Also beginning with "A" is Alfred as in Alfred Hitchcock.
As I did last April, it's a month long look at Alfred Hitchcock movies that I have seen.
This week we begin with a cinematic experiment from 1944 called Lifeboat.
In the aftermath of their ship being sunk by a German U-oat, a handful of service member and civilians are adrift in a lifeboat.
In the attack, the German U-boat sustained damage and also sank, with one survivor, a man named Willi. He perports to only speak German and was only a mere crewman on the vessel.
There is some debate as to whether to throw the German overboard to drown. Voices of mercy carry the day and Willi is allowed to stay.
SPOILER: Willi is no mere crewman, he was the captain of the damn U-boat and he damn well does know English. And he's up to sneaky shit.
Meanwhile, there are other problems.
Among the survivors from the ship is a young woman and her infant child. Or more to the tragic point, a young woman and her deceased infant child. She refuses to releases the child's body and when she can't cope with the reality of her child's death, she slips over the side of the boat to drown.
And there's the matter of poor old Gus with his badly injured leg. It will need to be amputated or the infection will kill him.
In the cramped confines of the lifeboat with few and dwindling supplies, the disparate group of men and women try to make the best of what little they have as they set a course for Bermuda. It is a dreary journey punctated by outbursts of temper and descents into depression.
Willi seems to be coping well but he has is own personal flask of water and a secret compass and the son of a bitch may not be guiding the lifeboat to Bermuda but towards a German war ship.
It's tough telling a story in a visual medium with only one location but Alfred Hitchcock pulls it off.
In case you're wondering, in a movie with only 1 location and a restricted cast, how did Hitchcock work in his cameo? There's a newspaper on board the lifeboat and our dear Alfie is pictured in an ad.
Today Lifeboat is seen as a storytelling triumph, a veritable caudron of human drama. What else would one expect putting a group of people from different walks of life in the pressure cooker of very finite space with their very lives on the line.
With World War II still raging when it was released, there was some push back that the film portrayed the German character in a positive light. On one hand, yeah, Willi was an avuncular gentleman who seemed to know what he was doing compared to the squabbling American and Brits. But on the other hand, it is quickly obvious that Willi is up to shit and not to be trusted.
Hitchcock defended his portrayal of the German captain. "I always respect my villain, building him into a redoubtable character that will make my hero or thesis more admirable in defeating him or it."
Lifeboat is a powerful character study and a worthy test of Alfred Hitchcock's skills as a director.
Next Saturday, I will post about another Alfred Hitchcock movie.
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