Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1944

The Contenders:

Billy Wilder: Double Indemnity
Leo McCarey: Going My Way (winner)
Otto Preminger: Laura
Alfred Hitchcock: Lifeboat
Henry King: Wilson

Adrift

Film: Lifeboat
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

With films like Rope and Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated his absolute mastery over creating massive amounts of tension in a very small space. While both of these are master classes in how to use a claustrophobic set as a benefit, both of them came after Lifeboat, Hitchcock’s first (at least to my knowledge) film that really reduced his characters’ ability to get away from each other. As the name implies, the film takes place in its entirety on a lifeboat with survivors from a recent torpedoing in the Atlantic. As the film plays out, tensions develop between the survivors for a variety of reasons until the film almost repeats the opening at the end to bring the action to a close.

Central to the lifeboat is Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead), a correspondent and author who has managed to bring most of her possessions from the ship onto the lifeboat. As the film begins, Connie is alone, but is soon joined by John Kovac (John Hodiak), a crewman. Kovac is followed by industrialist Charles “Ritt” Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), then injured crewman Gus Smith (William Bendix), nurse Alice MacKenzie (Mary Anderson), and radioman Stanley Garrett (Hume Cronyn). The next three to board are crewman Joe Spencer (Canada Lee) with Mrs. Higgins (Heather Angel) and her infant child, who has drowned. The last to arrive is Willy (Walter Slezak), who comes from the submarine that sank the ship, but was in turn sunk by return fire.