Lifeboat (1944)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: John Steinbeck, Jo Swerling

Composer: Hugo Friedhofer

Starring: Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn, Canada Lee, William Yetter Jr.

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Who goes Primitive first...A man...Or a woman...adrift in an open boat?

Plot: Several survivors of a torpedoed ship find themselves in the same boat with one of the men who sunk it.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably.

I interviewed film composer David Raksin, whose score credits go back to the mid-thirties, and he told me the story of when he inquired about scoring this picture.  Hitch said that he wouldn't use a composer as the audience would wonder where the orchestra came from since the movie was entirely set on a lifeboat at sea to which Raksin shot back something like, "the same place they'll wonder where the camera is coming from."  It's a good picture and it's striking in that it literally takes place on a lifeboat with a small handful of characters.  That can't be an easy thing to pull of but Hitchcock does it and does it well.  You do have to forgive a little bit of the dialogue and perhaps some acting as this was made before the War's end but it works.  There's a little romance, some intrigue and suspension.  What surprises me most of all is that ending.  It should get some emotional response from just about anyone.  It's different, I'll say that much.