The film's propaganda message was widely misunderstood at the time

Rating: 8/10 (29 April 2005)

More than one director has realized that the perfect plausible way of confining your characters to provide suspense is to put them in a boat  a mini-world of people, unable to get away from each other and isolated in the vast impersonal ocean with perils of its own...
The film is set in World War II An Allied ship was sunk by a German U-boat and a mixed bunch of survivors got away in the lifeboat The enemy submarine was also sunk by the explosion and its Nazi commander joined the survivors in their lifeboat
At first they were prepared to throw him overboard  but it was his skill which saved their little craft and gradually, while the allies were torn by dissension, selfishness, divided aims and views, his single-minded strength of purpose and his disciplined abilities took command Unknown to the others, he was stealing their rations to keep up his strength, and directing them towards a rendez-vous with a German supply ship
Tallulah Bankhead, incidentally, dominated the acting of the whole fine cast except possibly Walter Slezak, as the Nazi As the woman journalist, keeping close to her material possessions, and only emotionally more friendly, she gave a performance with the power and the pain of a thirty feet salt wave
It is ironic that the film's propaganda message, which I believe weakened and over-simplified it, was widely misunderstood at the time Hitchcock intended to show at that stage of the war that the democracies should settle their differences and unite forces against the common enemy, who was disciplined, strong, and knew just where he was going Instead, a lot of people attacked the film for showing the strongest character as the Nazi!
"Lifeboat" is an interesting thriller from the mounting tensions of the interplay of conflicting characters, trapped and isolated in the planks of their little boat