Hitchcock's best war movie, and the ambiguities of behavior in wartime

Rating: 10/10 (7 August 2006)

He called it (as did the critics) an allegory - and it is but it's characters are so complex that they rise above the normal stick figures of allegory. This is no PILGRIM'S PROGRESS with characters named "Christian", "Faithfull", "Talkative", "Envy", and "Mr. Worldly Wiseman". The characters represent economic and national types, such as labor (John Hodiak), capital (Henry Hull), the media and feminism (Tallulah Bankhead), Canada and the Empire (Hume Cronym), fuzzy headed American isolationism (William Bendix), the third world watching (Canada Lee), and the threat of German efficiency (Walter Slezak - maybe his best performance).
LIFEBOAT is the story of the survivors of the sinking of a steamer by a German u-boat (the ship sinking is done in the opening credits, and we hear the explosion, and see smoke, but the only thing we see sink is the smokestack of the ship as it goes under - a typically brilliant sequence by Hitchcock). The submarine was hit by a shell from the ship's gun (apparently one of those ships that the British merchant marine have as converted war vessels). As the survivors gather one mentions the sub was sunk. And sure enough an additional survivor turns up - a German (Slezak).
From the start there are frictions between the survivors. Hodiak, a member of the crew in the engine room, is very turned off by the way Bankhead commandeered the lifeboat for herself - and her luggage. She is a reporter, and instead of showing the gravity of the moment towards the dead, she boasts of how she photographed a dead baby. Hodiak is very happy when Bankhead loses her camera - the first of many things she loses. But as she loses her possessions she slowly picks up on her humanity again. Bankhead's movie career was very mixed, and this film is her zenith as a movie actress.
Henry Hull and Bankhead get along better as Hull is Rittenhouse, a prominent capitalist. He actually is a decent sort, but as the film progresses his card games with Hodiak become a running commentary of capital v. labor, to the point where when he thinks he's beaten Hodiak a wind blows their cards away, and Hull angrily accuses Hodiak of cheating him. Hull has a unique symbol. Like Bankhead he grabbed the first box of cigars from his room that he could and raced to the deck and the lifeboats. Ironically the box only had one cigar in it. For the entire film Hull has to just keep that one cigar (constantly in his mouth) to satisfy himself.
There is tragedy among the survivors. One of them is a Mrs. Higley (a passenger played by Heather Angel) who had a baby. The baby was lost in the disaster, and she is in a state of shock. The others try to comfort her, but she can't be. Eventually they find her missing - she went off in the night to join her baby.
William Bendix is Gus Schmidt (who has anglified his name as Smith, as an act of anger towards the Nazis). Gus has had a good marriage, but he and his wife pride themselves on their dancing. But his wounds (from burning oil) were such that he had to have his leg amputated in the lifeboat. He is in a messed situation because he wonders if his wife will remain with him now that he is crippled.
And finally there is Willy. As I said before Walter Slezak probably never had a better part. It was also the only time he worked with Hitchcock. It is easy to demonize Willy - he is a Nazi submariner (and - we eventually learn - it's Captain). He does work quietly to take the lifeboat to a rendezvous point with a Nazi ship. And (SPOILER COMING UP) he is responsible for the death of Gus.
That scene though supports what I said earlier. If this was a pure allegory of the war against the Nazis, Slezak's killing of Bendix would be done without any conscience at all. Actually Willy shows a degree of humanity here that the "nicer" people fail to show. Gus is not doing well, and is physically suffering. He is also emotionally low because he suspects that he is not going to be finding his wife supportive now that he is a cripple. Willy speaks to him at night and Gus does show he's suicidal. Willy is not acting opportunistic about this. He knows that if Gus survives he will be miserable for the rest of his life.
He does convince the groggy Gus to go over the side, and so it seems absolutely horrific (especially as Bendix starts screaming for help after he goes over the side and can't float). So we tend to think that Slezak is heartless. But what really would have been poor Gus's future? And if it is just a murder of an enemy in war (hard to really build on that point), Slezak certainly would not have requested that Gus return to his using the original German name that he gave up. There would be no need for that. The fact is that it is a type of euthanasia killing - which the Nazis favored for people who were feeble minded or physically defective. The viewer may be horrified by Bendix last screams, but we would still wonder if his life would have been better if he had survived with the others.