together smiling at the dock. They bid Charles a fond and grateful farewell; he is going back to Ireland.

## Cast

* Michael Wilding as Charles Adare
* Ingrid Bergman as Lady Henrietta Flusky
* Joseph Cotten as Sam Flusky
* Margaret Leighton as Milly
* Cecil Parker as The Governor
* Denis O'Dea as Mr. Corrigan
* Jack Watling as Winter
* Harcourt Williams as the Coachman
* John Ruddock as Mr. Cedric Potter
* Bill Shine as Mr. Banks
* Victor Lucas as the Rev. Smiley
* Ronald Adam as Mr. Riggs
* Francis de Wolff as Major Wilkins
* G.H. Mulcaster as Dr. Macallister
* Kitchen Staff at Mr. Flusky's House
* Olive Sloane as Sal

## Trivia

* The film takes place in 1831.
* It was during the filming that Ingrid Bergman began her notorious affair with Roberto Rossellini.
* After the critical and box office failure of this non thriller film, Alfred Hitchcock was severely discouraged from making a drama for several years.
* Many French critics consider Under Capricorn as one of Hitchcock's finest films.
* According to Michael Wilding's autobiography "The Wilding Way", on one occasion while Ingrid Bergman and Michael Wilding were in the middle of a passionate love scene Hitchcock let out a howl of pain, then in the most gentle tone said "Please move the camera a little to the right. You have just run over my foot." The X-ray revealed later that the camera's weight had broken Hitchcock's big toe.