DVD 96 mins
Unrated
Lifeboat
20th Century Fox (1/12/1944)
In Collection
#361

Seen It:
No

Owner:
Ben
Drama, Suspense
USA  /  English

Tallulah Bankhead
William Bendix
Hume Cronyn
John Hodiak
Canada Lee
Walter Slezak

Director Alfred Hitchcock
Producer Kenneth MacGowan
Writer Steinbeck, John; Jo Swerling

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 juggles the interpersonal skirmishes between the boat's occupants with the mystery of their German prisoner, which itself becomes a meditation on the fine line between nationalism and morality, a line that Slezak walks delicately until his identity is resolved. Visually, Hitchcock transforms his back-lot set and its rear-projected cloudbanks into a desolate stretch of ocean, while capturing the horror of an amputation through an economical set of images culminating in an empty boot. --Sam Sutherland

Edition Details
Edition Special Edition
Barcode 024543172260
Region Region 1
Release Date 10/18/2005
Packaging Keep Case
Screen Ratio Standard 1.33:1 B&W
Subtitles English; Spanish
Audio Tracks ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Mono [CC]
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Stereo [CC]
Layers Single Side, Dual Layer
No. of Disks/Tapes 1

Features
Commentary by Film Professor Drew Casper
The Making of Lifeboat
Still Gallery
Personal Details
Purchase Date 12/18/2005
Purchase Price $14.58
Store Best Buy
Condition New (Still Sealed)
Current Value $14.99
Links Amazon US
DVD Empire