The movie Alfred Hitchcock was “ashamed” he got paid for: “I shouldn’t have taken anything”
In 1949, Alfred Hitchcock was in a strange spot in his career after the disastrous performance of 1948’s Rope, an experimental film that had fizzled at the box office and failed to excite critics.
Instead of chalking it up to taking a big swing that people simply weren’t ready for, the director panicked and decided he needed a hit. So, he sought the services of Ingrid Bergman, the star of two of his most beloved movies, Spellbound and Notorious, and pitched her on Under Capricorn, a costume drama set in Australia in the late 19th century.
Hitchcock believed the material suited Bergman down to the ground, and because he desperately wanted to make a successful film, he signed on for the movie. This was contrary to his usual working method, and he later regretted “trying to find a subject to suit the star” instead of finding a project he was passionate about first and foremost.
In truth, even though Hitchcock convinced the actor to make Under Capricorn, he wasn’t exactly a massive fan of the script, which contained few of his usual thriller elements. On top of that, he’d never made a costume drama before, and didn’t have any burning desire to do so on a creative level, meaning his motivation for the project was purely commercial.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly for a project undertaken in such circumstances, Under Capricorn was another failure at the box office for Hitchcock. Worse, critics tore it apart, with many taking umbrage that he carried over the experimental long, extended takes he had used in Rope, which they believed made the film slow and ponderous. Even though this filmmaking style is now considered ahead of its time, in 1949, it was dismissed as style over substance.
Ultimately, the film was Hitchcock’s second flop in a row, and it performed so poorly that Bankers Trust Company, the financial institution that bankrolled the film, later “reclaimed the picture”. This meant that it couldn’t be seen anywhere until 1968, a full 19 years after its theatrical release, when it was finally sold to US network television.
The situation was embarrassing for Hitchcock, who wasn’t used to his films dying at the box office. After all, throughout the ’40s, he made a string of critical and commercial hits, including Rebecca, Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt, and the aforementioned Bergman pictures, two of which were also nominated for ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy Awards.
All in all, the chastened director later admitted during his series of classic interviews with François Truffaut that he felt uncomfortable with accepting his substantial paycheque for the film, after seeing how hard its failure hit the production company and movie studio. However, he wasn’t so overcome with regret that he turned the money down; he just blamed his leading lady for why he chose to pocket it.
“With all the enthusiasm we invested in that picture, it was a shame that it didn’t amount to anything,” the ‘Master of Suspense’ lamented. “I was also ashamed that Ingrid Bergman and I, as director/producer, took such large salaries. Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken anything at all, but it didn’t seem fair at the time for Bergman to be taking so much money and for me to work for nothing.”
Classic Hitch.
