a Hitchcock "talking heads" picture, and what talk! WW2 melodrama at its most provocative

Rating: 8/10 (13 June 2007)

Alfred Hitchcock has often put himself to certain tests as a filmmaker, if for nothing else probably just to get the blood flowing a bit in-between his big commercial projects. In the case of Lifeboat though it is and it isn't a similar situation to that of Rope: there's only one location, but he's not going for something one-of-a-kind with the stylistic approach. His main innovation with Lifeboat is in putting up a big theatrical ensemble, where the thrills are more in two points- pure instinctual survival and the damnation of opposing sides in wartime- and it's a successful one all the same.
As directors like Ford and Huston were off doing their own parts during the war, Hitchcock didn't make a "real" war film (aside from a couple of doc shorts, albeit the holocaust one is stunning), but this is to say on the battle-lines. But one could look at this film and Foreign Correspondent as the Master of Suspense putting his eye on the fragile relations and backstabbing of those not out in the battles. The premise, as set-up by John Steinbeck and fleshed out by Jo Swerling, is that eight people get put together by fate (or rather, a sinking during a shoot-out) onto a lifeboat, with all but one Americans or British.
The German of the group, pulled up among the others, is distrusted, but also seen as something of a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't figure, as he was the Captain of his ship. This adds immediate tension for Hitchcock to toy around with, but he doesn't make it that simple. On the contrary he casts his ensemble very wisely, with Bankhead playing the prissy but pragmatic photo-journalist who one by one loses everything of monetary value of her person.
There's also the tough all-American who doesn't at all trust the German from the start, the weathered middle-aged skipper, the ex dance-hall guy who now has an amputated leg, and the woman who was once a nurse and cannot do a thing, not to mention the token black guy, who actually isn't nearly as stereotypical as could have been for the period. And the drama is boiled down to essentials: they're running out of food, especially with water getting tossed about; Schmidt/Smith, who loses his leg, tries to think of other things, but gets drawn into the German's fiendish exploitation; trying to get on course; the subtle romantic advances of the women to a respective man on the ship.
What ends up happening is something of a mild double-edged sword, though not necessarily in a very bad way. Instead of his classic thriller set-pieces featuring a trademark Herrmann score, or with ultra famous stars heading off on the front bill (albeit Bankhead is, and acts like, the star of the movie as the sort of odd-woman-out among the others), it's about character revelations, and about the subtle tricks that a desperate situation can bring out in people, for better or worse. Not that Hitch doesn't give a few momentary thrills for those expecting, as there's a scene in a storm that's rather suspenseful, and there's a rather brilliant ironic twist towards the end involving the German ship.
At times one might feel the tendency that the script may start to drag, but it doesn't take long for the backwards claustrophobia of a lifeboat starts to creep in. It's also, uncharacteristically for Hitchcock, with something of an agenda for the period, which is fine as well; if he didn't make at least one or two movies meant to boost morale for the Allies it would seem a little odd. Luckily for him he found just the right thematic materials, and a good enough cast, to mask them around a melodramatic morality play at its finest.