Lifeboat (The Hitchcock Collection)
by Alfred Hitchcock
(Click here)
Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: John Hodiak, Mary Anderson, Tallulah Bankhead, Walter Slezak, William BendixDirector: Alfred Hitchcock
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Full Screen, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 97 minutes
Release Date: 1997-12-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Studio: 20th Century Fox
VHS Movie Reviews of Lifeboat (The Hitchcock Collection)
Movie Review: Tallulah rocks!
Summary: 4 Stars
Sometimes greatness can be achieved in a singular way, even if the totality of a work of art is not great. This came to me upon watching one of my dad's all time favorite films, and one which I have watched several dozen times in my life- Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 black and white Lifeboat, which is also one of the three or four best films Hitchcock ever made, and did receive Academy Award nominations for Best Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Screenplay. While I am not a rabid devotee of Hitchcock, because most of his thrillers are filled with rather cardboard cutout characters, despite the films' technical excellence, this is still probably my favorite Hitchcock film; not only because of the memories of watching it with my dad, but because it is one of the least Hitchcockian films in his canon- in terms of its relative lack of formulaic suspense, and because of the great and inimitable Tallulah Bankhead (one of my dad's favorite actresses), who utterly dominates every scene of the film she's in.
The film's greatness comes in the way it realistically sketches human reactions and nature in extremis, even as it relies on some of the grossest human caricatures, stereotypes, and is a blatant bit of agitprop. That said, and given the limitations of having the film set totally in a boat, that Hitchcock comes even within spitting distance of the film being a great work of art (it's not; it misses by a hair, for the flaws mentioned) is, itself, evidence of greatness at work. It is also one of the most brilliant and odd character studies on film.
The very schizophrenic screenplay, which alternately depicts real human emotions in characters blatantly constructed to teach a didactic lesson, and be props to push the tale forward (i.e.- how convenient it is to have both a doctor and a nurse in the same boat when another character's leg needs to be amputated; among many), and then reduces them to utter stereotypes, was adapted from an original novella, of the same title, that Hitchcock commissioned John Steinbeck to write. When Steinbeck was done, and went off to the Second World War, Hitchcock hired playwright Jo Swerling to punch up the dialogue.... For Hitchcock fans, wondering how the director snuck in his cameo, it's when Gus is reading a newspaper, and we see an ad for a diet pill- Reduco, which features before and after pictures of Hitchcock. That same gag was reused in Rope. If Lifeboat is not a great film, it's damned close, and given all the technical and script problems it had to overcome, that's a hell of an achievement, for, unlike many Hitchcock films, this one can be seen over and again and force deeper conversation each time, because it is not dependent upon a simple-minded twist ending. Thus, despite all its failings, Lifeboat is a true work of art, something its heroine has also been called. Viva recapitulation!
Summary of Lifeboat (The Hitchcock Collection)
Part mystery, part wartime polemic, Lifeboat finds director Alfred Hitchcock tackling a cinematic challenge that foreshadows the self-imposed handicaps of Rope and Rear Window. As with those subsequent features, Hitchcock confines his action and characters to a single set, in this instance the lone surviving lifeboat from an Allied freighter sunk by a German U-boat in the North Atlantic. A less confident, ingenious filmmaker might have opened up John Steinbeck's dialogue-driven character study beyond the battered boat and its cargo of survivors, but Hitchcock instead revels in his predicament to exploit the enforced intimacy between his characters.Indeed, we never actually see the doomed freighter--the smoking ship's funnel beneath the credits simply sinks beneath the waves, and we're plunged into the escalating tensions between those who gradually find their way to the boat, a band of eight English and American passengers and crew, plus a German sailor (Walter Slezak) rescued from the U-boat, itself destroyed by the freighter's deck gun. Heading the cast and inevitably commanding their and our attention is the cello-voiced Tallulah Bankhead as Connie Porter, a cynical, sophisticated writer whose priorities seem to be hanging onto her mink and keeping her lipstick fresh. Gradually, the others find Porter and her lifeboat, forming a temporary community that inevitably suggests a careful cross section of archetypes, from wealthy industrialist (Henry Hull) to ship's boiler men (John Hodiak and William Bendix).
Hitchcock juggles the interpersonal skirmishes between the boat's occupants with the mystery of their German prisoner, which itself becomes a meditation on the fine line between nationalism and morality, a line that Slezak walks delicately until his identity is resolved. Visually, Hitchcock transforms his back-lot set and its rear-projected cloudbanks into a desolate stretch of ocean, while capturing the horror of an amputation through an economical set of images culminating in an empty boot. --Sam Sutherland
Action & Adventure VHS Video
VHS Video Movies
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation VHS Video
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics VHS Video
- Comedy VHS Video
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama VHS Video
- Educational
- Fitness
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror VHS Video
- Kids & Family
- Military & War VHS Video
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports VHS Video
- Television VHS Video
- Westerns VHS Video
Movies most talked about in BEST OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Lifeboat (The Hitchcock Collection)20th Century Fox; Release date: 1997-12-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.69
Price in other shops:
Alfred Hitchcock Collection (14pc)Universal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $54.99
Price in other shops:
Vertigo (1958)Universal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops:
Family PlotUniversal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $2.74
Price in other shops:
FrenzyUniversal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Topaz (1969)Universal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Torn CurtainUniversal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $1.58
Price in other shops:
MarnieUniversal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
The Birds (The Alfred Hitchcock Collection)Universal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
Psycho (1960)Universal Studios; Release date: 1999-08-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $4.53
Price in other shops:
Similar VHS Movies
Shadow of a DoubtUniversal; Release date: 2006-02-07; DVD
Best price: $10.74
Price in other shops:
RopeUniversal; Release date: 2006-06-20; DVD
Best price: $11.47
Price in other shops:
SuspicionWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-09-07; DVD
Best price: $11.52
Price in other shops:
RebeccaRelease date: 2008-10-14; DVD
Best price: $10.75
Price in other shops:
Dial M for MurderWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-09-07; DVD
Best price: $7.29
Price in other shops:
Strangers on a TrainWarner Brothers; Release date: 1997-06-11; DVD
Best price: $7.23
Price in other shops:
The Alfred Hitchcock Signature Collection (Strangers on a Train Two-Disc Edition / North by Northwest / Dial M for Murder / Foreign Correspondent / Suspicion / The Wrong Man / Stage Fright / I Confess / Mr. and Mrs. Smith)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2004-09-07; DVD
Best price: $56.75
Price in other shops:
To Catch a Thief (Special Collector's Edition)Paramount; Release date: 2007-05-08; DVD
Best price: $7.39
Price in other shops:
Alfred Hitchcock - The Masterpiece Collection (Psycho / Vertigo / Rear Window / The Birds / Shadow of a Doubt / Family Plot / Frenzy / The Man Who Knew Too Much / Marnie / Rope / Saboteur / Topaz / Torn Curtain / The Trouble with Harry)Universal; Release date: 2005-10-04; DVD
Best price: $74.97
Price in other shops: