Lifeboat (1944 film)

Lifeboat
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAlfred Hitchcock
Screenplay byJo Swerling
Story byJohn Steinbeck
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyGlen MacWilliams
Edited byDorothy Spencer
Music byHugo W. Friedhofer
Production
company
20th Century Fox
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • January 28, 1944 (1944-01-28)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.59 million[1][2]
Box office$1 million (rentals)[3]

Lifeboat is a 1944 American survival film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a story by John Steinbeck. It stars Tallulah Bankhead and William Bendix, alongside Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee. The film is set entirely on a lifeboat launched from a freighter torpedoed and sunk by a Nazi U-boat.

The first in Hitchcock's "limited-setting" films, the others being Rope (1948), Dial M for Murder and Rear Window (both 1954), it is the only film Hitchcock made for 20th Century Fox. The film received three Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Original Story and Best Cinematography – Black and White. Bankhead won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.

Though dispararaged at the time of its release by a couple of influential film critics for its supposedly sympathetic depiction of a German U-boat captain, Lifeboat is now viewed more favorably and has been listed by several modern critics as one of Hitchcock's most underrated films.[4][5][6]

  1. ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
  2. ^ IMDB Box office/business
  3. ^ Solomon (1989), p. 220
  4. ^ Zou, David (November 26, 2012). "10 Most Underrated Hitchcock Movies You Should Watch Now". Taste of Cinema. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  5. ^ McDevitt, Jim; San Juan, Eric (2009). A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense. Scarecrow Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-8108-6388-0.
  6. ^ Hutchinson, Pamela; Paley, Tony (July 4, 2012). "The Genius of Alfred Hitchcock at the BFI: 10 of his lesser-known gems". The Guardian. Retrieved April 10, 2016.