Best Films - 1944
by Andre Soares
All the action in Lifeboat is set inside a, well, lifeboat. Thanks to Jo Swerling’s intelligent screenplay (criticized by some because the Nazi villain outsmarts everyone else aboard the raft) and to Alfred Hitchcock’s clever direction, the trip aboard this Lifeboat is never monotonous. (Without any room for a walk-on, Hitchcock inserts himself into the film via a newspaper photo.) When the film begins, the ship has already sunk. Among the survivors are a perfectly coiffured Tallulah Bankhead (also sporting a fur coat, no less), big guy John Hodiak, man-of-the-people William Bendix, and wily Nazi agent Walter Slezak.
Needless to say, Bankhead and Slezak steal the show, though the other actors are in top form, too. For her efforts, Bankhead won the New York Film Critics award for that year, though this East Coast actress wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. Of her infrequent forays into film, Lifeboat remains her most important picture.
FILM
Lifeboat
I Bambini ci guardano / The Children Are Watching Us
Crime by Night
Dragon Seed
Laura
Meet Me in St. Louis
Mr. Skeffington
This Happy Breed
The Uninvited
DIRECTOR
Alfred Hitchcock (Lifeboat)
Lewis Allen (The Uninvited)
William Clemens (Crime by Night)
John Cromwell (Since You Went Away)
Vittorio De Sica (I Bambini ci guardano / The Children Are Watching Us)
David Lean (This Happy Breed)
Vincente Minnelli (Meet Me in St. Louis)
Otto Preminger (Laura)
Vincent Sherman (Mr. Skeffington)
Robert Siodmak (Phantom Lady)
ACTOR
Jerome Cowan (Crime by Night)
Gary Cooper (The Story of Dr. Wassel)
Laird Cregar (The Lodger)
Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way)
Edward G. Robinson (Double Indemnity)
ACTRESS
Tallulah Bankhead (Lifeboat)
Vivian Blaine (Something for the Boys)
Claudette Colbert (Since You Went Away)
Jeanne Crain (Home in Indiana)
Bette Davis (Mr. Skeffington)
Joan Fontaine (Jane Eyre)
Judy Garland (Meet Me in St. Louis)
Katharine Hepburn (Dragon Seed)
Celia Johnson (This Happy Breed)
Gene Tierney (Laura)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Claude Rains (Mr. Skeffington)
John Alexander (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Leon Ames (Meet Me in St. Louis)
Pedro Armendáriz (María Candelaria / Portrait of Maria)
Henry Daniell (The Suspect)
Miguel Inclán (María Candelaria / Portrait of Maria)
Peter Lorre (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Raymond Massey (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Walter Slezak (Lifeboat)
Leonard Strong (The Keys of the Kingdom)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Josephine Hull (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Faye Emerson (Crime by Night)
Rosalind Ivan (The Suspect)
Priscilla Lane (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Angela Lansbury (Gaslight)
Alison Leggart (This Happy Breed)
Marjorie Main (Meet Me in St. Louis)
Carmen Miranda (Something for the Boys)
Claire Trevor (Murder My Sweet)
Dame May Whitty (Gaslight)
SCREENPLAY
Jo Swerling (Lifeboat)
Jay Dratter, Samuel Hoffenstein & Betty Reinhardt (Laura)
Julius J. Epstein & Phillip G. Epstein (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Julius J. Epstein & Phillip G. Epstein (Mr. Skeffington)
Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean & Ronald Neame (This Happy Breed)
Joel Malone & Richard Weil (Crime by Night)
Jane Murfin & Marguerite Roberts (Dragon Seed)
Dodie Smith (The Uninvited)
Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Giulio Viola, Adolfo Franci, Margherita Maglione & Gherardo Gherardi (I Bambini ci guardano / The Children Are Watching Us)
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Stanley Cortez & Lee Garmes (Since You Went Away)
Lucien Ballard (The Lodger)
George Barnes (None But the Lonely Heart)
George Barnes (Jane Eyre)
Gabriel Figueroa (María Candelaria / Portrait of Maria)
George J. Folsey (Meet Me in St. Louis)
George J. Folsey (The White Cliffs of Dover)
Ernest Haller (Mr. Skeffington)
Joseph LaShelle (Laura)
Joseph Ruttenberg (Mrs. Parkington)
ORIGINAL SCORE
David Raksin (Laura)
Francisco Dominguez (María Candelaria / Portrait of Maria)
Renzo Rossellini (I Bambini ci guardano / The Children Are Watching Us)
Victor Young (The Uninvited)
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