Customer Reviews

Lifeboat (The Hitchcock Collection) [VHS]

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lifeboat is an early masterpiece from Hitchcock, whose today is better know for his colour-period other masterpieces like REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, THE BIRDS, etc.

But this great film (I guess, the only one he made to Twentieth Century Fox) is one his best works from his american B&W period along with REBECCA and NOTORIOUS. And it shows....

Lifeboat was a play by John Steinback, in which, after a dramatic sea battle, a group of passengers get together on a lifeboat after the ocean liner they were travelling at gets sunk by a german U-boat (that also sunk).

This premisse is the perfect environment for Hitchcock to show his best characteristic: a director who loves to work under self imposed constrictions so he can turn these same constrictions to his own advantage. The constriction I'm talking about is his best mark: closed spaces, single settings, the challenge of making the audience unaware that they are in just one big room.

Stranded in the middle of the Atlantic we see a micro society: the rich spoiled girl in a mink coat (Talullah Bankhead in a great role), an industrialist, a sailor, a mother with her dead baby, a nurse, a engeneer, a steward... and the german captain from the U-boat that was responsible for the whole tragedy.

As the survivors try to cope with their new condition, they cannot agree on the direction their lifeboat should take in a desperate attempt to reach an allied ship. Should they trust one of theirs and risk to die adrift... or should they trust the wise experienced german captain who may or may not be leading them towards a german ship that may be somewhere close.

And then comes the question: is the german captain a prisoner of the group... or is the whole group prisoner of just one german?

Can you believe the dramatic possibilities of such an idea?

Well... being a Hitchcock movie, you'll never see a dull moment... nor the camera stuck by the fact we are in just one set. Everything in this movie is right... actors, cinematography, direction, special effects... everything in this movie is a great example of classical Hollywood... and the story has great pace... and never lets the audience for a moment feel bored. There's plenty action, suspense, tension, drama... even murder.

Talullah Bankhead's character is unforgettable as a rich, spoiled reporter whose practical spirit is always ahead of problems... she is always chicly and stylishly helping everybody. My favorite quotes: "Dying together's even more personal than living together"; "In a word: Wow!" and the best one... "Darling, some of my best friends are in jail"

Finnaly, Fox is releasing this great film in a restored edition. Full of nice extras and in a beautiful package.

Hurray!!!!

Alfred Hitchcock's daring wartime drama rises to the technical challenge of being confined to a small set. Based on a story by John Steinbeck, "Lifeboat" (1944) remains among the director's most humanistic works with its emotional claustrophobia and incisive characterizations. Though a bit dialogue-heavy, the Master of Suspense creates a surprising amount of tension and intrigue throughout the film's 96-minute length. Tallulah Bankhead gives her finest screen performance, yet the entire cast is excellent. A minor classic in the Hitchcock canon.

I have a pal at Fox Home Video. The reason we have all been waiting for this release is due to the poor condition of the original film elements. For those of you who owned the laserdisc edition, remember that the first reel was plagued with water damage (almost fitting for this type of movie). Rumor has it that this fine grain master print was the best Fox had available at the time...that the negative was not around...not necessarily lost, just not able to be located. My buddy tells me that this is no longer the case and that restoration work has been ongoing for the better part of a year on this title. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Lifeboat where do i begin? well for starters i guess it would have to be that this is one of my all time favorite Films from Alfred Hitchcock. But to most people they have never heard of Lifeboat. Yeah it was one of his early works but one of his best. Most people when they think of Hitchcock they think of Psycho ans The Birds and Vertigo. But this is better than the birds. It has a human story and ever increasing the tension. In a by gone era of hollywood when movies were grand in spectical not budget.

Lifeboat is about a freighter that is heading to New York. But is sunk by a German U-boat and in the opening scenes there is Tallulah Bankhead in a lifeboat all by herself with all of her belongings. Then one by one they pick up more survivors the tension increasing when they pick up a crewman of the U-boat. Only Hitchcock would make his backlot movie with fake clouds seem so real and make a the ocean look vast and barren. He also manages to elict good performances from Bankhead,Walter Slezak, Canada Lee and others.

I would highly reccomend that you check out this film from the master of suspense. this is not to be missed of put of. It is very suspensful i mean would you come to expect less from Hitchcock.

SEE THIS MOVIE I BEG YOU.

This review is for the 2005 Twentieth Century Fox DVD.

The movie doesn't waste any time assembling ten adults in a lifeboat that was launched from a sinking freighter torpedoed by a German U-Boat in the Atlantic during World War II. Nine of the crew came from the freighter, while the tenth is a survivor of the U-Boat, which was also sunk during this confrontation. The more notable characters include: a world famous news reporter, Connie Smith (Tallulah Bankhead); a U-Boat Captain (Walter Slezak); a freighter engine man, John Kovac (John Hodiak); a freighter captain Gus Smith (William Bendix); and a wealthy industrialist, 'Ritt' Rittenhouse (Henry Hull). The survivors are confronted with plenty of moral challenges among themselves as well as battling nature with very limited food, water and other life-sustaining essentials.

