Lifeboat (1944)

Lifeboat (1944)

In director Alfred Hitchcock's tense ensemble adventure thriller-drama - it told about eight American and German civilians who were survivors of a U-Boat submarine attack on a merchant ship during WWII, and confined together on a lifeboat. The very unique, innovative, and original film, based in part upon John Steinbeck's unpublished novel (and adapted by screenwriter Jo Swerling) was the first of Hitchcock's restricted or limited-setting films. [Note: The others were Rope (1948), Dial M for Murder (1954) and Rear Window (1954) .] Hitchcock's sole film for 20th Century Fox was filmed in black-and-white and lacked any musical score except for its opening and closing credit sequences. Its three Academy Awards nominations (with no wins) included Best Director, Best Original Story, and Best B/W Cinematography.

Many reviewers read the film as polemical and propagandistic due to Hitchcock's seeming urge to the varied Allied forces to unite together to defeat the perceived enemy, although some pointed out that controversially, at the time of the film's release, it was unfortunate that the sole Nazi in the lifeboat appeared more intelligent and competent than the others who were confused and argumentative amongst each other. One of the lifeboat survivors voiced these concerns: "Now, now, now, we're all sort of fellow travelers in a mighty small boat, on a mighty big ocean. And the more we quarrel and criticize and misunderstand each other, the bigger the ocean gets and the smaller the boat." However, others felt that Hitchcock's approach was correct in portraying the Nazi as a superior, who was representative of the powerful German enemy that had shrewdly taken over the democracies of the world and fooled so many of its unprepared and gullible opponents. The lifeboat represented a microcosm of the democracies of the world that were adrift.

• the opening scene presented the aftermath of the sinking of an Allied passenger freighter (sailing from New York to London in the Atlantic) by a Nazi U-boat's torpedo; the enemy's U-boat was also sunk; there was a view of the smokestack of the sinking freighter, swirling waters and views of the debris-strewn surface of the water; a slow pan from left to right revealed a box of American Red Cross supplies for Great Britain, a broken crate of fruit, a large duffel bag, a New Yorker magazine cover, some playing cards, sheet music of composer Stephen Foster's 1854 song (Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair), some large wooden spoons or paddles and a chessboard, and a corpse face-down in the water with a German lifebelt on its back

• the first view of the titular lifeboat revealed only a single occupant wearing a mink coat, gold-diamond bracelet, and smoking a cigarette; she was clearly annoyed after noticing a rip in one of her nylons; she had been able to save her suitcase, her cigarette case and lighter, a blanket and her deluxe 16 mm movie camera -- she was a rich, elegant, well-dressed, spoiled and cynical fashion photo-journalist named Constance "Connie" Porter (Tallulah Bankhead)
• she was soon joined by a second survivor - a virulent, hot-headed, grease-covered, anti-Nazi Czech-American Kovac (John Hodiak); he reacted to Connie: "Lady, you certainly don't look like somebody that's just been shipwrecked!"; he explained that he was off-duty and not in the freighter's engine-room when the torpedo hit, enabling him to escape injury; he said the attack reminded him of "a slaughterhouse I once worked at in Chicago"; he also expressed his anti-Nazi bias: "Those Nazi buzzards - a tin fish ain't enough. They've got to shell us too!"
• Connie was proud to have witnessed the sinking of the German U-boat, and that she had been able to film the entire battle and its wreckage, and the shelling of other lifeboats (footage that she excitedly described: "And what pictures! Priceless!"); as Kovac stood up to help and save the next survivor, English radio operator Stanley "Sparks" Garrett (Hume Cronyn), he clumsily knocked Constance's movie camera overboard, and she reacted angrily: "Absolutely irreplaceable stuff. Priceless. The best film I ever took! Goes to the bottom of the sea....I wouldn't have parted with that film for a million dollars. When will I ever get stuff like that again?"
• three others were found floating on wreckage: Army nurse Alice MacKenzie (Mary Anderson), seriously-wounded German-American Gus Smith/Schmidt (William Bendix), and self-made wealthy industrialist C.J. "Ritt" Rittenhouse (Henry Hull); Connie was pleased to see Rittenhouse, a friend of hers, although he quipped as he was helped into the lifeboat: "Connie! Did you come from the freighter or the Stork Club?"; he added: "I never expected to see you alive," and she affirmed: "You know I'm practically immortal, Ritt"; when Alice asked to look at Gus' bloody leg, he slyly replied: ("Oh, well, OK babe. Maybe you'll let me return the compliment someday"); worried about his injured leg affecting his dancing prowess, Gus bragged: "I can out-jive the rest of those hepcats even with a bum gam"
• the next individual who appeared, black steward "Joe" Spencer (Canada Lee), who Connie initially called "Charcoal" and claimed that he had assisted her into the lifeboat, was also seen helping to rescue a young shell-shocked Britisher mother Mrs. Higley (Heather Angel) from Bristol with her infant baby; Joe claimed that she was trying to drown the baby and herself with it; although the mother was assured that her baby was safe, the baby was dead
• the final person to join the lifeboat was German Willi (Walter Slezak) who spoke only German ("Danke schoen"); Sparks immediately suspected he was the German U-boat commander himself; Connie translated for Willi, who claimed he was only a crew member; he apologized for the shelling of the lifeboats due to commands to follow orders; Kovac (who revealed he was from Czechoslovakia and zealously anti-Nazi) was unhappy with Willi's presence, called him a "rattlesnake" ("Get him out of here") and threatened to throw him overboard

