small Hitchcock film that packs a wallop

Rating: 10/10 (11 April 2016)

A drama teacher once told me a personality functioning is much more interesting than an actor. We don't have personalities functioning so much anymore - the Bette Davises, the Katharine Hepburns -- but "Lifeboat" demonstrates the truth of that statement with one of the great personalities, Tallulah Bankhead.
On film in the early '30s, Bankhead wasn't as effective as she is here, mainly because she played ordinary roles that anyone could have played. Here, the stunning actress plays a journalist, Constance Porter, as filtered through Tallulah -- in a mink, sitting on the boat with a typewriter, a camera, and wearing a Cartier bracelet, as she addressed everyone as "darling."
Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" was a World War II film about a group of people stranded in a lifeboat after the Germans sink their ship. The stars, besides Bankhead, are John Hodiak, Hume Cronyn, William Bendix, Mary Anderson, Henry Hull, Canada Lee, and Walter Slezak as the Nazi who hitches a ride and nearly outsmarts them all - quite a statement during the war.
It's a story of disparate people working together trying to survive through horrific weather conditions at times, injuries, hunger, and thirst, and then being virtually taken over by a Superman who sings in German and can row the boat, probably toward a German supply ship instead of Bermuda. "So we're all going to fold up and die," Constance says to the passengers when they have lost hope. "We not only let the Nazi do our rowing for us, but our thinking!"
The acting is wonderful, from Hume Cronyn as a Cockney, Slezak as the cruel German, macho John Hodiak coming on to Constance, and beautiful Mary Anderson as a troubled young woman. Especially poignant was William Bendix's performance as Gus, a regular guy in love with a good-time girl named Rosie.
A very exciting film, done in the days before special effects -- it's a tribute to Hitchcock's ingenuity.