The story, told in flashback deals with an ex-oil worker driven by guilt at causing the death of an innocent man to find out the truth about a robbery.
Plot
Lin Vanner is the manager of an oil company. The payroll has been stolen in a holdup. His fiancée urges him to pursue the suspect in hope that he will gain recognition. Deducing the road the robber may have taken over the border with Mexico, he sets out to intercept him. He shoots a man who shouts back at him and does not raise his hands when challenged by Lin.
Too late Lin learns that the man could not raise one arm because it was injured and this was the reason for his shouting rather than complying with the demand he raise his hands; he was not guilty of the robbery. Troubled by his action and abandoned by his fiancée, Lin takes it on himself to tell the dead man's wife, Ellen, but is mistaken for an applicant for a helper to keep the dead man's farm going until his widow's son is old enough to take over.
Lin believes that this opportunity has been given to him to make amends for his mistake.
With Father Gomez at his side, the story that he is being pursued by the police for another killing is told in a flashback.
When the film was released, the staff at Variety gave the film a generally favorable review, writing "The Capture is an offbeat drama, with psychological overtones, that plays off against the raw and rugged background of Mexican locales. Picture kicks off with a wallop ... Ayres and Teresa Wright are very capable in the lead characters, adding to the general realism given the story because of the locales used. One of the interesting touches to the film is the incidental native music hauntingly spotted with the appearance of a blind guitar player."[3]
^Variety. Staff film review, 1950. Accessed: July 18. 2013.
Bibliography
American Film Institute. AFI Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Volume 1. The Capture, p. 378. University of California Press, 1971. ISBN0-520-21521-4.
Howard Reid, John Howard. Movie Westerns:Hollywood Films the Wild, Wild West. The Capture, p. 45. Lulu.com, 2005. ISBN1-4116-6610-0.
Selby, Spencer. Dark City: The Film Noir. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishing, 1984. ISBN0-89950-103-6.
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