Review of Lifeboat (1944) by Vincent T — 19 Nov 2007

"lifeboat" is hitchcock's commentary on wwii, and it condenses the cosmos into an atom with besieged passengers striving to survive that contains various social classes from bolshevik rags to the well-to-do capitalist...engrossingly, the existence of blacks is also included...a nurse in dillemma of disgraceful affair with married doctor...a lonesome but kindred workingman....a lovelorn one-legged sap...a deranged mother with her dead infant..a tycoon who assumingly chews his last cigar by his mouth.....of course, mostly capitivating of all, the cynically sassy cosmopolitan female journalist connie porter played by husky tallulah bankhead who has the sexiest siren voice when she utters "darling!" as she unbashfully makes love to the hulky capitalist-loathing virile bolshevik.

Essentially, there must be a vile enemy: a german nazi captain who methodically reverse his disvantage of POW(captive) into his advantage of the captor by utilizing the shipmember's disintergration as his favors, sneering at the polarizing system of our so-called "democracy", smirking at the naievete of americanism. whether it's hitchcock's uglification of german nazi or realisticly sharp depiction of their inhumanity by interpretating nazi as the shrewd selfish kind who is too keenly with his own survival without sharing the water with his generous rescuers, pretending to be ignorant of english for self-protection, reserving the beneficiary equipment such as compass merely for himself, ruthlessly eliminating any possible member to saboteur his scheme: sending them all to concentration camp.

Talluah bankhead's connie is the only character with enough mettle(or willpower) to contend for survival since she makes a mytical class adjustment from the rags to the rich with her un-defeated stamina. she has the foresight to occupy a lifeboat beforehand then she loses every item of her personal belongings such as typewritter, minkcoat and her precious diamond bracelet in the course of helping others selflessly that symbolizes her denuniciations of egoism by the gradual loss of her possessions that are the tokens of her social level, thus graudually she's descended into more endeared humanistic affinity instead of her aloof egoistic self......maybe scarstically the breavement of her diamond bracele due to the distraction of the ship members might manifest the flawed discord of democracy...as for the tumultous reacton(casting the nazi off the boat) everyone has toward the german after she/he exposes to his sinister contrivance, it declares one thing outloud: democracy is sometimes just a mob.