image of person or book cover 7695420980847711439.jpg
Screen cap from opening credits
form y separately published work icon Under Capricorn single work   film/TV  
Adaptation of Under Capricorn Helen Simpson , 1937 single work novel
Issue Details: First known date: 1949... 1949 Under Capricorn
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Set in the colony of New South Wales in the 1830s, this is a woman-centred melodrama set against colonial class divisions and involving two overlapping triangles (husband/wife/outsider and husband/wife/sinister housekeeper). The film is light on suspense but complex in emotional interplay, involving the long take (which precludes strict point of view) in shifting emotional identification intertwined with the guilt of the main characters. Robin Wood has also identified complex intertextual relationships: an early Hitchcock, The Manxman (a class-based triangle); Rebecca (the sinister housekeeper); Vertigo (the role of 'confession' and the reconstruction of the woman's image by the hero); and the stylised psychoanalytical romances Spellbound and Marnie. Along with Notorious and Gaslight, it is central to Ingrid Bergman's canon, in the tension in her persona between the active 'natural' woman and the vulnerable mentally and/or physically debilitated victim. (Source: Libraries Australia)

Exhibitions

8051303
8014658

Notes

  • Simpson's story was later adapted for television by Tony Morphett (for the South Australian Film Corporation) and aired in 1983 on the Nine Network. The director was Rod Hardy.
  • Note on authorship:

    The credits for the film read 'By John Colton and Margaret Linden / From a novel by Helen Simpson / Adaptation by Hume Cronin / Screenplay by James Bridie'.

    Margaret Linden and John Colton were reported as the authors as early as 1946 (see, for example, a brief, untitled report in the Goulburn Evening Post, 10 September 1946, p.4).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 1949

Works about this Work

Not Suitable for Children : Alfred Hitchcock Films Helen Simpson's Australia Tanya Dalziell , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Telling Stories : Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012 2013; (p. 126-132) Inside Story , October 2016;

''Helen Simpson’s Under Capricorn made a decades-long journey from novel to film to TV to DVD. Alfred Hitchcock’s version was a revealing stop-off along the way' 

Under Capricorn Dilys Powell , 1950 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Week-End Review , 19 May vol. 1 no. 5 1950; (p. 9, 11)

— Review of Under Capricorn Hume Cronyn , 'James Bridie' , Margaret Linden , John Colton , 1949 single work film/TV
Round the World 1947 single work column
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Literary Journal , September vol. 2 no. 3 1947; (p. 168)
Under Capricorn Dilys Powell , 1950 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Week-End Review , 19 May vol. 1 no. 5 1950; (p. 9, 11)

— Review of Under Capricorn Hume Cronyn , 'James Bridie' , Margaret Linden , John Colton , 1949 single work film/TV
Round the World 1947 single work column
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Literary Journal , September vol. 2 no. 3 1947; (p. 168)
Not Suitable for Children : Alfred Hitchcock Films Helen Simpson's Australia Tanya Dalziell , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Telling Stories : Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012 2013; (p. 126-132) Inside Story , October 2016;

''Helen Simpson’s Under Capricorn made a decades-long journey from novel to film to TV to DVD. Alfred Hitchcock’s version was a revealing stop-off along the way' 

Last amended 21 Aug 2014 12:13:35
Settings:
  • New South Wales,
  • Bush,
  • 1800-1899
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