Alfred Hitchcock (1944)
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1944, 86 MINS, US
CAST:
(20th Century-Fox)
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Alfred Hitchcock, Lifeboat, 1944 |
The picture is based on an original idea of
director Alfred Hitchcock's. Hitchcock, from
accounts, first asked Steinbeck to write the
piece for book publication, figuring that if it
turned out a big seller the exploitation value
for film purposes would be greatly enhanced.
The author, however, would not undertake
the more ambitious assignment and wrote
the story for screen purposes only, with Jo
Swerling handling the adaptation.
Patterned along one of the simplest, most
elementary forms of dramatic narration, the
action opens and closes on a lifeboat. It's a
lusty, robust story about a group of survivors
from a ship sunk by a U-boat. One by one the
survivors find precarious refuge on the
lifeboat. Finally they pick up a survivor from
the German U-boat. He is first tolerated and
then welcomed into their midst. And he repays their trust and confidence with murderous treachery.
Walter Slezak, as the German, comes
through with a terrific delineation. Henry
Hull as the millionaire, William Bendix
as the mariner with a jitterbug complex
who loses a leg, John Hodiak as the tough,
bitter, Nazi-hater, and Canada Lee as the
colored steward, deliver excellent characterizations.
Hitchcock pilots the piece skillfully, ingeniously developing suspense and action.
Despite that it's a slow starter, the picture,
from the beginning, leaves a strong impact
and, before too long, develops into the type of
suspenseful product with which Hitchcock
has always been identified.
Tallulah Bankhead won a New York Film Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress.
Hitchcock originally wanted Ernest Hemingway, author of The Old Man and the Sea and A Farewell to Arms, to work on the script. When his efforts came to nothing, he persuaded the celebrated author John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men) to work on a plot outline.
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