
PopGap #17: Lifeboat (1944)
Written by dorrk | 27 May 2016 |
The Movie Slot Machine: 12 Random Movies, One Specific Viewer
One of those subjects that pops up in films with some regularity, but which invariably fails to entice me, is the "group of people stuck on boat" ensemble. I'm not immune to enjoying boat dramas — Jaws, if it counts, is a favorite; Das Boot (which I reviewed in November) is a masterpiece; and, of the others I've seen, I think I've at least liked well over half — but they rank very low amongst my priorities. I have no boat-related phobias, but stories like this lend themselves too easily to a style of drama that doesn't appeal to me. Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 thriller Lifeboat is certainly one of the classics of its genre, and isn't lacking in quality in any regard, but I suspect I like it less than it might deserve purely because it indulges so directly in a violation of my personal taste in movies.
Nine survivors of a mid-Atlantic confrontation between an Allied transport and a German U-Boat gather on a small lifeboat to await rescue. the lone German onboard (Walter Slezak) is unpopular with most of the American and English crew (Hume Cronyn, John Hodiak, William Bendix, Mary Anderson, Henry Hull, Canada Lee and Heather Angel), but a haughty columnist (Tallulah Bankhead) argues in his favor, and, as the only qualified sailor of the lot, he is reluctantly assigned the task of navigating their route to safety. As the days pass, the desperate crew weathers storms, hunger, thirst, and a makeshift amputation, while forming bonds with and suspicions of each other.
Hitchcock does wonders with his limited cast and location, crafting a series of striking black and white images featuring vivid performances of characters who are well-defined and wrestling with their inner demons as much as their external circumstances. It is, without a doubt, one of his most visually accomplished movies, as he masterfully arranges his frames, finds every compelling angle within the story's natural constraints. Despite Hitchcock's wonderful realization of the confined setting, however, the screenplay is too tight, neat and mannered for its claustrophobic concept to be fully effective. Written by Jo Swerling from a story by John Steinbeck (which he disowned after seeing the film), there is an over-deliberate tone to the carefully archetypal selection of characters, and the arch dialog between them exacerbates the innate staginess of the scenario, safely wrapping the substantial drama within a protective layer of artifice that dulls most of its edges. It's not a complaint unique to Lifeboat, but rather the prevailing style of its era, in which cleverness nearly always trumps honesty, that tends to leave me feeling rather ho-hum about endeavors the could have otherwise probed a grittier darkness.
Trailer for Lifeboat (1944)

Lifeboat (1944)
More info
Full list of all criteria loaded into the Movie Slot Machine for May:
View Movie Selection Rules
I post reviews for all the movies on this blog, and live-tweet most viewings here:
https://twitter.com/popgap
This list is posted to Letterboxd, here:
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/popgap-2016-05-movie-slot-machine/
You can keep track of my Flickchart here:
http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=dorrk
Movie Slot Machine Rules
- Actor: Angela Winkler
- Actor: Anna Karina
- Actor: Anne Baxter
- Actor: Anne Parillaud
- Actor: Anouk Aimée
- Actor: Bulle Ogier
- Actor: Catherine Deneuve
- Actor: Celia Johnson
- Actor: Dorothy Mackaill
- Actor: Franco Nero
- Actor: Humphrey Bogart
- Actor: Ingrid Bergman
- Actor: Irène Jacob
- Actor: Jack Hawkins
- Actor: Jean Gabin
- Actor: Jean Simmons
- Actor: Jean-Louis Trintignant
- Actor: Jeanne Crain
- Actor: Jeffrey Wright
- Actor: Lee Remick
- Actor: Mads Mikkelsen
- Actor: Margaret O'Brien
- Actor: Marie Prevost
- Actor: Marion Cotillard
- Actor: Mary Elizabeth Winstead
- Actor: Mathieu Amalric
- Actor: Max Von Sydow
- Actor: Miriam Hopkins
- Actor: Monica Vitti
- Actor: Patricia Neal
- Actor: Paul Giamatti
- Actor: Robert Ryan
- Actor: Klaus Kinksi
- Actor: Tahar Rahim
- Actor: Taraji P. Henson
- Actor: Teresa Wright
- Actor: Trevor Howard
- Actor: Ursula Andress
- Actor: Viggo Mortensen
- Actor: William Bendix
- Actor: Yasuaki Kurata
- Actor: Daniel Auteiul
- Actor: Michael Shannon
- Actor: Nastassja Kinski
- Actor: Emmanuelle Beart
- Actor: Stéphane Audran
- Actor: Setsuko Hara
- Actor: Isabella Rossellini
- Director: Abbas Kiarostami
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Director: Anthony Mann
- Director: Asghar Farhadi
- Director: Bertrand Tavernier
- Director: Carol Reed
- Director: David Gordon Green
- Director: Don Siegel
- Director: Douglas Sirk
- Director: Eric Rohmer
- Director: Francois Truffaut
- Director: George Sluizer
- Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
- Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
- Director: Jacques Audiard
- Director: Jacques Demy
- Director: Jean-Jacques Annaund
- Director: Jean-Luc Godard
- Director: Joe Swanberg
- Director: John Hillcoat
- Director: Joseph Losey
- Director: Jules Dassin
- Director: Kinji Fukasaku
- Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
- Director: Kon Ichikawa
- Director: Leos Carax
- Director: Louis Malle
- Director: Lynn Shelton
- Director: Marcel Carné
- Director: Masaki Kobayashi
- Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
- Director: Max Ophuls
- Director: Michael Winterbottom
- Director: Mike Leigh
- Director: Mikio Naruse
- Director: Paolo Sorrentino
- Director: Ramin Bahrani
- Director: René Clément
- Director: Robert Aldrich
- Director: Robert Bresson
- Director: Roberto Rossellini
- Director: Rouben Mamoulian
- Director: Shane Meadows
- Director: Shion Sono
- Director: Takashi Miike
