Lifeboat (1944, Twentieth Century Fox)

Lifeboat (1944, Twentieth Century Fox)

FILMS OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK Analysis & Review form

10/10/2016

Describe your assessment/opinion for each category below Do NOT write generalized statements without examples from film or examples without statements clarifying them

1). Screenplay/Storyline:

A freighter with civilian personnel is shelled by a Uboat. There are only a few survivors which end up on a lifeboat together. There are two wealthy people, four crew members, an American Red Cross nurse, a mother with a baby and the German Uboat captain. The human interactions make it a psychological and sociological class drama. One person commits suicide as her baby is dead and two people are murdered. The group fights the elements and friendly fire and is finally saved.

2). Hitchcock‘s Direction/Style (use of editing/montage, composition of shots, camera angles)

There are three pieces of the boat for being able to get close conversations. One is a close up of the front of the boat, another one is a close up of the back of the boat and one is full shot of the boat. It is a good way to edit the close and the group conversations.

A key part of the story is shown through a close up of Willy’s hand. In this close up, the camera stays on the compass in his hand. This is an important secret we know and the passengers do not.

The seating of the passengers tells a lot about social class in the movie. The two wealthy people are sitting and managing from the comfortable back of the boat. The working class is in the middle. The German is forced to sit at the front where everyone can watch him. In one scene he keeps moving his position towards the center of the boat. As if he is testing to see if he can change his status with them.

3). Performances and Characterization:

Tallulah Bankhead / Connie Porter does a lovely job as a celebrity journalist and Hitchcock cool blonde, even though she may not be blonde. She is also able to change as the character is stripped of her wealth and status. The beginning when she is sitting in the boat comfortable in a mink and snarls at a snare is a great comic relief. She did the understated comedy well.

John Hodiak/ John “Kovac” is a convincing dark street smart character. His character has some of the most truthful comments. In the beginning he is trying not to have people trust the German. He senses with his street smarts that you don’t trust this guy. He tells Connie in his way that she is an insensitive sensationalist. “You think this whole war is like a Broadway play for you to cover. If enough people die, maybe you’ll give it a 4 star rating.”

Hume Croyn/ Stanley ‘Sparks’ Garrett has a mild mannered face and he is likeable honest character. I would have cast someone a little more attractive for the romantic lead.

Henry Hull/ Charles S Rittenhouse has the face of someone who could be an arrogant millionaire. He overacts a little bit in his pompousness when he acts better than the crew handing out tasks or plays cards with Kovac. He does do a good job in the character shift from elite to “one of the mob.”

Mary Anderson/Alice Mackenzie is a beautiful female that has the warmth needed for a care worker. She makes a great change from the girl who says “I don’t know why people hurt each other.” To the girl who starts the mob kill at the end. She wasn’t that convincing as a killer though.

William Bendix/ Gus Smith played the half German amputee. He played the part of a gullible guy well. His face looked convincibly naïve.

Heather Angel/ Mrs Higgins did a good job as a traumatized woman dead behind the eyes. She had a good range of expressionless and hysterical.

Canada Lee/ George “Joe” Spencer had the face as a humble man. He played a humble if not subservient character well. He was also convincing as a spiritual man.

Walter Slezak/Willy could look both unthreatening with his chubby face and also fierce when he squinted his eyes. He was light haired but he wore black clothes giving him a confusing hue of good or evil. His character was completely responsible for the attack on the freighter and lifeboats. He didn’t have that menacing of a look, but showed his cold hearted character when he spoke about killing Gus.

4). Cinematography:

The beginning scene is of a large cylinder leaning to the side with black smoke and fire coming out of it. It keeps tipping over until it is submerged. This is a so simple but it tells that there was a whole ship that submerged without having to show the whole thing.

After the submersion we see the camera scanning the water with an American Red Cross crate, playing cards, A New Yorker Magazine and checkers. This without other dialogue shows that it was a not a military ship except for some Red Cross supplies but with plenty of passengers of leisure.

An amazing use of shadow was when at a key time, a mast slowly shadow’s the German’s face. We intuit from this that we don’t know if he is honest or has a dark side.

5). Film Score/Sound and/or Visual Effects:

There is no traditional soundtrack except for music in the beginning and ending scenes. The soundtrack is the splashing, crashing waves. There is also flute music and Willy singing.

The absence of sound during most of the movie felt very natural. I can’t imagine it any other way.

One great use of sound was when Kovac wanted to kill Willy after finding the compass on him. The passengers were all debating Willy’s life and that was when the peak storm and turbulence takes place with great storm and crashing wave sound effects.

After the storm peaks, Willy starts to yell in English to the passengers. This is a surprising sound effect also.

The maintained visual effect was having the waves and sky move while the passengers were on a stationary boat. The waves and sky were all visual effects.

In one of the later scenes, it appears that the lifeboat is in the middle of a warship battle and they are almost crushed by a Uboat. This was a wonderful visual effect knowing that this was all done in a studio.

6). Hitchcockian Themes and Motifs:

There is a cross section of society on the lifeboat. A Hitchcock theme is class differences in society. There are wealthy, pompous famous people. There are also variants of working class. There are also race issues with the German race and an African American.

Psychology is another theme. The stress of being cramped on a lifeboat with varied personalities and being unsure of the chance of survival pushes people into complete psychological make overs.

War is a Hitchcock theme. This is set during World War II on an unexpected aquatic battlefield. Throughout the film there are occurrences which bring up the senselessness of war and how no one wins.

Adulterous love affairs are a theme. Miss Mackenzie is dating a married man.

Connie is cool blond who is sophisticated and confident. She is a vixen and morally ambiguous.

7). Influences evoked from or inspired (film/literature/art/political/social):

The movie is inspired by the political times. It is a war movie during World War II.

Social class distinctions and their point of views are shown. There is a millionaire capitalist that owns ship yards but doesn’t know how to operate a ship. Alternately, Kovac is an extreme working class character. He’s worked in meat packing plants and risked his life laboring on merchant marine ships and is a dirty card player. Watching these two play cards in one scene is very interesting. The capitalist is about to win everything even though Kovac has marked the cards. The wealthy always seems to beat the poor. Yet, the wind comes and takes all the cards away. Nothing is guaranteed in this war climate when either can easily die regardless of class distinction.

The literature is taken from a small novella of John Steinbeck.

8). Overall impressions of film (positive/negative) and additional comments:

The symbolism and message I received from the film is that we are all human beings and not a “we” and “they”. At times both sides appear to be winning but the woman crying “my baby is dead” is the sickening reality. People die.

It is a powerful movie that I’m sure has many more meanings than the ones I found and I want to read a lot more on the messages that others have found.

The negative is what Steinbeck addressed in his letter to the studio. It was difficult to watch a black man marginalized and calling other people sir. Joe is surprised when people ask his opinion and he asks, “I have a vote?” It was indicative of the times, yet it would have been nice to see Steinbeck’s version of a black man in the picture.