There's rarely a dull moment in this film as the freighter survivors are faced with many moral dilemmas including saving a person who is responsible for sinking their ship and killing hundreds of their fellow crewmen. Murphy's Law (if something can go wrong, it probably will) seems to also run amuck in this story. Since it was made and released during WWII, there's clearly a sense of Allied moral superiority. The best performance and screen presence far and away is by Tallulah Bankhead, but all of the other actors give stellar performances. Canada Lee's recitation of the 23rd Psalm is simply great! I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and it clearly has Hitchcock's artistry and personal touches throughout the film including his clever cameo appearance.

As for the DVD, Hitchcock fans like myself who have seen this on VHS have been aware that the image quality has been always been suspect and there was great hope and anticipation that the DVD would offer an immaculate presentation of the film. This wasn't the case as parts of the first 15 minutes show some of the same water-damaged image problems revealed on the VHS videos. Fortunately, this happens during scenes where its foggy, so it's not a devastating issue, but one would have hoped that Fox could have either found some secondary sources or meticulously restored these damaged segments. But in spite of these technical shortcomings, I would still strongly recommend viewing this movie. There are several worthwhile bonus features including how the film was shot in Fox's studio and commentary by film professor Drew Casper.


Movie: A-

DVD Quality: B-

An ambitious film for its time, "Lifeboat" capably depicts the despair of a very diverse group of people shipwrecked in a tiny boat on an immense ocean. During a wartime encounter between a British merchant-freighter and a German U-boat, both vessels are sunk and only nine survivors make it into the lifeboat. One is a German submariner. Human compassion prevails as he is permitted aboard -- besides, he is the only one with any ability to navigate. Tallulah Bankhead gives an impressive performance as the domineering, spoiled, Society reporter who takes command of her companions' fate. Skilled in German, only she can communicate with the taciturn "prisoner". Suspense mounts with the suspicion that the German is actually a Nazi officer who is directing the lifeboat into a trap. As the survivors are stricken with one disaster after another, accusations erupt into violence that even the indomitable Tallulah may not be able to control. But through it all, her lipstick and coiffure will remain perfect! This fine classic film is a very intense psychological study which ought to appeal to a new audience enfatuated with current televised "survival" series.

Alfred Hitchcock always put together cinematic experiences that astound, bewilder, and amaze. In the years before World War II, Hitchcock efficiently capitalized on the politically tense atmosphere in Europe through suspenseful spy dramas such as The 39 Steps (1935), Sabotage (1936), and The Lady Vanishes (1938). During the Second World War, he continued to display a thorough understanding of political climate and fear that it generated in the American people and the rest of the Allied world through Saboteur (1942) and Lifeboat (1944).

Besides Hitchcock's extensive wisdom of the political and social world, he also illustrates a brilliant mind for the human psyche. Both the social and psychological world in which people coexists subtly materialize in his films through an intricate web of truths and lies, as emotions efficiently cloud the thoughts of the characters. It is a notion that emerges exceptionally well in Lifeboat, where Hitchcock allows the audience to submerge themselves in a tale thick of psychological undercurrents that feeds on the fear spawned in the social and political world of the 1940s.

It begins with a promise of horror and fear that enters the audience, as the music screams chillingly out of the speakers. The opening music serves the great purpose of keying the audience into the severity of the catastrophe in the beginning, and to what dreadfulness waits. Through the opening credits the black smoke races out of a ship's chimney, as the steam whistle uninterruptedly shrieks its alarm. Symbolically, it might warn the audience of dangerous times ahead while it more directly implies that the near future in the film will provide danger and suspense.

Hitchcock was also a genius at applying symbolical items within the mise-en-scene that the audience understood. Lifeboat is no exception even though the whole film takes place in the small lifeboat. On the contrary, the opening montage offers a clear indication of how clever Hitchcock was in using items to bring out feelings and moods within the audience. The opening displays the aftermath of a Nazi torpedo that has sunk a delivery vessel, but in the process faced its own doom. Through a few, but strategically placed items floating in the water Hitchcock says exactly what he wants, and more. The symbolical value of the mise-en-scene continues to enhance the cinematic experience throughout the film.

Ironically, Hitchcock allows the audience first to meet greedy reporter Constance "Connie" Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) floating along in the lifeboat. The fog wraps around her like a hidden secret while she notices that her pantyhose have a run in them instead of trying to find survivors. In a distance, she hears the voice of John Kovak (John Hodiak) calling for help while swimming to the safety of the lifeboat. Callously, the audience learns about Connie's persona, as she in feverish joy explains how she documented the passengers' fierce struggle for survival while the ship was sinking. It is not until Kovak begins to search for other survivors that the lifeboat begins to fill up with people. However, Kovak is not without flaws, which slowly begin to emerge through his inferiority complex.

