One of his earliest and most critically revered American films,
Lifeboat is classic, primal Hitchcock. It's also one of several earlier
efforts from the master of suspense that I've somehow managed to avoid
seeing over the years, Lifeboat is just as immediately enthralling and
engrossing as any of the director's best work. The infamous filmmaker
takes another claustrophobic, enclosed setting (this time, the ruins of a
jettisoned lifeboat off of a WWII-era steamliner) and turns it into an
exercise in suspense and malice that is as good as any of his more
famous works. The premise is compelling enough (provided by literary
powerhouse John Steinbeck), pitting a rag-tag group of British and
American service members, merchant marines, and a spectrum of eclectic
civilians into an unstable rinky-dink lifeboat after a German U-Boat
sinks them before subsequently being sunk itself. But only a master like
Hitchcock could turn could turn that story into one of subtle suspense
and vividly humanistic characterizations.An early dramatic point in which one of the survivors is faced with
the grisly reality of having his leg amputated or lose it to gangrene
shows this uncanny sense of being able to instill life into characters
that only Hitchcock had. Where other modern films would use a scene like
this to go for the visceral disturbing gore of the actual surgery
itself, Hitchcock instead uses this scenario to get his character
heavily drunk and vulnerable, introducing him to us in such a humanizing
way that we actually empathize and grieve for him when the limb is
actually removed (off-screen of course, this was the 1940s after all).
Just as rich are the development of the rest of the cast of characters,
all of whom are given moments to reveal their motivations, flaws, and
charms at one point or another before starkly dividing themselves among a
broad range of social, religious, national, racial, sexual, and class
lines. Another masterful scene is one in which the survivors are nearly
whipped into a murderous frenzy over the one German passenger's seeming
duplicity before the raging fury of the ocean disrupts any plans of
political execution they initially had in favor of one of simply
surviving the Melvillian sea, filmed and framed perfectly in shadows by
juxtaposing the violence of the crashing of waves against the ugliness
of the moral implications of the murderous act they were just
considering. Indeed the film is full of masterful scenes like these, building a
feverish sense of dread and suspense that continuously keeps us on the
edge of our seat as these characters are slowly and meticulously
psychologically and physically broken down through lack of food and
water and the increasingly cruel conditions of the sea. It's also quite
shocking by just how morbid this film is for it's time, with a mother
killing herself distraught over the death of an infant in only the first
thirty minutes, There are many marvelous performances here but I feel
Walter Slezak as the duplicitous Kapitan Willi deserves first mention as
he charms the viewers into believing he's just a good natured
victim-of-circumstance before revealing his true nationalistic
intentions. Just as good though however is the regal Talluluah Bankhead,
and the supporting characters like William Bendix, Mary Anderson, John
Hodiak, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee tie the whole together to ensure
there isn't a moment of this film in which you aren't taken in by what's
happening onscreen. If I've oversold the film's obvious strengths in plotting, acting,
and writing then I should also be sure to note that technically the film
is just as breathtaking, utilizing Hitchcock's trademarked masterful
sense of Mise en scène to film even what might seem like dull moments
(such as trying to catch a fish) in inventive and artful new ways. To
summarize, Lifeboat is a brilliantly tense and well developed suspense
film, a stunning achievement only slightly hindered by it's
underwhelming climax, but nevertheless another grand piece of cinema
from one of the most masterful storytellers the medium of film has ever
seen.
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