Lifeboat (Dual format)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Stars: Tallulah Bankhead John Hodiak Walter Slezak

1944 USA

Drama

#30

This product has been discontinued.

OUT OF STOCK

TECHNICAL DETAILS

TECHNICAL DETAILS
  • Country: USA
  • Language: English
  • Year: 1944
  • Runtime: 98
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
  • Colour: Black & White
  • Certificate: PG
  • Subtitles: English SDH
  • Genre: Drama
  • SKU: EKA70040
  • 2 Discs
  • Release Date: Apr 23, 2012
Format:
Region: B

SYNOPSIS

Based on an unpublished novella by John Steinbeck (written on commission expressly to provide treatment material for Hitchcock’s screen scenario), Lifeboat found the Master of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 edition (Blu-ray and DVD), 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 1080p transfers of Hitchcock’s little-seen French-language 1944 wartime films, Bon voyage (26 minutes) and Aventure malgache (32 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
  • A 36-page booklet featuring new and exclusive essays on all three films by critics Bill Krohn, Arthur Mas, and Martial Pisani