- Director: Takeshi Kitano
- Director: Terence Davies
- Director: Tobe Hooper
- Director: William A. Wellman
- Director: Agnès Varda
- Director: Jacques Rivette
- Director: Guy Maddin
- Director: Preson Sturges
- Director: Claude Pinoteau
- Watchlist: Random pick from Top 20
- Watchlist: Random pick from Bottom 20
- Watchlist: Random pick from Oldest 20
- Watchlist: Random pick from Newest 20
- Watchlist: Random pick
- Flickchart: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
- Flickchart: A.V. Club's the New Cult Canon
- Flickchart: Alamo Drafthouse 100
- Flickchart: Artificial Eye
- Flickchart: BBC's 100 Greatest American Films
- Flickchart: Cahiers du cinéma: Top 10 Lists
- Flickchart: Cannes Caméra d'Or Winning
- Flickchart: Cannes Grand Prix
- Flickchart: Cannes Grand Prix du Festival International du Film
- Flickchart: Cannes Jury Prize
- Flickchart: Cannes Palme d'Or Winning
- Flickchart: Cannes Prix du scénario
- Flickchart: Cannes Prix Un Certain Regard
- Flickchart: Cannon Films
- Flickchart: Complex's 100 Best Movies of the Complex Decade
- Flickchart: Complex's 50 Indie Movies You Need to See Before You Die
- Flickchart: Criterion Eclipse
- Flickchart: David di Donatello Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: Elder's Best Film You've Never Seen
- Flickchart: Elder's Film That Changed My Life
- Flickchart: Empire Magazine's 100 Best Films of World Cinema
- Flickchart: European Film Award for Best Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Facets Video
- Flickchart: Film Comment Selects
- Flickchart: French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Prix Léon Moussinac
- Flickchart: French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Prix Méliès Winning
- Flickchart: Gold Hugo Winning
- Flickchart: Golden Bear for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: Golden Lion Winning
- Flickchart: Hammer Film Productions
- Flickchart: Independent Spirit Award for Best Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award Winning
- Flickchart: Kino International
- Flickchart: Kino Lorber Studio Classics
- Flickchart: L.A. Noire 'Golden Film Reels' Collection
- Flickchart: Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen
- Flickchart: Little White Lies's 100 Great Movies By Female Directors
- Flickchart: London Film Critics' Circle Award for Film of the Year
- Flickchart: London Film Critics' Circle British Film of the Year Winning
- Flickchart: London Film Critics' Circle Foreign Language Film of the Year Winning
- Flickchart: Lux Prize Nominated
- Flickchart: Masters of Cinema
- Flickchart: Moscow International Film Festival Top Prize Winning
- Flickchart: National Board of Review Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: National Film Registry
- Flickchart: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture Winning
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best "B Movies" of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Documentaries of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Martial Arts Movies of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Silent Films of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 40 Best Films from the Netherlands
- Flickchart: Quentin Tarantino's Cinematic Influences
- Flickchart: RKO Pictures
- Flickchart: Roger Ebert's Great Movies
- Flickchart: Rolling Thunder Pictures
- Flickchart: Rue Morgue's 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need To See
- Flickchart: Saturn Award for Best Horror or Thriller Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Saturn Award for Best International Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Screamfest Best Picture Winning
- Flickchart: Shaw Brothers Studios
- Flickchart: Shôchiku
- Flickchart: Shout! Factory
- Flickchart: Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time Poll
- Flickchart: Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix Winning
- Flickchart: Slant Magazine's 'Best of the Aughts'
- Flickchart: Slant Magzine's 100 Best Films of the 1990s
- Flickchart: Slant Magzine's 100 Essential Films
- Flickchart: Sony Pictures Classics
- Flickchart: Spike Lee's Essential Film List
- Flickchart: Strand Releasing
- Flickchart: Studio Ghibli
- Flickchart: Sundance Selects
- Flickchart: TCM Underground
- Flickchart: the Cinema Guild
TL/DR
-
Movie:Lifeboat (1944)
-
Rating:7/10
Tags
Related Articles
Latest Articles
-
Silver Screen Streak List #24: The Best Crime Thrillers I Haven't Seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023 has been put down
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 04. Invention for Destruction (1958)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 03. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 02. Hellzapoppin' (1941)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 01. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 05. The Hippopotamus (2017)
POPGAP Projects
-
Silver Screen Streak List #24: The Best Crime Thrillers I Haven't Seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023 has been put down
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: The 28 best films of all time you've probably never seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022 is all Oct-Over now, Baby Blue
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022
-
Silver Screen Streak List #21: Dramas of the 1940s
-
Popgap Diary: 2021 in Review
Popular Articles
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2019
-
Introducing the Silver Screen Streak movie challenge
-
Octoblur 2017: Annual Horror-ish Movie Nightmare-a-thon
-
PopGap #08 Re-cap: Comedies Since 1970
-
Octoblur 2017: R.I.P.!
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2020
-
Octoblur 2015 - It's Over!
-
PopGap #19: Movie Books Special Report
-
Popgap Diary: 2019 in Review