Part mystery, part wartime polemic, Lifeboat finds director Alfred Hitchcock tackling a cinematic challenge that foreshadows the self-imposed handicaps of Rope and Rear Window. As with those subsequent features, Hitchcock confines his action and characters to a single set, in this instance the lone surviving lifeboat from an Allied freighter sunk by a German U-boat in the North Atlantic. A less confident, ingenious filmmaker might have opened up John Steinbeck's dialogue-driven character study beyond the battered boat and its cargo of survivors, but Hitchcock instead revels in his predicament to exploit the enforced intimacy between his characters.

Indeed, we never actually see the doomed freighter--the smoking ship's funnel beneath the credits simply sinks beneath the waves, and we're plunged into the escalating tensions between those who gradually find their way to the boat, a band of eight English and American passengers and crew, plus a German sailor (Walter Slezak) rescued from the U-boat, itself destroyed by the freighter's deck gun. Heading the cast and inevitably commanding their and our attention is the cello-voiced Tallulah Bankhead as Connie Porter, a cynical, sophisticated writer whose priorities seem to be hanging onto her mink and keeping her lipstick fresh. Gradually, the others find Porter and her lifeboat, forming a temporary community that inevitably suggests a careful cross section of archetypes, from wealthy industrialist (Henry Hull) to ship's boiler men (John Hodiak and William Bendix).

Hitchcock reduced to working with a boat at sea/single set

"Lifeboat" has my favorite cameo by director Alfred Hitchcock, mainly because it takes place in a movie that takes place on a small lifeboat adrift on the Atlantic with a handful of survivors from a torpedoed freighter: Willy, the captain of the attacking U-boat (Walter Slezak), which also sank; Constance "Connie" Porter (Tallulah Bankhead), a self-centered journalist; Gus Smith (William Bendix), a wounded crewman; Alice MacKenzie (Mary Anderson), a nurse; John Kovac (John Hodiak), a crewman whose ancestors were Czech; Charles D. Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), a shipping magnate; Mrs. Higgins (Heather Angel), a mother driven insane by the death of her baby; Stanley Garrett (Hume Cronyn), a radio operator; and George "Joe" Spencer (Canada Lee), a steward. Ironically, the Nazi is the only rational, practical person on the boat and Slezak's performance makes this troubling characterization even more powerful (Hitchcock insisted he was simply indicating the Nazi should not be underestimated). But it is Bankhead, the sophisticated commentator on the world at large who finds herself dealing with ordinary people in the middle of a catastrophe, who has the role of a life time (she won the New York Film Critics' Best Actress Award). Hitchcock received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. To most people today "Lifeboat" means a problem-solving game (do you share your limited food and water with the wounded man?) teachers throw at you to kill a class period once a year. But this film makes that game brutally real, where personalities clash and survival hangs in the balance. Not a typical Hitchcock film, but typically great Hitchcock and much better than "Rope," his other one-set film. Based on a story by John Steinbeck, the script is credited to Jo Swerling but was also worked on by the uncredited Ben Hecht.

A Forgotten Film From The Master Of Suspense

Lifeboat where do i begin? well for starters i guess it would have to be that this is one of my all time favorite Films from Alfred Hitchcock. But to most people they have never heard of Lifeboat. Yeah it was one of his early works but one of his best. Most people when they think of Hitchcock they think of Psycho ans The Birds and Vertigo. But this is better than the birds. It has a human story and ever increasing the tension. In a by gone era of hollywood when movies were grand in spectical not budget.

Lifeboat is about a freighter that is heading to New York. But is sunk by a German U-boat and in the opening scenes there is Tallulah Bankhead in a lifeboat all by herself with all of her belongings. Then one by one they pick up more survivors the tension increasing when they pick up a crewman of the U-boat. Only Hitchcock would make his backlot movie with fake clouds seem so real and make a the ocean look vast and barren. He also manages to elict good performances from Bankhead,Walter Slezak, Canada Lee and others.

I would highly reccomend that you check out this film from the master of suspense. this is not to be missed of put of. It is very suspensful i mean would you come to expect less from Hitchcock.

SEE THIS MOVIE I BEG YOU.

BANKHEAD -- HITCHCOCK

Tallulah Bankhead was one of the 20th century's best actresses, taking over from Ethel Barrymore as the Toast of Broadway and the London stage. She made few films, and this is her best role. (For a very long time the joke was that Bankhead's stage roles were taken over by and became film hits for Bette Davis. Certainly that's true with Hellman's THE LITTLE FOXES.) Here, one has the opportunity to observe how an actress of supreme talent, handles a role in which everything is shown; in which practically nothing can be hidden. Every would-be actress ought to study not only what she does, but more importantly, what she doesn't do, for as a stage acress par excellence all through her younger years, some movie people thought her too big for the screen. Probably she wasn't, but simply needed a good director. Here, she got the best in the business, and the results show.

Hitchcock was fascinated with women, with actresses, and particularly beautiful ones. And, if Connie's beauty here, is not young, and fresh, it is nevertheless, compelling. She is like a thoroughbred mare among mules and cab nags in an auction pen of chance. She stands out because of her breeding. She has lines. Her costume? A white silk blouse, good nylons, a full-length mink coat, and a diamond bracelet. And, of course, that wonderful mane of hair.

If you study Hitchcock, it would make a wonderful double bill to see LIFEBOAT and STAGE FRIGHT close together. Here, he studies Bankhead; in STAGEFRIGHT he studies Dietrich; two fair-haired actresses of wildly differing personal style, but of exceptional power and interest. And, what they have in common and what both display in these two films, is their unusual, and unusually expressive voices. Bankhead was a famous radio actress for many years, as well as a stage star. Dietrich too was a radio actress, and all her life was a singer and recording artist. The trick in working with an artist with an exceptional voice, is to carefully trim and arrange the dialogue in such a way as best to show off the voice's characteristics.

Admirers of Lesbian Chic might want to imagine what Ann Sheridan, or Barbara Stanwick, Rosalind Russell, Ruth Hussey or Lizabeth Scott or any one of a number of others might have done with this "Contralto" role: You know, the wise-cracking, hard boiled newspaper dame. The role is a Type, very popular during the 30's, and with a lesser actress and a lesser director, we might have gotten a good movie out of the material, but not a black-and-white masterpiece, like this one. After all, what if CASABLANCA had been cast with Ronald Raegan and Heddy Lamarr?

You can watch this movie over and over. A director's tour de force, the trick, I think, is to watch for Hitchcock's cutting sequences; the way he manipulated the editing around the actors' speeches within the episodes. Extremely clever. So good, the seams are nearly invisible.

Its a great propaganda movie, but of an unusual kind; far subtler than most. Its a great Camp, or G/L movie, but again, far subtler than most. Its a great Murder movie too, etc., etc...