• the group quarreled amongst each other, as Ritt tried to calm everyone's nerves: "Now, now, now, we're all sort of fellow travelers in a mighty small boat, on a mighty big ocean. And the more we quarrel and criticize and misunderstand each other, the bigger the ocean gets and the smaller the boat"; Kovac was adamant about throwing Willi overboard: ("I say let's throw him overboard and watch him drown. When he goes down, I'll dance a jig like Hitler did when France went down"), and Gus agreed with Kovac: ("I say throw him to the sharks") although they were overruled by Connie, Sparks, Alice and Rittenhouse; when the lifeboat members were voting whether or not to spare Willi, "Joe" was shocked that his opinion was valued: ("Do I get to vote too?") and decided to stay out of the quarreling; the voting was interrupted by Mrs. Higley who declared: "My baby's dead!", and she began beating Willi
• the first night in the lifeboat, in a back-lit sequence, while Mrs. Higley slept (under Connie's loaned mink coat), a funeral ceremony was held to bury her baby at sea; Ritt started a prayer that the religiously-Christian "Joe" finished, with a moving, memorized recitation of the 23rd Psalm: ("....He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness, for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen")
• Mrs. Higley awakened to find her baby Johnny missing and became hysterical; the group was forced to tie her down with a rope to a chair to prevent her from hurting herself; however, by morning, the group discovered that Mrs. Higley (wearing Connie's mink coat) had committed suicide by jumping out of the boat with the rope still attached to her; the rope was cut to set her adrift
• there were very few supplies on the lifeboat to sustain the large group of survivors - only one beaker of water and some dry biscuits, and a compass that was smashed to pieces; the group was unaware that Willi had a concealed compass that he was secretly using to steer their course; the boat's mast was damaged although there were efforts to create a sail, and Ritt assigned responsibilities to each person: (Sparks - navigation, Joe - Head of Commissary, Connie - Ship's Log, Alice - Sick Bay, Ritt: Skipper)
• about 25 minutes into the film, there was a surprise cameo appearance of director Hitchcock in a newspaper ad for a waist-slimming product (Reduco Obesity Slayer), being read by Gus
• during the midst of a discussion about who was qualified enough to 'captain' or skipper the lifeboat and steer its course ESE toward the British territory of Bermuda, Connie spoke in German to Willi asking for his opinion, and the German disagreed with Sparks' proposed course; a heated debate arose when Ritt urged following Willi's advice to set their course and Kovac disagreed: ("I wouldn't trust anything he says"); Kovac dismissed Ritt's qualification of owning a shipyard as insufficient to lead the group's decision-making: ("Who elected you skipper?")
• the film's major turning point was revealed when Connie uncovered the German's true position and rank as the U-boat Kapitan when he responded to her use of his title; he had lied to them; the last survivor of the lifeboat's passengers was the treacherous and sinister Nazi U-boat Captain Willi; Kovac was against turning over the navigation of the boat to the Kapitan: ("You want to turn the boat over to the man who sunk our ship and shelled our lifeboats?"), and insisted on taking charge: "As of now, I'm skipper. Anybody who don't like it can get out and swim to Bermuda"; Sparks was assigned to take the tiller and proceed in his preferred ESE direction; as Sparks steered the lifeboat with a guide rope, he accidentally knocked Connie's typewriter into the ocean and she groused: "Little by little, I'm being stripped of all my earthly possessions"
• Willi suggested in German (translated by Connie) that the gangrene-infected leg of German-American Gus needed immediate treatment (and volunteered to be the surgeon due to his civilian life background) - "The leg has to come off", although Gus resisted and claimed he would lose his flighty dance partner Rosie: "If I lose my leg, I lose Rosie....What good's a hep-cat with one gam missin'?"; Connie was able to persuade Gus to agree to the surgery, arguing that Rosie would understand and was probably worrying about him right then "not knowing whether you're dead or alive"
