Classic World War Two Confrontational Drama

Rating: 6/10 (26 June 2005)

During World War II, a US merchant marine ship and a German U-Boat sink each other in the mid-Atlantic. Eight motley survivors of the freighter gather one by one on a small lifeboat, when a ninth man pulls himself aboard and utters a heartfelt, "Danke schön" ...
There are relatively few good films about the Second World War which were actually made during the war (The Great Dictator is the only other one that comes to mind), and only a director of Hitchcock's stature would attempt a film that is so politically charged - Allied morality versus Nazi sensibility - and technically challenging - a movie set entirely on a tiny boat. The fact that it stands up as a suspenseful and intriguing film sixty years after it was made is a testament to his genius. Written by John Steinbeck and Jo Swerling, it's a great idea for a claustrophobic movie; throw together eight people in wartime from one side and one from the other and watch how they treat each other. Bankhead, a much-acclaimed stage actress who didn't have much luck in films shines as a society hack, Hodiak and Hull square off nicely as young buck and rich old man rivals, Cronyn (who wrote and acted in a couple of other Hitchcock movies) has a nice part as a quiet good guy and the rest of the cast give strong support. Slezak (who was Austrian), has the role of a lifetime as Willy, the wily U-Boat Captain, using all his strength and guile to slowly take charge of events. His devious and sinister cunning are chilling, but the astonishing scene where the others snap and lynch him is one of the most disturbing and powerful scenes I have ever come across. A lot of war films deal with tragedy and injustice in a moving and dramatic way, but this film, made during a terrible bloody war, captures a thought-provoking truth about what conflict does to people with a truly intense and lingering profundity. Don't miss Hitch's amusing and clever method of including his standard cameo appearance, despite the film's setting.