The term “toxic masculinity” has been in vogue for the past few years. While I think it is correct to call men out on our bullshit, films such as 1950’s The Capture reveals some weird expectations society has put on men to be “macho”, and I think that environment is partly responsible for some of such behavior.
Lew Ayres is an oil field worker in Mexico, which one would think was a enough of a tough-guy occupation for people to cut him some slack. But not his fiancée (Jacqueline White—weirdly enough, also the name of Jane Krakowski’s character in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). When a posse goes out to apprehend a gunman who stole the company payroll, she calls him a coward for not riding out with them. Ayres has an idea where the thief might be, and White badgers him into riding out there alone. I assume she thinks it is better to be the fiancée of a dead man than married to a living guy she calls a coward. See what I mean about macho bullshit?
So, Ayres finds a suspect in the desert (Edwin Rand) and pulls a pistol on the man from some distance away. Rand tries to yell he is unable to raise his right arm to surrender but Ayres is too far away to hear him. The suspect survives until turned over to the police, but not much longer after that.
A $2000 reward is offered to Ayres, but he declines out of guilt for killing Rand. Honestly, I don’t see why he felt that guilty, as it is just as likely Rand could have been lying and got the drop on him. The fiancée really doesn’t understand his guilt and is so furious at him that she calls off the engagement. I like to think the guy dodged a bullet of a different kind there.
Our hero has had enough and hops a train to anywhere different, and so ends ups in Los Santos, where Rand’s widow (Teresa Wright) resides. An interesting touch is how Ayres comes by this ticket. Regulations require a ticket be purchased whenever a coffin is transported on the train. Since nobody would otherwise be riding on that token ticket, it is gifted to Ayres. No bets on whose corpse happens to be making that trip.
When Ayres appears at Wright’s house, she thinks he is there to answer an ad she’s placed for a ranch hand. He pretends to be somebody else and accepts the jobs offer. She hires him despite her son (Jimmy Hunt) giving the guy crap because he doesn’t have the right kind of boots to be a cowboy. Ayres is going to have to prove to the kid he’s man enough to manager their cattle. Once again, those macho expectations…
Wright will eventually find a newspaper article our protagonist inexplicably keeps in his wallet, all about how he shot her husband. She proceeds to torment him by devising an endless series of horrible chores for him to do, with her watching him the entire time. When the truth comes out in the open, he asks her, “Do you have the right to be the judge, jury and executioner?” I’d say she does. She explains she examined her husband’s corpse and discovered he would not have been able to raise his right arm. Apparently, she’s a forensic pathologist in her free time.
Needless to say, this must be love, and they are married before long. Then Ayres gets hung up on the idea of apprehending the real thief of the payroll from earlier. The investigation is kind of interesting. One person questioned by Ayres ends up hanged via the rope for a church bell. I like how the bell was ringing until it stops abruptly, as it was suddenly pulled entirely to one side.
The Capture will end where it began, at the house of a priest (Victor Jory). You see, typical of noir, the bulk of the story has been told in flashback. In an ironic final scene, Ayres is unable to raise his right arm. Seems he wouldn’t be in this predicament if he hadn’t pursued the investigation on his own. Then again, none of these troubles would have happened if he hadn’t let his overbearing fiancée nag him into tracking down a thief on his own, macho bullshit sealing his fate.
Dir: John Sturges
Starring Lew Ayres, Teresa Wright
Watched on Film Detective blu-ray