• in an almost-wordless scene, as Gus drank brandy provided by Connie, his leg was gruesomely amputated after Willie heated up the blade of a knife with a cigarette lighter (protected from the wind by the hands of the survivors); Sparks struggled to keep the boat steady as the waves surged and rocked the lifeboat; Gus' right boot was tossed onto the deck by Kovac to end the scene with a fade to black
• Willi convinced Connie that they were on the "wrong course" and should change their direction in order to sail toward Bermuda; although Kovac disagreed: ("I don't trust that Nazi. There must be other submarines around and he knows where they are, or maybe a supply ship"), the whole group decided to follow the Kapitan's advice to take a new course
• that evening, Alice admitted to Connie that she was having personal relationship issues with a man in England, and then also told Sparks that she was enmeshed in a "hopeless" affair with a married family man (a doctor in her same hospital named Stephen), after she had facetiously said she was glad that their trip had been delayed to London; while they talked, Sparks realized by the stars in the night sky that they were proceeding East, and that the resourceful Willi had been steering them not toward Bermuda as he had promised: ("We're heading to miss Bermuda"); when the other crew members were informed, Kovac reacted: "He made suckers out of all of us"
• as the crew debated whether to accuse Willi of guilt, Kovac ordered ex-pickpocket Joe see what the German had in his pocket - and it was revealed to be not a watch but a compass; the enraged Kovac threatened to stab the German ("dirty double-crossing rat") and told the more tolerant others to have a backbone: ("What are you so squeamish about? We're at war!"); a huge storm intervened and Gus was washed overboard and had to be rescued, as Willi took the tiller - and yelled at the crew - in English! ("You fools! Stop thinking of yourselves! Think of the boat!")
• Willi took command and was able to steer the lifeboat safely through the storm, although the group was now off-course, and had lost all their food, water, the boat's mast, and Connie's suitcase; once the storm calmed, Willi attempted to single-handedly row the lifeboat forward - filmed at a low angle to emphasize his dominance in the scene; Kovac sarcastically noted: "Our enemy, our prisoner of war. Now, we're his prisoners, and he's gauleiter of the boat, singin' German lullabies to us while he rows us to his supply ship. and a concentration camp"
• Gus became delirious, began hallucinating and talking about major league ballgames he was going to attend (Sparks: "He's off of the beam again"), and was caught by Alice trying to scoop up a cup of salty seawater
• the indomitable and snobbish Connie and oiler Kovac were becoming romantic partners; she remarked about largest tattooed initials B.M.: ("Her initials are larger than the others. Was she the last or the first? What was her name?"), and mentioned how "dying together is even more personal than living together"; Connie and Kovac also entered into a discussion about her diamond bracelet, when she noted that they both came from the same South Side of Chicago ("the same gutter"): ("You're a low person, darling, obviously out of the gutter. Maybe that's why I'm attracted to you")
• Connie claimed that the bracelet had brought her out of poverty: ("And I lived there until I got this. It worked miracles for me. It took me from the, uh South Side to the North Side. It was my passport from the stockyards to the Gold Coast. It got me everything I wanted, up to now"); she put her initials C.P. on Kovac's chest with her lipstick tube and then they kissed, but he pulled away when he glanced down at her bracelet ("Quit slumming!"); the German observed and told Connie: "He likes you, but he hates the bracelet"; reflecting her own starving situation, Connie observed how the German seemed to be from a superior race: "He's made of iron! The rest of us are just flesh and blood, hungry flesh and blood, and thirsty"

