Alfred Hitchcock loved single-location movies shot on soundstages or backlots, because he could control everything. Because they were often so good, he made us love them too. “Rear Window” and “Dial M for Murder” (both 1954) are elite, and “Rope” (1948) is interesting, although I like it less than some fans do. Those are set in apartments, where a character could always walk out, or new people could walk in.
“Lifeboat” (1944), the earliest of his famous single-location films, is the most claustrophobic despite taking place on the high seas. Nine people find their way aboard the small titular vessel after a Nazi submarine sinks a British steamer heading from America to England.
It’s also my least favorite of the batch. The best examples of these types of movies start off feeling like a chore but they end up quite powerful because we expected so little due to the in-your-face minimalism. (John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” is another great example.)
“Lifeboat” (1944)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Jo Swerling (screenplay), John Steinbeck (story and novel)
Stars: Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak, Walter Slezak
Bickering boatful
How can people be fascinating enough to compel us for 90 minutes-plus? In “Lifeboat,” they can’t quite. It has its moments, but not enough of them. The acting is good and the shooting is professional – although only so much can be done with a boat positioned in front of a rear-projected ocean.
Although Jo Swerling’s screenplay from a John Steinbeck novel is nominally about nine disparate personality types thrown into a survival situation, this is a rather superficial mix.
Checking the race box, we get one black character (Canada Lee’s Joe) — rare for Hitchcock — and one German (Walter Slezak’s Willi). Class conflicts are represented by – on the rich side — Henry Hull’s magnate Charles and Tallulah Bankhead’s deep-voiced Connie, certainly the boat’s dominant personality. Connie is a glamorous and well-off journalist (!), and I feel for her when she loses her video camera and typewriter, although the film itself portrays these things as being as superficial as her mink coat.
On the poor side is basically everyone else, with John Hodiak’s chest-tattooed John particularly exuding a suave star quality. William Bendix stands out as Gus, who needs to have his shrapnel-peppered leg amputated and can only think of the girlfriend with whom he will no longer be able to dance.
Poetic melancholy like Gus’ musings serve this borderline fatalistic trek well. (They hope to reach the British territory of Bermuda, but lack a compass, and it’s possible Willi is secretly steering them toward a Nazi convoy.) But the film is undercut by cheesier stuff such as couplings that would only happen in desperate situations. I admit Stanley (“Shadow of a Doubt’s” Hume Cronyn) and nurse Alice (Mary Anderson) are cute, but Connie and John seem forced.
Indiana Jones would sympathize
“Lifeboat” is both hurt by and defined by its anti-Nazi obsession, which is understandable for the era but also unsurprising and shallow as a viewing experience. Some characters point out that Willi was just following orders, and if they kill him they’re as bad as he is, and other basic moral arguments. But “Lifeboat” has a steadily low-boil anger as its engine, unironically striving toward the point that Nazis are less human than the rest of humanity.
I wouldn’t go so far to call “Lifeboat” a propaganda piece, but it’s unsubtle by Hitch’s standards, and also lacking in big narrative twists that are so important in staving off a viewer’s boredom in a minimalist project. By the same token, the strong feelings of anger against Nazis make it a valuable time capsule of 1944. (And it should be noted that the film was criticized at the time for making the Nazi seem too human!)
It’s worth watching once if you’re a Hitch completist. As far as rear-projected water scenes go, it’s more interesting than Tippi Hedren boating across a lake with nothing happening – and Nazis are scarier than birds. But when put up against other single-setting classics, “Lifeboat” is waterlogged. Give me a dry apartment not only for comfort, but also for more compelling stories and people.
RFMC’s Alfred Hitchcock series reviews works by the Master of Suspense, plus remakes and source material. Click here to visit our Hitchcock Zone.