One of Hitchcock's Subtlest Efforts

Rating: 9/10 (31 August 2008)

"It is the nature of a man as he grows older ... to protest against change, particularly change for the better." -John Steinbeck
It is movies like Lifeboat that prove the merit of film as an art form, not quite because it is nearly a magnum opus but because it tells a story by John Steinbeck that most would envision as a stage play, and puts it on film in a purely cinematic way. From beginning to end, the entire film is set within a lifeboat in which a group of American and British citizens are stuck after their ship and a U-boat sink each other in combat. A German survivor is allowed aboard after some debate, but could be the U-boat captain. His belief in his vision as inscrutable as always, Hitchcock's pace is steady, consistent, never allowing a dull moment, not to mention does not let his imagination cease and give up his gimmick of appearing in the background somehow.
An assortment of American and British civilians scramble into the same lifeboat after their ship and a U-boat sink one another in an attack. Walter Slezak plays Willi, a German survivor, who is hoisted aboard and denies being an enemy officer. During a fervent wrangle, Hodiak's Kovac, the practical enthusiast who shapes the limited, raw material of the lifeboat into serviceable survival apparatus, and who demands the German be thrown out and left to drown. Less flappable aptitudes triumph with Garrett, played by the shrewd and receptive Hume Cronyn, asserting the German's POW status, and he is accepted onto the boat.
Kovac is the voice of the bottom-line gung-ho Conservative. Bankhead is the voice of the diplomatic level-headed Liberal. They manage to pull together and survive, even bond, despite their radical differences. Indeed the young nurse played by Mary Anderson is the voice of pacifism. It's about how they deal with the entrapment with the presence of a Nazi during the war, learning to accept the Nazi propensity for amassing as many targets as possible, even if they don't understand it. Bankhead knows foreign language of enemy while Kovac shuts out anything the German says. The charm is that we like and perfectly understand both rivals. Then there is the millionaire Rittenhouse, played by Henry Hull as the rational mediator yanked from left brain to right in moments of mob impulse; the tragic seaman Gus, played by Bendix, the folsky everyman stripped by his wounds and delirium of the horse sense that made his life meaningful.
But it is the character of Joe, played by Canada Lee, a black working man, who is the unadulterated temperament is a tranquil control group of the ensemble, as is Slezak's SS monster. Brilliantly placed at completely opposite ends of class, culture and present significance, they both share a common wisdom that transcends that of the other characters. The times when Joe opens his mouth come as a surprise, yet they are more meaningful than the stubborn conjectures of the other survivors. Willi, as it were, could initially have been Steinbeck's most intimately drawn characters. He sees obedience as a gift from his master race to these lower creatures, and surrender as the gift they should graciously reciprocate to him. They are the clay on Hitchcock's forming wheel. And the collective unconscious of them all is the sea.
Tallulah Bankhead, more of a fascinating person than a fascinating actress, maintains her enjoyable presence throughout. With all her crudities, doubts and confusions, there is nothing in the world she so reveres as beauty and pleasure, as opposed to Hodiak's manly man who takes charge, rationing the little food and water available, gradually finding his control taken away by the enemy, with Slezak's great unruffled imposition. William Bendix also harnesses his character's sympathetic situation to magnify the tension in scenes of suspense.
Due to the careful visual composition of its consistent narrative structure, the mood in the boat is determined by a sense of survival, fueling the film with riveting interest. There is special attention given to the technical film-making in Lifeboat, not because it takes place in a tight space for two hours. There have been scores of films that have done that successfully. It is Hitchcock at the helm that seems to draw attention to its claustrophobic setting. How did he do it without letting it get boring? Where did he place the camera? How did he get that shot? If one looks beyond this inclination, one can see that this is indeed one of those early times in Hitchcock's prolific, indefatigueable career in which his style seamlessly remained hidden to stealthily intensify the story, as it is supposed to be.