• during a game of cards between Kovac and Ritt, Kovac proposed upping the ante to 100ドル and then to 1,000,ドル and he hoped to win: "Think I'll go for one of your airplane plants"; the game became contentious when Ritt accused Kovac of marking the cards and cheating; a gust of wind blew away proof of Ritt's winning hand, and he was faced with a debt of 13,500ドル owed to Kovac; their game was interrupted by the approach of rain - a welcome opportunity to collect rain water, but it was only transitory
• the despairing Gus again reached for his cup to collect sea water to drink and soon after became delusional, but he wasn't seeing things when he observed the German drinking water from a hoarded flask - and he told Sparks: "Willi's got some water" who ignored him; when Gus questioned the German about his hidden flask: "Where'd you get the water? You've been holdin' out on us...Why didn't you share it with the rest of us?" Willi pushed him overboard to keep him quiet; Gus drowned (his weak cries for help were unheard by the rest of the sleeping crew)
• when confronted by the rest of the crew, the German cold-heartedly admitted: "The best way to help him was to let him go. I had no right to stop him, even if I wanted to. A poor cripple dying of hunger and thirst, what good could life be to a man like that?"; sweat on Willi's brow, and the revelation by Joe that he had a water flask hidden under his shirt confirmed that the German had murdered Gus; the German even went further, admitting by bragging that he had maintained his strength and was better prepared than the others with a supply of food tablets and energy pills (from the U-boat): "You should be grateful to me for having the foresight to think ahead. To survive, one must have a plan"
• five members of the group (Joe did not participate - he had presumably seen enough of lynch mobs) violently attacked and beat Willi - they were pushed to the limit to turn against their Nazi enemy; he was beaten, kicked and struck in the forehead before he was thrown overboard to his death; to ensure the German's death, Ritt smashed Willi twice with the shoe from Gus' amputated leg; afterwards, Ritt expressed his dismay about Willi's ungrateful behavior and treachery: "To my dying day, I'll never understand Willi or what he did....What do you do with people like that?"
• while thinking about their doomed future, radio operator Sparks told Alice: "Whatever happens, I'd like you to marry me" and she accepted his proposal; bolstering their confidence with a stern lecture, Connie encouraged everyone to not beat themselves up over killing the German, because he was guiding them to their deaths: "We're all going to fold up and die just because that ersatz superman is gone... Good grief, look at you...What's the matter with us? We not only let the Nazi do our rowing for us, but our thinking!"; the indomitable Connie, who refused to be defeated and give up, used her diamond-gold bracelet as a fish bait-lure ("Sure, we have bait, by Cartier"), symbolic of her moral decision to discard her material possessions and strive for survival (she had already lost her typewriter, her camera, her mink coat, and her suitcase)
• after there was a strike on the line, Joe noticed an approaching German war vessel that Willi had been attempting to guide them toward; during the frenzied sighting of the ship on the horizon, unfortunately, the fishing line and Connie's bracelet were lost (she reacted with hysterical laughter); as a smaller German launch was released toward them, it was then suddenly retracted with the approach of an Allied warship that attacked, bombarded, and sank the German launch and then bombed the ship; as the ship was hit and sinking, it almost collided with the lifeboat and swamped it; after it sank, Kovac reacted: "Well, that settles the score"

• as they awaited rescue in the next 20 minutes, Connie again began to worry about her physical appearance (her hair, nails, and face); Alice asked about Sparks' last name, and Ritt promised to pay the 50ドル grand owed to Kovac
• in the ambiguous ending at the last moment, the lifeboat passengers were forced to decide what to do with a young injured and frightened German sailor/survivor (William Yetter Jr.) who had climbed onboard their lifeboat with a gun from the sunken German warship: (Kovac: "The baby has a toy!"); Ritt immediately urged killing him: "You can't treat them as human beings. You've got to exterminate them"; Joe disarmed the young sailor and Connie threw the gun into the ocean

• the young German asked - in German: "Aren't you going to kill me?"; Connie translated what he had said: ("Aren't you going to kill me?"); Kovac repeated his words: "Aren't you going to kill me?" and then added his own reaction (similar to Ritt's assertion earlier): "What are you gonna do with people like that?"; Sparks thought about the answer that might have been given by some of the deceased: ("I don't know. I was thinking of Mrs. Higley and her baby, and Gus"), and Connie (in close-up with the last spoken line of dialogue) wondered that maybe Mrs. Higley and Gus could answer him: ("Well, maybe they can answer that")
• the film abruptly ended, and presumably the group was rescued