Amidst the other passengers that join the lifeboat the audience will learn about a class struggle, love story, the tragic loss of a child, deceit, and war between nations, as one of the survivors turns out to be a Nazi sailor. These side plots enhance the complexity of story, as the struggle for survival continues. Within the complexity of the story, fear brews stronger, as it also allows the monster of each individual to emerge regardless of nationality. However, a notion that Hitchcock cleverly presents is the notion of reasonable fear depending on situation, as the fear of death shadows the thoughts of the survivors in the lifeboat. Yet, the human side of each character also presents some interesting notions in regards to understanding and indifference. Through the many different characters the audience will find at least one person they can identify with, which allows the viewer to take long and hard look into their own character and discover our own shortcomings and strengths.

Hitchcock concocted a masterful thriller while World War II still ran hot in Europe and Asia. In fear to how the audience might have reacted to the film, the studio only gave the film a limited release, which gave it poor box office earnings. Regardless of its earnings, it is a great film providing the audience with a meaningful cinematic experience with suspense in which the audience can ponder the notion of reasonable fear.

While Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 film Lifeboat is not my favorite of his film, it certainly has a lot going for it, not the least of which is a bejeweled and glamorous Tallulah Bankhead playing a feisty war reporter, stranded on a life boat with a mismatched group of survivors.

Lifeboat was an experimental film for Hitchcock; he reportedly wanted to make "order out of all the chaos of movie making," to see if he could really make a compelling movie with the action taking place in one location and the drama developed without recourse to flashbacks or cutaways. The end result is a film that is done cleverly and stylishly.

Lifeboat is pretty much an exercise in allied propaganda with entire picture taking place in a small boat, as the survivors of a torpedoed luxury liner find themselves cast adrift with the captain of the U-boat that sank them.

Lifeboat begins as we see the funnel of a ship slinking and various objects floating away: a copy of the New Yorker, playing cards, wooden spoons, a chessboard, and finally a corpse. With this sobering sight, we cut to the film's glamorous Tallulah Bankhead sitting alone in a lifeboat. Her Constance Porter is a journalist, and a bit of a rough diamond; as she lights up one of her cigarettes, we get the impression that she seems remarkably unfazed by what has just happened.

She whips out a camera to film the survivors as they climb into the boat. This enrages Kovac (John Hodiak), the resident socialist, and he throws her camera overboard. Soon other survivors are climbing aboard: There's low-class Brit Stanley (Hume Cronyn), natty capitalist C. D. Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), dopey Gus (William Bendix), reformed pickpocket Joe (Canada Lee), pretty nurse Miss MacKenzie (Mary Anderson), Mrs. Higgins (Heather Angel), a mad woman with a dead baby, and Willy (Walter Slezak), a corpulent Nazi.

The fact that they have a German on board infuriates Kovac, who thinks they should toss him overboard. But the others, especially Connie feels that he should be allowed to stay, citing the laws of democracy. Connie also speaks German and discovers that the man was Captain of the U-Boat and that he may be able to help them survive.

The group faces many obstacles, in their efforts to stay alive, battling the stormy elements, lack of food and fresh water, the scorn and suspicion for each other that society has ingrained into them, and, chiefly, their collective mistrust for a Nazi U-boat sailor, whom, despite his villainous credentials, they must invest their faith.

When Gus's leg becomes gangrenous, the group must decide whether it should be amputated, but it is soon discovered that only the Nazi has the necessary surgical skills. Meanwhile, a gentle romance simmers between Alice and Stanley. George who has a penchant for the Gospels, stands as the group's moral pillar; he is apolitical and totally good-hearted.

But the center of the film, and by far the best reason to see it is Tallulah, which Hitchcock eventually brings into focus as the film's emblem. We get to like her character more as she is gradually stripped of her material accoutrements.

At first we are unsympathetic to Connie but, we soon change our minds, as she has sympathy for the nurse's troubles, she kisses Gus before his leg is cut off - a lusty, open-mouthed Tallulah kiss - kisses Kovac when they think they're going to die, and gives a definitive answer to Joe's prayer: "How about giving Him a hand?" she asks.

The rest of the cast is uniformly good and the movie boasts the filmmaker's trademark technical polish: His command over editing, framing, and optical effects are spot on, and his ability to create a convincing storm is startling, considering the limitations of the period in which the film was made.

