Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat ends with a familiar sight from American movies released during World War II: A title card encouraging the audience to buy war bonds, available in the very theater where they’ve just watched the movie. In the hands of a different filmmaker, Lifeboat could easily have been a film whose sole purpose was to build to that final message, a simplistic parable about noble Americans and Brits facing off against sinister Germans. But Hitchcock could never deliver something so basic, and even when creating what is essentially wartime propaganda, he comes up with a gripping, layered narrative.
Released 80 years ago this week, Lifeboat takes place entirely in a single location, a rickety vessel carrying a handful of survivors from a transatlantic ocean liner that has been sunk by a German U-boat. They represent a cross-section of the people onboard the ship, from wealthy socialite and journalist Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) to engine operator John Kovac (John Hodiak). The last to be pulled from the wreckage is German sailor Willi (Walter Slezak), whose U-boat has also been destroyed in the battle.
Thus Hitchcock and credited screenwriter Jo Swerling present a moral dilemma along with their story of survival, and that conflict over wartime ethics is what drives Lifeboat. Willi’s alternately benign and menacing presence hangs over everything that happens — every argument between the other characters, every decision that they make. He sometimes seems harmless, simply grateful to be alive and willing to face whatever fate awaits him. At other times, he’s clearly scheming against his fellow survivors, although not with any greater malice than they show toward him.
The idea of understanding and even sympathizing with an enemy combatant didn’t sit well with some critics at the time Lifeboat was released, but that’s what gives it lasting resonance, making it just as relevant to modern conflicts as it was to World War II. “A guy can’t help being a German if he’s born a German, can he?” asks American sailor Gus Smith (William Bendix), who’s changed his own surname from Schmidt to avoid unsavory associations.
That question applies not only to Willi but also to anyone on the other side of a battle that’s being waged by rulers far above the average soldier’s position. It’s not hard to imagine Willi wondering the same thing about an American, if the situation were reversed. Hitchcock pointedly brings back that idea in Lifeboat’s final moments, underlining its central importance. He’s interested in exploring how people react when faced with the humanity of a previously faceless enemy.
That’s not the only potentially progressive perspective Hitchcock presents in Lifeboat. He resists the typical classic-Hollywood stereotypes of Black characters in his portrayal of porter Joe Spencer (Canada Lee), who’s never treated as anything other than an equal aboard the boat. “Do I get to vote, too?” Joe asks in wry disbelief when he’s included in a key decision, but after that moment, it’s understood that he has the same importance as everyone else — and his status as an American places him above Willi.
Lifeboat also foreshadows a bit of the next global conflict America will face, with the clashes between Kovac and rich industrialist C.J. Rittenhouse (Henry Hull). When Constance accuses Kovac of being a communist, he doesn’t deny it, and during the seemingly playful poker games between Kovac and Rittenhouse, Kovac offers his own vision of running Rittenhouse’s factories, which sounds like a plan for a workers’ co-op.
Kovac’s communist leanings don’t prevent him from forming a romantic bond with Constance, whose glamour and apparent vanity mask her own working-class origins. Hitchcock finds room on the boat for a range of themes and storylines that would be included in a more expansive film, from romance to class struggle. A less flamboyant love connection develops between radio operator Stanley Garrett (Hume Cronyn) and nurse Alice MacKenzie (Mary Anderson), and the heightened circumstances make it easy to believe that those intense emotions would emerge so quickly.
Hitchcock fits all of these disparate elements into his single location thanks to his creative and varied visual approach, which conveys the cramped conditions but never makes the drama feel limited. At key moments, he uses insert shots to move the plot forward or make a thematic point, without having to spell it out in dialogue. Hitchcock can instantly generate suspense from a quick cutaway to Willi glancing at his hidden compass.
He can also beautifully express the solidarity of the passengers with a close-up of all their hands shielding a lighter from the wind, so that the flame can sterilize a knife for a dangerous but necessary medical procedure. That shot may be the perfect distillation of what Lifeboat is about: No faces or names, just people pulling together for the sake of survival, regardless of class or race or nationality. It’s an idealized little vision that exists only on that small boat, for a brief moment.
“Lifeboat” is streaming on the Criterion Channel.
