20th Century Fox DVD Clearance Sale (series)

Lifeboat

DVD Features:

Audio:

• Stereo - English
• Mono - English
• Subtitles - English, Spanish - Optional

Additional Release Material:

• Audio Commentary - Drew Casper - Film Professor
• Behind the Scenes - "The Making of LIFEBOAT"
• Trailers - Original Theatrical Trailer

Text/Photo Galleries:

• Stills/Photos

Description by OLDIES.com:

Nominated for three Academy Awards, Alfred Hitchcock's World War II drama, is a remarkable story of human survival.

After their ship is sunk in the Atlantic by Germans, eight people are stranded in a lifeboat, among them a glamorous journalist, a tough seaman, a nurse and an injured sailor. Their problems are further compounded when they pick up a ninth passenger - the Nazi captain from the U-boat that torpedoed them. With its powerful interplay of suspense and emotion, this legendary classic is a microcosm of humanity, revealing the subtleties of man's strengths and frailties under extraordinary duress.

Product Description:

Based on a story by John Steinbeck, LIFEBOAT tells of the desperate struggle for survival of a group of people whose boat was torpedoed by a German U-boat during the Second World War. In this gripping character study about eight diverse survivors, tensions mount after a Nazi is brought aboard. LIFEBOAT is an unusual yet thrilling film from Alfred Hitchcock.

Plot Synopsis:

LIFEBOAT is an intense thriller crafted around the psychological drama produced when eight unlikely companions are thrown together by drastic circumstance. The exceptional performances of its ensemble cast make it a classic, one credited with reviving Tallulah Bankhead’s career. After a German U-boat torpedoes their ship, several survivors find themselves together in a lifeboat. Each is of a distinctly different background: Tallulah Bankhead’s character, the radiant Constance Porter, is a famed fashion writer; others include tycoon Charles Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), marxist seaman John Kovac (John Hodiak), Stanley Garret (Hume Cronyn), a radio operator, a wounded furnace stoker, a nurse, a grieving mother, and a porter. The group is joined by the commander of the German U-boat (Walter Slezak), which was itself sunk in the exchange. Choosing to take him aboard as a gesture of humanity, and for the sake of his seafaring skills, proves to be a fateful decision. Production was done almost entirely in studio, using a range of specialized water sets and props to allow Hitchcock to achieve the camera angles he wanted while employing rear-projected seascapes shot off the coast of Florida.

Plot Keywords:

Character Study | Disaster | Drama | Essential Cinema | High Seas | Recommended | Suspense | World War II

Production Notes:

• Hitchcock cameo: Hitch solved the difficult problem of how to make a cameo appearance in the middle of the ocean by appearing in a "before-and-after" diet advertisement in the newspaper Rittenhouse is reading. Tallulah Bankhead developed pneumonia after hours of filming in wet clothes. During filming Hitchcock went on a serious diet, reducing his weight from 300 to 200 pounds.

Cast and Crew: