Daily Archives: October 27, 2014

Lifeboat
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
By John Steinbeck, Screenplay by Jo Swerling
1944/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Gus Smith: A guy can’t help being a German if he’s born a German, can he?

John Kovac: [referring to Willie] Neither can a snake help being a rattlesnake if he’s born a rattlesnake! That don’t make him a nightingale! Get him out of here![/box]

Hitchcock made other one-set movies but none as restrictive as this story of nine people floating at sea on a lifeboat.  No one could have done more to keep the action moving but this lacks enough scope to be counted among the Master’s greatest works.

After their freighter is torpedoed a motley cross-section of humanity is stranded on a lifeboat.  The people range from an industrial tycoon (Henry Hull) and a Connie, a ritzy journalist (Tallulah Bankhead) through several crew members (William Bendix, Hume Cronyn, Canada Lee, and John Hodiak) to a nurse and a young mother carrying a dead baby.  Into this volatile mix comes Willy (Walter Slezak), a German survivor of the sinking of the submarine that torpedoed the ship.  The German clearly has a more advanced knowledge of navigation and the others squabble over whether he can be trusted or should even be fed from their scant supplies.  Connie, already unpopular due to her snooty ways, is the only member of the Allied group that can communicate with Willy in his own language.  The situation goes from bad to worse as food and water begin to run out.

I like but don’t love Lifeboat.  The acting is the big plus.  Talullah Bankhead, despite her notorious picadillos on the set, is excellent.  I believe this is the only movie I have seen her in.  I like Slezak more and more each time I see him.  He makes a nasty but affable Nazi. The problem I have is that it’s impossible believe that Connie could have presented herself perfectly groomed and toting a well-stocked handbag and a typewriter into this situation.  Hitchcock had to resort to other lapses of logic to keep his story moving. There’s a bit more propaganda than might have been called for as well.

Lifeboat was nominated for Academy Awards in the following categories:  Best Director; Best Writing, Original Story; and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Glen MacWilliams).  I’m surprised it didn’t get a nod for its special effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XueSnvDOHRo

Clip – “The Lord is my Shepard”

Hail the Conquering Hero
Written and directed by Preston Sturges
1944/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith: I knew the Marines could do almost anything, but I never knew they could do anything like this.

Bugsy: You got no idea! [/box]

Eddie Bracken manages to salvage a shred of his dignity in another madcap wartime comedy from writer-director Sturges.

Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Bracken) comes from a long line of Marines including a father who died in battle shortly after he was born.  So Woodrow was devastated when he was discharged from the Marines after only one month for chronic hayfever.  He went to work in a shipyard to hide his shame from his mother.  Woodrow is drowning his sorrows in a bar when six marines drop in, having lost all their money gambling.  He treats them to a round of drinks and tells his sad story.   Sgt. Heppelfinger (William Demerest) gets a brilliant idea to call Woodrow’s mother and tell her he has been discharged for injuries suffered on Guadalcanal.

Woodrow reluctantly returns to his small town with the Marines in tow.  Nobody counted on a mother’s pride and Woodrow is appalled with his huge reception at the station.  All the big wigs have come out to make speeches, three different bands are playing, often at the same time, and Woodrow’s ex-girlfriend Libby (Ella Raines) is there to greet him with a kiss.  The Marines are delighted with this and keep building up Woody’s achievements, over his strenous objections, to the point where he is drafted as the reform candidate for mayor.

It was perhaps a mistake to watch this and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek back-to-back. Hail the Conquering Hero is funny with some pointed satire of American politics but does not quite reach the heights of hilarity of the other film for me.  Maybe it is the comparative lack of slapstick or the very slightly more serious theme.  Bracken does quite well without a stutter and with a little more oomph than he had as Norval Jones.  (I just notice the man has no forehead or chin!)  I liked the orphan soldier who was so solicitous of Woodrow’s mother’s feelings.   Raines was quite OK but plays her character as a conventional ingenue.

Preston Sturges was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay for Hail the Conquering Hero, making two nominations in the same category for Sturges in 1944.  The other was for the screenplay of The Miracle on Morgan’s Creek.

Clip