Hitchcock intended Lifeboat to be a microcosm of the Allied war effort, and to a certain extent it is. But the film also shows ordinary people under pressure; it never softens their edges and is able to boldly trace their war-weary dynamic. Lifeboat is all about the breaking down of the social veneers, that of class, education, and nationality, and it charts a group of people's descent into the vengeful darkness where none of them imagined they could ever go. Mike Leonard October 05.

While 20th Century Fox didn't go overboard in developing this "Special Edition" of "Lifeboat" they've done a good job. "Special Edition" doesn't mean that a title has been lovingly restored but that's usually the case. The bad news is that "Lifeboat" has been transferred from DVD from the same water damaged negative (interpositive or print or whatever was used as the source) that was used for a laserdisc edition and earlier video edition from the 90's. A classic early bit of Hitchcock that makes a lifeboat a microcosm of our prejudice infested world, "Lifeboat" is set during World War II. Hitchcock approached John Steinbeck to write a treatment and screenplay with the basic plot already sketched out for Steinbeck. Although Steinbeck did do a single draft, most of the script was written in collaboration with producer Kenneth MacGowan, Alam Reville Hitchcock and Tony Award winning writer Jo Swerling ("Guys and Dolls", "Pride of the Yankees") in collaboration with Hitchcock, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay in 1944.

After a German U-Boat sinks a ship in the Atlantic, ten people survive the sinking in a single lifeboat lost and largely forgotten by the rest of the world. Shipmates Gus Smith (William Bendix), John Kovac (John Hodiak), the radio operator"Sparks" Garrett (Hume Cronyn), an African-American steward named Joe (Canada Lee) and a small group of surviving passengers Alice a nurse (Heather Angel), the wealthy Charles Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), Photographer Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) finally a shell shocked mother (Mary Anderson) whose baby dies in the attack. When the passengers find another survivor things become nasty; the last survivor is a German officer (Walter Slezak) whose U-Boat is taken out after destroying the ship. When food disappears suspicions run rampant.

A nice transfer despite the water damage, "Lifeboat" doesn't look bad it could just look so much better with a careful restoration. Unfortunately, "Lifeboat" is one of a handful of Hitch's undervalued classics that probably wouldn't appeal to many people beyond Hitchcock fans and older movie buffs. The blacks are solid and although the water damage is clearly visible in the print the picture looks pretty good. The analog mono sound occasionally sounds a bit thin particularly when the music swells up but the dialogue is clear and crisp.

"The Making of `Life Boat': Theater of War" features Hitch's daughter Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell, film historian Drew Casper and others discussing the production. Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell points out that star Tallulah Bankhead had the role of Constance Porter crafted for her by Hitchcock with his collaborators. Bankhead never wore underwear so the crew would get a thrill every time she walked up the ladder and got in the lifeboat. At one point there was a complaint from the cameraman that every time Tallulah spread her legs the shot was ruined because you could see her pubic hair. Hitchcock loudly mentioned that he wasn't sure if he should call make up, hair dressing or wardrobe to deal with the issue. It became less of an issue after that. Bankhead continued to cause various problems by referring to actor Walter Slezak as a Nazi off camera and belittling screen vet Henry Hull because he kept forgetting his lines or muffling them during takes. Bankhead developed pneumonia during the shoot putting it further behind schedule. Hitch's granddaughter. The featurette at about 20 minutes has quite a bit of behind-the-scenes information included in it. We also get a stills gallery.

Professor Drew Casper who holds the Alma and Alfred Hitchcock chair at USC gives a very good commentary track. Although it's clearly written out almost as a lecture, Casper delivers his presentation with insight and trivia that will keep Hitchcock fans enraptured.

A terrific underrated Hitchcock classic that has been improving with time, "Lifeboat" got roasted by critics and Steinbeck scholars during and after its release. Why the critics didn't go overboard with praise has something to do with the time and expectations for Hitchcock's films. The performances work so well precisely because most of the actors did not get along with star Tallulah Bankhead during the shooting of the film.

Although it lacks the careful and loving restoration done for Universal's theatrical and home video re-release for "Rear Window" and "Vertigo", Fox's new DVD edition does come with a terrific featurette detailing the production of the film as well as a great stills gallery that features images of advertising, publicity articles and contest materials. Drew Casper's commentary also puts into perspective the important placed "Lifeboat" occupies in Hitch's body of work.

Talullah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak and Hume Cronyn shine in this Hitchcock classic. Cronyn was on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show years ago and told a story of how they filmed the movie on a soundstage, with the lifeboat suspended several feet in the air. The cast had to climb a ladder each time they had to get in the boat. It soon became apparent to everyone that Ms. Bankhead did NOT wear underwear. Cronyn and Hitchcock were standing at the bottom of the ladder as Bankhead climbed up. Cronyn says, "Maybe you should call wardrobe." Hitch looks up and says "Perhaps I should call the hairstylist". :)