Lifeboat: Hitchcock & Steinbeck Film

This 1944 film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is from a story by John Steinbeck, who, by then, was already a highly respected author, famous for, "The Grapes of Wrath," and, "Of Mice and Men," both also made into very successful movies. "Lifeboat" received Academy Award nominations, including for Hitchcock for best director.

The story takes place in the lifeboat of a ship sunk by a U-boat during World War Two. The film opens with a sole woman, writer Connie Porter, played by Tallulah Bankhead, sitting in the middle of the lifeboat. We see all sorts of debris floating past the boat. It isn't long before a crewman of the ship, Kovac, played by John Hodiak, climbs up into the boat. He is followed by a number of other passengers, including, Gus Smith, played by William Bendix, who has a badly wounded leg. A lady, played by Heather Angel, is also brought into the lifeboat, clutching her baby, a baby it turns out, that is dead. Already emotionally unstable from the wartime air raids, the deeply distraught woman later quietly slips into the water to drown herself. The final person to be hauled into the boat is a German, Willi, from the U-boat, which had been sunk by the ship before it plunged from the surface. Willi, played by Walter Slezak, speaks in German, only to be answered by Connie, who is fluent in German. A couple of the survivors want Willi thrown overboard to drown, but others feel this is morally, and perhaps legally, wrong, so he remains in the boat. He claims to have been just a crew member, but Connie cleverly catches him off guard by calling, "Herr Kapitän!" Only to have him answer, "Ja?" With a sail hoisted, the group wants to head for Bermuda, which they believe is not all that far off, but the problem is, in what direction IS Bermuda? One of their group tries using the sun, and points in one direction, but Willi, the German captain points in another direction. Given that he is a sea captain, this carries more weight with a couple, but Kovac establishes himself as the lifeboat's leader and they follow the course to Bermuda determined by one of the sunken ship's crew, played by Hume Cronyn.

Then Gus must have his leg amputated, as gangrene has set in to his wound. Willi tells Connie that he was a surgeon before the war, so the group prepares to witness the operation, which will need to be done without anesthetic, except for some brandy Connie has. Willi gains a little more respect by performing the emergency surgery, and then he gains much more respect, as a storm hits, and Willi's taking control of the boat in the violent sea helps to save them. During this scene the others learn that Willi speaks fluent English. When things settle down, it is determined Willi will guide the boat to a nearby German supply ship rather than to Bermuda, as he tells them it will take a couple of weeks to reach Bermuda, and they have lost their food and fresh water in the storm. While the others sleep, Gus has some hallucinations because of his condition, but he really does see Willi take a drink of water from a bottle he has stashed. Willi knocks Gus overboard and he drowns. When the others find out that Willi indeed stashed water and that he likely killed Gus, they descend on him and beat him, pushing him overboard, with one using the shoe from Gus's amputated leg to land the decisive blow.

It's not long before the survivors see the German supply ship in the distance, and a small craft with Germans begins to approach, only to turn back. Then they see why, as an Allied warship begins firing at the German ship, * which is hit and begins to sink. A young, trembling German sailor is helped up into the lifeboat and the survivors face the same situation; toss him back into the sea or keep him? He draws a gun, but he is quickly disarmed. He looks at the passengers and asks, "Werden Sie mich nicht umbringen?" (Aren't you going to kill me?)

* In actual fact, throughout the war the German U-boats were a major problem for the Allies. The U-boats that traveled the farthest out to sea needed a way to refuel and to get provisions, so I do believe the German navy had some special supply ships in distant waters, near neutral countries, where they could periodically stock up, then return to sea to supply their U-boats. The Allies tried to sink or bottle up the supply ships to limit the illusive U-boats operating so far out to sea. If you have seen "Das Boot" (also dubbed in English, and often called "The Boat," its English translation), the absolutely fabulous early 1980's movie about a German U-boat, the U-boat in the story meets a German supply ship in Portugal, a neutral country during the war. German "Boot," is pronounced very similarly to its close English cousin, "boat," not like the English word of the same spelling, but meaning, "a type of foot wear." 

 WORD HISTORY:
Bear-This is the noun for the name of the animal, although English also has a verb form spelled the same way, but from a different source. The noun goes back to Indo European "bher(os)," which had the notion of, "brown, dark," but "seemingly" also, "bright, shining," perhaps from the glistening of some brown and dark objects. This gave Old Germanic "beron," meaning "bear," the animal, so, "the brown animal." This gave Old English "bera," which then became "bere" (ending "e" pronounced "eh"), before the modern form. The other Germanic languages have: German "Bär," Low German Saxon "Boor," West Frisian "bear," Dutch "beer," Danish and Norwegian "bjørn," Icelandic and Swedish "björn."