Lifeboat




Dying together's even more personal than living together.

Ironically, this is one of Hitchcock's best all or nothing experiments, but is hardly among his best-known works.

At the height of WWII, a ship is torpedoed by the Germans, leaving a handful of survivors stuck on a lifeboat without a compass. It's a diverse group, and they even pick up a German sailor (Walter Slezak) to round out the crew. The most vocal member of the group is Connie (Tallulah Bankhead), a socialite columnist who's often the voice of the more humane side of the division that grows between the group as time wears on and new problems arise.

It's something of a small wonder that Lifeboat manages to stay interesting throughout its entire running time despite the monotonous setting. And not just interesting in a sort of begrudging fashion, but consistently fresh as well. Having John Steinbeck write the story probably had something to do with that. Needless to say, the dialogue makes the whole thing tick. These people, though not perfectly handled at all times, present individual and separate accounts of what real people might do in such a situation. The increasingly dire circumstances present carefully manipulated opportunities to pull these people apart piece by piece, not always finding something pleasant inside. Their words are the film's action, their struggle the romance. That's mainly because the film's self-generated romance, while pleasant in a want-to-see-everyone-paired-up kind of way, is fairly forced and not overly natural. Rounding out the effort is the boat itself, which was shot entirely in a studio tank, but is handled deftly enough that it's difficult to ever tell the difference.

The faded but infamous Tallulah Bankhead never exactly takes the focus from everyone else, but she comes as close to it as humanly possible. Her ultra society chick is alternatively insightful and flawed, and not just a little bit witty. Roughly opposite of her is John Hodiak, who's not exactly up to the task of playing the tough guy. Other notables include William Bendix, Canada Lee, and Walter Slezak as the German sailor.

Though the issue of the bad guys proving themselves to be exactly that is a little one sided, it's relevant at least to a point, in regards to Nazis at least. In any case, Lifeboat doesn't do much more than float, but Hitchcock is more than able to make something out of it.



-The Gnome