In a sense, Under Capricorn is a glimpse into an alternate reality -- one in which Alfred Hitchcock never came to America to develop his own unique, fully emboldened style of storytelling in opposition to David O. Selznick, but instead stayed in England and became part of the British studios' assembly-line production. In essence, Under Capricorn is approximately what a Hitchcock version of a British Gainsborough costume drama would have looked and played like circa 1946-1947. (For those unfamiliar with this topic, among the few reliable moneymakers British pictures had in the 1940s were the Gainsborough films, named after the studio in which they were made. They were period films of a melodramatic nature -- really the "bodice rippers" of their era -- usually involving personal or romantic betrayal. The Wicked Lady, Idol of Paris, Madonna of the Seven Moons, Jassy, and Hungry Hill were among the most well known of them.)
There are some fine moments of Hitchcockian suspense in Under Capricorn, echoing specific elements of Rebecca, Suspicion, Notorious, and Spellbound, as well as some wonderful stretches in which his "ten-minute take" brings the story, the acting, the sets, and everything else in the picture to life in far more vibrant form than it ever does in Rope (the movie composed entirely of ten-minute takes). The problem with this film is the remaining scenes around these segments (especially the horrible first 15 minutes of the movie) are so flat and lifeless that they could have been shot by anybody. Though the film's full origins and raison d'être are lost (with the deaths of both Hitchcock and the screenwriter, Hume Cronyn), it is not remotely good enough to be considered a flawed masterpiece, but can be regarded as a frequently dazzling failure. There are some strong performances by Ingrid Bergman, Margaret Leighton (playing one of the most despicable characters ever seen in a Hitchcock movie), Michael Wilding, and Joseph Cotten (woefully miscast but almost pulling it off), and the psychological content is fascinating; however, it feels as though Hitchcock was distracted from what he did best by the color and costumes.