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The survivors face the weather, the sea and their own suspicions in Hitchcock's Lifeboat |
Spoilers: If you can spoil a film made 76 years ago… but
the ending will be discussed
Taken from a scenario written by John Steinbeck, Alfred
Hitchcock was originally attracted to Lifeboat because he fancied the
idea of directing a film that was set in only one location. And a tiny one at
that! Needless to say, such is the imagination and skill the film has been made
with that you will soon forgot that it all takes place effectively in one tiny
room. Instead, as the camera skilfully cuts and moves through the boat, finding
intriguing angles and never once let the pace slip, you’ll be sucked in this
intriguing story of survival and morality.
Lifeboat was attacked at the time precisely because
of these difficult questions of morality. Unlike many other war films of the
time, it wasn’t just interested in propaganda. Instead the German here – later
revealed to be the captain of the U-Boat – is not only the films most charming
and engaging character, brilliantly played by Walter Slezak, he’s also the only
one that has any real idea about how to survive. Need a sailor? He’s best
qualified. A navigator? The only man with a clue. Need to lop a gangrenous leg
off? Willie can do it with a pen knife. His resourcefulness needs to be weighed
in the balance though with his lies, manipulations and hording of supplies.
But the fact the film presents us with a Falstaffianly
rogueish German, rather than a monster – and also makes him the most effective
of the survivors – was a problem at the time. Combined with the fact that the
representatives of the allies are a mixed and divided back. A chippy socialist
sailor. A decent but ineffective radio operator. A jobsworth nurse, possibly
carrying someone else’s husband’s child. An ambitious gossip columnist. An
industrialist who assumes he should call the shots. And a black steward who
even needs to take a moment to think about before they decide to treat him as
an equal, or even use his real name. A unified and decisive group of allies,
this ain’t.
The events of the film then develop in a host of challenging
ways. Sure, our heroes eventually come together – but its in a murderous fury
that sees them lynch Willie, beat him to death and throw him overboard. Willie saves
their lives – but he also hordes water and then persuades the delirious Gus
(whose leg he amputated) to throw himself overboard when Gus spies his secret
water stash.
This lynching scene is the heart of the film – indeed most
of the action is a slow, tension-filled, build towards it. And, for all that
Willie is a seemingly unrepentant Nazi (dropping broad hints about having spent
some time in Paris) who we are told ordered the shooting of survivors in the
water, its hard not to feel some sympathy for him as Hitchcock cuts to a close
up of his horrified eyes as he realises what the passengers are about to do.
Just as the passengers, waking to find Gus gone and Willie assuring them it was
for the best, take a on a monstrous inhumanity as they murder him.
Hitchcock described them later as a pack of dogs. Of the
passengers, alarmingly it’s the two most decent (Hume Cronyn’s gentle radio
operator and Mary Anderson’s nurse) who turn the most savage in the onslaught.
Only Joe – perhaps remembering other lynchings he may have witnessed? – keeps a
horrified distance from the slaughter. In a traditional propaganda film, as
many critics wanted at the time, this would be a moment of triumph. The allies
coming together to vanquish their common foe.
Instead, it intentionally leads a queezy and unsettling taste
in the mouth. Hitchcock seems to be challenging us to ask just how we feel
about this. Willie has done terrible, greedy, awful things. He’s got a lot of
blood on his hands. But do we feel its right for these guys to murder him – and
as brutally as they do here? (Hitchcock shoots the lynching at a distance, the
passengers descending on Willie like a mob, his bloodied face emerging at one
point before being dragged back in). There is nothing really triumphant about
this. And, after the deed, no one seems sure how to process it. Rittenhouse
even suggests Willie deserved his fate for his ingratitude after they hauled
him from the water.
As safety is finally found near the end, it’s not clear what
anyone has learned. The whole ghastly cycle looks like it might be repeated
when a young German sailor is hauled onboard after another supply ship is sunk.
Some passengers are ready to butcher him immediately – the sailor fortunately
is armed. Sanity just about prevails, but already the passengers are beginning
to revert, right down to starting to address Joe by the common short-hand name
for a black steward, George.
But then at the same time, it’s not as simple as that. After
all, these German sailors sunk a ship killing hundreds of people. During the first
night on the boat a baby dies in his mother’s arms – the mother then throws
herself overboard the next night, despite the passengers attempt to restrain
her. Those deaths are discussed again at the end when the passengers obliquely
wonder if they did the right thing. The film won’t say for sure, but leave it
to you to decide. And it’s that rich sense of unease that helps make this a
rather overlooked masterpiece for Hitchcock. A lot more than just a technical
triumph, it’s a searching and questioning film.