First Word

During WW2, a british freighter is sunk by a U-boat, at the same time the U-boat is destroyed. Several survivors of the freighter, plus the German U-boat captain manage to clamber onto the only surviving lifeboat. This group, thrown together into such cramped quarters in the middle of a vast sea, have to figure out how to eat, drink, deal with a gangrenous infection, and sail toward some definitive goal.

The basic concept of the story is brilliant. Perhaps only Hitchcock could have pulled off an entire movie using one small, claustrophobic set.

However, the real plot is pure wartime propaganda. The German is shown as a virtual human automaton, who has sacrificed his humanity for the single-minded pursuit of the interests of his hive. The instinct of the proletarian Kovak (John Hodiak) had been to throw the German overboard from the beginning, but he met resistance from the others. At length, more and more of the assembly comes to his position.

Dishonest propaganda is apt to turn into its opposite. The dishonest mind finally tricks itself. (In the event, many viewers tended to root for the German, and so some originally complained that the movie was propaganda of the opposite direction intended!) The film took on the alleged qualities of its intended enemy: it stereotypes and demonizes the “Nazi,” and in so doing ad populam develops the theme of people of all classes joining together and rising up together to assassinate its enemy.

The “Nazi” (never mind that an actual German officer was not necessarily — indeed, probably not — a National Socialist) is shown as master of deception. But this required an absurd twist in the story to pull off. Indeed, Alfred Hitchcock shines as the true master of deception. But it is Hitchcock; so see it once.