Lifeboat
Starring: Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writer: Jo Swerling, John Steinbeck, Ben Hecht
Producer: Kenneth Macgowan
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.
Trivia
- Selected for the National Board of Review: Top Ten Films.
- Also nominated for: Academy Award for Best Director; Academy Award for Best Story; Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.
- Based on Lifeboat (screenplay by John Steinbeck).
- At the time that Lifeboat went into production, Alfred Hitchcock was under contract to David O. Selznick. 20th Century Fox obtained the director's services in exchange for that of several actors and technicians, as well as the rights to three stories that Fox owned.
- Hitchcock was to direct two films for the studio, but the second was never made, apparently because Fox was unhappy with the length of time taken to finish production on Lifeboat.
- Steinbeck was unhappy with the film because it presented what he considered to be "slurs against organized labor" and a "stock comedy Negro" when his story had a "Negro of dignity, purpose and personality". He requested, unsuccessfully, that his name be removed from the credits.
Filming Locations
- Lifeboat was originally planned to be filmed in Technicolor with an all-male cast, many of whom were going to be unknowns.
- Except for background footage shot by the second unit around Miami, in the Florida Keys, and on San Miguel Island in California, the film was shot in the 20th Century Fox studio on Pico Boulevard in what is now Century City.
Previous Showings
6 Runs • 4 Festivals
5,314 tickets sold
Original Billings: 1 run (March 9, 1944)
Original Run: March 9, 1944 (Thursday - Saturday)
All runs on record (6):
- March 9, 1944 (Thursday - Saturday)William Bendix, Tallulah Bankhead
- March 5 - 6, 1992 · 1,171 ticketsw/ Saboteur
- March 16 - 19, 2000 · 2,786 ticketsHitchcock 2000w/ Strangers on a Train
- December 13 - 14, 2006 · 292 tickets20th Century-Fox 2006w/ Lancer Spy
- March 20 - 21, 2019 · 399 ticketsHitchcock, Master of Suspensew/ Rope
- May 9 - 10, 2024 · 666 ticketsHitchcock, The Master of Suspensew/ Spellbound