Tallulah rocks

Rating: 9/10 (14 September 2008)

Sometimes greatness can be achieved in a singular way, even if the totality of a work of art is not great. This came to me upon watching one of my dad's all time favorite films, and one which I have watched several dozen times in my life- Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 black and white Lifeboat, which is also one of the three or four best films Hitchcock ever made, and did receive Academy Award nominations for Best Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Screenplay. While I am not a rabid devotee of Hitchcock, because most of his thrillers are filled with rather cardboard cutout characters, despite the films' technical excellence, this is still probably my favorite Hitchcock film; not only because of the memories of watching it with my dad, but because it is one of the least Hitchcockian films in his canon- in terms of its relative lack of formulaic suspense, and because of the great and inimitable Tallulah Bankhead (one of my dad's favorite actresses), who utterly dominates every scene of the film she's in.
The film's greatness comes in the way it realistically sketches human reactions and nature in extremis, even as it relies on some of the grossest human caricatures, stereotypes, and is a blatant bit of agitprop. That said, and given the limitations of having the film set totally in a boat, that Hitchcock comes even within spitting distance of the film being a great work of art (it's not; it misses by a hair, for the flaws mentioned) is, itself, evidence of greatness at work. It is also one of the most brilliant and odd character studies on film.
The very schizophrenic screenplay, which alternately depicts real human emotions in characters blatantly constructed to teach a didactic lesson, and be props to push the tale forward (i.e.- how convenient it is to have both a doctor and a nurse in the same boat when another character's leg needs to be amputated; among many), and then reduces them to utter stereotypes, was adapted from an original novella, of the same title, that Hitchcock commissioned John Steinbeck to write. When Steinbeck was done, and went off to the Second World War, Hitchcock hired playwright Jo Swerling to punch up the dialogue. For Hitchcock fans, wondering how the director snuck in his cameo, it's when Gus is reading a newspaper, and we see an ad for a diet pill- Reduco, which features before and after pictures of Hitchcock. That same gag was reused in Rope. If Lifeboat is not a great film, it's damned close, and given all the technical and script problems it had to overcome, that's a hell of an achievement, for, unlike many Hitchcock films, this one can be seen over and again and force deeper conversation each time, because it is not dependent upon a simple-minded twist ending. Thus, despite all its failings, Lifeboat is a true work of art, something its heroine has also been called. Viva recapitulation!