Frustrated by a relentless predatory machine-like enemy, that could torpedo unarmed freighters, yet smile and tell jokes while rowing toward an enemy rescue ship. These were after all, not soldiers, but they were us, suffering from a global war with no end in sight. This was not a killing of self-defense it was a killing of berserk passion and loss of control. He leaves us with a sense of fear, from both a tough intelligent rational enemy, but also from a wild brutish killing wrought out of self-fear and ending with an uncomfortable lynch mob sense of justice. What possible virtue is there in a society that shuns reasoning? This is the point that Hitchcock makes so cleverly. It also makes us question our own sense of reason and logic. It leaves us uncertain about our own brutality in the name of our version of ethical fairness. And this is precisely what the movie does in the end. Watching a street person with a newly transplanted heart swill down a bottle of Thunderbird wine is not particularly gratifying when at the same time the Nobel Laureate is being laid to rest, perhaps just short of a discovery that could have saved millions of lives. While American society may tout the virtues of this kind of sentiment, they are not really that comfortable with it. For example who do you give a heart transplant to, a scientist or a street person who waltzes into the door two seconds before the scientist? Willy would give the heart to the scientist because he weighs the society above the individual, and the rest of the boat would give it to the street person, not because it is rational but because they base ethics on human equality, and seek to find some measure of 'fairness' as the basis of ethical decision making. It frames the basis of ethical reasoning. What does this movie say? It says that Americans can only stand so much rational logic before they explode, even if the rational logic initially saves their lives. Other players had various levels of incompetence and mental instability. Other characters providing color included a young Hume Cronyn, hard to believe he was ever young, and famous cigar chewing character actor grouch, Charles Rittenhouse who played Henry Hull, ironically, a shipping tycoon. Not only was he capable of saving Gus Smith's life by a surgical amputation of his leg, he also pushed Gus overboard when it was clear that Gus, played by William Bendix was dying and essentially wasting the survival resources of the others in the boat. He was superior in intellect, physical strength, and cunning. He knew the sea, navigation and knew how to survive. Willy, played magnificently by Walter Slezak, was a rescued German U-boat sailor, ultimately unmasked as the Captain of the U-boat that sunk the freighter. ![]() ![]() His persona was that of a man raised on the wrong side of the tracks, vigilant like a stray dog with the hair up on its back most of the time. ![]() Ruggedly ugly, Hodiak, played an impulsive hotheaded boiler room brute that acted first and used thought only as a last resort. Playing the lead role of Constance Porter, Tallulah was in her element as the clawed feisty sharp talking journalist ripping apart at will anyone that crossed her path especially alpha male want a be, John Kovac, played by John Hodiak. Apparently she wanted to keep the attention of the camera crew during filming mission accomplished. 60 years ago, before there were true female heavyweight actresses like Brittany Spears or Meg Ryan, there was Tallulah Bankhead, a thinking man's dame with an Alabama drawl and no underwear. A freighter is sunk by a German U-boat and the cast assembles in a solitary lifeboat on a cold gray Atlantic Ocean for a two hour emotional roller-coaster. Lifeboat is circumspect, and asks profound questions about war, and values, and vulnerability. Unlike the typical propaganda movies of its time, Lifeboat does not march without a reverse gear across the screen like John Wayne's boots. It pits the American melting pot irrationality and eccentricities against the single-minded rational Teutonic mind. Lifeboat, the Hitchcock classic, defines the essence of the American super will in 1944.
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