Some Thoughts From A Steinbeck Fan

Rating: 7/10 (14 September 2017)

Everyone remembers this as a Hitchcock film, and all of the reviews focus on how the great director shaped the material and gave every scene and frame his distinctive style. I saw this movie at the age of 12 and I loved it, but more than forty years later I'm really struck by the literary themes and the presence of great novelist John Steinbeck.
There's a reason why they call this "John Steinbeck's Lifeboat."
First I want to point out that this is a study of a group. Just the way THE GRAPES OF WRATH is about the Joads, and the Okies in flight, much more than about individuals like Tom or Casy, so in this story the lifeboat survivors are only meant to matter to the extent that they work together for common goals and uphold common values. In fact the one way the villain sticks out is that he's self- sufficient, able to keep his own counsel and do everything on his own. Steinbeck is always suspicious of individualism and even of individual strengths. The collective is everything to him, the survival of the group and not the triumph of the individual.
At the same time, when you look at the terrible murder in the middle of the movie, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the end of OF MICE AND MEN. Willi the U-Boat Captain and Gus the doomed cripple have a very personal scene in which they sound a lot like George and Lennie! Of course the viewer can decide if Willi really felt any compassion at all for Lennie or if he's an evil Nazi through and through. But the arguments he makes for getting rid of Gus are those George makes about Lennie in similar circumstances.
This movie reflects the great strengths of John Steinbeck's humanity and concern for the survival of the human community. It also reflects some of his weaknesses, particularly where the female characters are concerned. Tallulah Bankhead does wonders as Connie, the tough, hard-edged journalist, but it's fair to say that Steinbeck had a tendency to see women as either hard, vicious, and predatory, or weak, soft, and helpless. The young mother with the dead baby is presented as a pitiable victim but at the same time there's a sense of Steinbeck's vague distaste for the maternal instinct, since it reduces women to an animal-like state or to a state of total hysteria. It's no accident that the mother gets killed off early and that the hard, aggressive woman is not allowed much in the way of affection or friendship. Of course there is a romance between the British sailor and the nurse, but they are probably more Hitchcock's invention than Steinbeck's. Both are good comrades who keep a stiff upper lip, more English than American.
To sum up, this movie is a Hitchcock classic, but it's also a fascinating look at the world view of a Nobel prize winning author who was then at the height of his powers.