Based on an unpublished novella by John Steinbeck (written on commission expressly to provide treatment material for Hitchcock's screen scenario), Lifeboat found the Master of Suspense navigating a course of maximal tension in the most minimal of settings with a consistently inventive, beautifully paced drama that would foreshadow the single-set experiments of Rope and Dial M for Murder.
After a Nazi torpedo reduces an ocean liner to wooden splinters and scorched personal effects, the survivors of the attack pull themselves aboard a drifting lifeboat in the hope of eventual rescue. But the motivations of the German submarine captain (played by Walter Slezak) on the eponymous craft might extend beyond mere survival...
With a cast including Shadow of a Doubt veteran Hume Cronyn and the extraordinary, irrepressible Tallulah Bankhead, this "picture of characters", as François Truffaut aptly termed the film, oscillates dazzlingly between comic repartée and white-knuckle suspense a perfect example of "the Hitchcock touch".
The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the Oscar-nominated Lifeboat in a Dual Format (Blu-ray and DVD) standard edition & limited edition Dual Format steelbook , accompanied by Hitchcock's two French-language wartime shorts, Bon voyage and Aventure malgache.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- New high-definition master, officially licensed from Twentieth Century Fox
- New high-definition transfers of Hitchcock's little-seen French-language 1944 wartime films, Bon voyage (26 minutes) and Aventure malgache (31 minutes) officially licensed from the British Film Institute
- Optional English subtitles on all three films
- 20-minute documentary on the making of Lifeboat
- 12-minute excerpt from the legendary 1962 audio interviews between Hitchcock and François Truffaut, discussing Lifeboat and the wartime shorts
- PLUS: A 36-page booklet featuring archival imagery alongside new writing by critics Bill Krohn, Arthur Mas, and Martial Pisani
Filmul nu are subtitrare in limba romana. / This movie does not have Romanian subtitles.