when david o. selznick get some loan out money from darryl zanuck for alfred hitchcock service for two film ( the second be never make ) and i be sure zanuck must have just love hitchcock when he tell him that he want to make a film with just one set . talk about cost cutting and anyway after a few failed script and zanuck get american premier novelist john steinbeck to write an original screenplay and since it be timely patriotic and hitchcock do it . so for hitchcock ask for a one set film and the movie go public get lifeboat . a disparate group of passenger and crew be torpedo in the mid atlantic and wind up together in a lifeboat . after their ship go down however and another ship in the convoy ram in the u boat that sink them . the last one pick up on board be a german . the crew member include john hodiak and william bendix and hume cronyn and canada lee . passenger be mary anderson and heather angel and a dead baby she cling to and and millionaire henry hull . and of course play a dorothy thompson like correspondent be the great tallulah bankhead . lifeboat be a wonderful film not just for the fact that alfred hitchcock succeed in make a one set film that you be never conscious of while watch . but it the only opportunity to see tallulah at the height of her fame . she make a bunch of hollywood feature at the beginning of the sound era and but they flop for the most part . so she go back to broadway which love her best and her season box seat at the polo ground where she be the new york giant most devoted fan . lifeboat should have rejuvenate a movie career and but she apparently do not care . lifeboat even on it own be her best work on film and let alone in comparison to other film . the villain of lifeboat be our german and walter slezak . he a devious and cunning individual and he seem strong and more fit than the other lifeboat survivor and because of that and in spite of the fact he hat and he gradually assume charge . there a reason for his action and his fitness and when it discover and grave consequence erupt . canada lee and distinguish black actor from the stage and get a role here that far from willie best or step n fetchit . my favorite scene in lifeboat be when hodiak who represent the left on the boat be try to rouse the rest to just toss walter slezak to the shark when he first arrive and ask lee for his opinion a he a member of the party . lee reply simply he do not realize he have any vote or say in the matter and a very trenchant observation about how black be disenfranchise in a quarter of the usa and some twenty year before the voting right act . the lifeboat survivor be a cross section of the american people and this world war ii allegory in microcosm be to show just why these nazi be as evil a they be and why we have to resist . even today more than sixty year after it be first make and lifeboat be still a great cinematic achievement from alfred hitchcock . and it be make so cheaply which darryl zanuck ecstatic .