• Lifeboat

2/28/24 (Wed)

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 film is a preposterous story very well done. An American ship and German U-Boat have sunk one another in the Atlantic Ocean. Eight American and British passengers manage variously to reach a lifeboat. They then rescue a man from the waters to find that he is not only German but, to make things worse, might even be the captain of the very ship that sank them. They debate whether to allow him to board, but the humanitarian side wins out on the belief that he is just an individual trying to stay alive as they are. Because of his piloting skill, he ends up with control of the vessel. It is only after some time that they realize that he isn’t steering them toward Bermuda as promised – but where exactly is he heading?

Tallulah Bankhead gives a terrific performance as an ultra-cool journalist who launched the lifeboat from the ship, allowing her to take her camera, typewriter, beauty goods and such. We first see her nonchalantly sitting aboard more worried about the run in her stocking than what’s to happen next. As survivors swim aboard, we get an eclectic group of characters, from rich industrialist to ship workers. They experience the death of an infant, suicide, amputation, hunger and despair, along with romance, card games and varied talk. The cynical engine room worker, who spends much of the film shirtless, is suspicious of everything, though that doesn’t make him wrong. Tallulah amusingly loses her possessions one by one: a woman dives into the ocean with her mink coat, a miffed passenger throws her camera (with valuable photos of the wreck) into the water, her typewriter is swept overboard, she uses her precious bracelet for bait to catch fish. The only thing she keeps is her composure and sense of irony.

Hitchcock manages to keep things interesting throughout despite the single set, including some impressive cinematography, and while the story has more than a few holes, it flows nicely. (The story was by no less than John Steinbeck, but he disowned the final script by Jo Swerling and others.) Tallulah’s call at the end for everyone to stop kvetching and take action if they want to save themselves was stirring. The lack of music throughout was unexpectedly very much a plus, allowing the story to build the tension rather than signaling how we’re supposed to feel.

The characters can be stereotypical, like the devious German, but it works in context. The film was criticized at the time for humanizing the German characters, though they prove the bad guys (and are killed), and for tokenizing the black character Joe, who I thought conversely was treated quite respectfully. In one notable scene, the passengers ask Joe’s opinion on what to do with the German captain, and he responds, “Do I get a vote?” That could be a class thing, of course, since he was a mere ship worker, but the implications are pretty clear. He also has a heroic moment when he disarms the second German and shows a warm side when he pulls out a photo of his family (how did it stay so dry?). He didn’t have any pronounced accent or dialect, though the actor reportedly made adjustments to get rid of more egregious lines like “yassir” and such. From what we see here, he comes off very well, especially when his low-ranking job would not suggest someone as educated as he appears.

The acting was variable, including well known names like William Bendix, Walter Slezak and Hume Cronyn (trying his best at a British accent), but no one stood a chance against the dominant Tallulah. I’m not sure why she wasn’t in more films throughout her career, but I’m glad she was in this one. Hitchcock manages one of his cleverest cameos despite the lifeboat setting (look for the newspaper ad). An entertaining flick.