“Lifeboat” is an Alfred Hitchcock film. It was one of his “limited-setting films”, like “Rear Window”. The limited-setting is a lifeboat after a ship has been sunk by a u-boat. It came from a novella by John Steinbeck. He was paid $50,000. Steinbeck was upset with the finished product. He criticized “slurs against organized labor” and the “stock comedy Negro”. His black character was dignified. He wanted his name removed from the credits, but the studio refused. As you can imagine, it was a difficult film for Hitchcock to do his famous brief appearance. He thought about being a floating body. He ended up appearing in a before/after ad for a weight reduction drug in a newspaper one of the passengers looks at. And this gave Alfred the chance to highlight his recent loss of 50 pounds. The movie was nominated for Oscars for Best Director, Original Story (Steinbeck), and Black and White Cinematography. Although most critics praised it and it is considered a classic today, the film was controversial for its supposedly sympathetic portrayal of a German. It is the only Hitchcock movie without a score. The movie was a difficult shoot even though it was inside in a tank. The water and oil caused illnesses in the cast that held up production. Tallulah Bankhead caught pneumonia, for instance. Maybe she needed more clothing. They had to climb a ladder to get to the boat in the tank. Tallulah did not wear underwear, which caught the attention of the crew. When informed, Hitchcock said: “I don’t know whether to call for wardrobe, make-up, or hairdressing.”
The movie opens by panning over wreckage from a ship, including a body. There is one lifeboat. A columnist (Bankhead) pulls a man aboard. She is excited about the film she took of the sinking. Others join the passengers. A black steward (Canada Lee), a rich industrialist, a mentally unstable mother with her dead baby, several regular joes, another female, and a German survivor named Willi (Slezak). Willi is hiding a secret identity. There is some discussion on whether to throw the German overboard, the liberals win. There are other scenes that develop the scene that different personalities must work together to survive. Hitchcock was personalizing the Allies here. The boat starts with eight members, it won’t stay that way. It goes through several leaders, including Willi. They have to manage lack of water and getting on each other’s nerves. And the fact that there is a Nazi on board.
“Lifeboat” is an interesting movie because of the interaction between various types in a confined space. And you have the rat in seaman’s clothing. It is a lesser Hitchcock film and if you did not know it, you might not guess it’s Hitchcock. Unless you look carefully at that newspaper ad. The cast is good and the movie is well-acted. It has some stars from the 1940s including Bankhead, Slezak, Jon Hodiak, William Bendix, and Hume Cronyn. Bankhead gets the meatiest role. She plays a stereotyped rich gal who is forced far from her element. There is a running gag where she keeps losing her rich trappings, including the camera that got all those great shots of the sinking. However, the film does not allow the actors to really cut loose because despite the scenario, they really don’t go through enough hardship considering the lack of food and water. I don’t need to tell you Ms. Bankhead keeps her well-coifed hair throughout. One weakness of the character development is some of the characters do not behave consistently.
As far as the criticism by Steinbeck, I have to say that I did not see the German as a sympathetic character. He is cunning (which would be a German stereotype), but he is clearly evil and he does get his comeuppance. Ironically, he does aim them to their rescue. The film does not have the feel of anti-Nazi propaganda. And it is not racist. I did not find Joe to be a stereotyped black.
“Lifeboat” is considered a classic, but I found it to be just an average war film. I have seen most of Hitchcock’s films and would put this one somewhere in the middle. In fact, I think all of Hitchcock’s WWII films (Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Notorious) are average “Lifeboat” cannot be classified as a mystery because the audience is aware that Willi is the u-boat captain and vile. I guess it is a mystery as to how the captain was the only survivor, but the movie does not deal with that.
GRADE = B-
