At the time that
Lifeboat went into production, Alfred Hitchcock was under contract to
David O. Selznick.
20th Century Fox obtained the director's services in exchange for that of several actors and technicians, as well as the rights to three stories that Fox owned. Hitchcock was to direct two films for the studio, but the second was never made, apparently because Fox was unhappy with the length of time taken to finish production on
Lifeboat. It was Hitchcock who came up with the idea for the film. He approached
A.J. Cronin,
James Hilton, and
Ernest Hemingway to help write the script before giving the project to John Steinbeck, who had previously written the screenplay for the 1941 documentary
The Forgotten Village, but had not written a fictional story for the screen. It was Steinbeck's intention to write and publish a novel and sell the rights to the studio, but the story was never published because his literary agents considered it "inferior". Steinbeck received $50,000 ($ in ) for the rights to his story. Steinbeck was unhappy with the film because it presented what he considered to be "slurs against organized labor" and a "stock comedy Negro" when his story had a "Negro of dignity, purpose and personality". He requested, unsuccessfully, that his name be removed from the credits. A short story version of Hitchcock's idea appeared in ''
Collier's'' magazine on November 13, 1943. It was written by
Harry Sylvester and Hitchcock, with Steinbeck credited with the "original screen story". In the 1940s, African-American actor and playwright
Sidney Easton sued
20th Century Fox, for having used his play,
Lifeboat #13, as the basis for the film. Easton settled out of court four years later for a few thousand dollars, and relinquished the copyright to the play.
Lifeboat was originally planned to be filmed in Technicolor with an all-male cast, many of whom were going to be unknowns. Canada Lee, who was primarily a stage actor with only one film credit at the time, was the first actor cast in the film. Scenes were shot in sequence to aid character development. Illnesses were a constant part of the production from the beginning. Before shooting began, William Bendix replaced actor
Murray Alper when Alper became ill. After two weeks of shooting, director of photography
Arthur Miller was replaced by Glen MacWilliams because of illness. Tallulah Bankhead came down with
pneumonia twice during shooting, while Mary Anderson became seriously ill during production, causing several days of production time to be lost.
Cameo Director
Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in most of his films. He once commented to
François Truffaut – in
Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, 1967) – that this particular cameo was difficult to achieve, as there are no passers-by in the film. Although he originally considered posing as a body floating past the lifeboat – an approach he later considered for his cameo in
Frenzy – Hitchcock was inspired by his own success with weight loss and decided to pose for "before" and "after" photos in an advertisement for a fictional weight-loss drug, "Reduco", shown in a newspaper that was in the boat. Hitchcock said that he was besieged by letters from people asking about Reduco. Hitchcock used the product again in
Rope, where his profile and “Reduco” appear on a red neon sign. The
Lifeboat cameo appears 25 minutes into the film.
Production credits The production credits on the film were as follows: • Director –
Alfred Hitchcock • Producer –
Kenneth Macgowan • Writing –
John Steinbeck (story),
Jo Swerling (screenplay) • Cinematography –
Glen MacWilliams (director of photography) • Art direction –
James Basevi and
Maurice Ransford (art direction);
Thomas Little and
Frank E. Hughes (set decoration) • Film editor –
Dorothy Spencer • Costumes –
René Hubert • Makeup artist – Guy Pearce • Special photographic effects –
Fred Sersen • Technical adviser (maritime) – Thomas Fitzsimmons • Sound – Bernard Freericks and
Roger Heman • Music –
Hugo W. Friedhofer (music),
Emil Newman (musical director) ==Reception==