It’s become tiresome to hear right-leaners complain about how much Hollywood has changed on the patriotism front.
Not that they’re wrong, but after awhile it takes on the tonal qualities of a broken record.
But then you re-watch Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 classic “LIfeboat,” and it’s worth discussing all over again.
The film, released last year as part of a major Hitchock box set (The Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection), tells the simple story (by John Steinbeck) of a group of shipwreck survivors trying to make do on a rickety life boat after their ship was sunk by Nazis.
The key storyline involves a Nazi soldier who ends up as a passenger on the life boat thanks to the decency of the other survivors.
But let Variety’s review fill in the real blanks:
The film serves up a “devastating indictment of the nature of Nazi bestiality, at times an almost clinical, dissecting room analysis, emerges as powerful adult motion picture fare.”
Since it’s a Hitchcock picture, “Lifeboat” is first and foremost a gripping yarn.
The ragtag bunch who swim to the relative safety of the titular boat aren’t soldiers. They’re civilians, mostly, who must decide whether or not to throw the Nazi vermin, the very type who sank their vessel and left many of their friends dead. overboard when he swims to their ship.
It’s one of many themes interspersed throughout the film, which begins with Tallulah Bankhead striking a half dozen false notes but quickly rights its own narrative ship.
Suffice to say we’re still waiting for the first movie to deliver a “devastating indictment of the nature of” radical Islam, the scourge of our modern world.
We’ve seen direct portraits of their atrocities (the brilliant “United 93,” the pedestrian “World Trade Center”) and ficionalized tales of the mayhem they bring (“The Kingdom”).
But no film has deconstructed the mindset of these fanatical killers, either in direct fashion or in the compelling way that “Lifeboat” takes down Nazism.
Hollwood types should collectively hang their heads for such a lapse.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hollywood may currently have its right eye closed to Islam and its true believers, but comics will take on Jihad when Pigman flies.
Broken link, just click my name then.
I would like to see a follow-up where the modern equivalent of a Nazi – a Zionist – is saved by the decency of a group of Palestinians.
Ofcourse they won’t do it, they’re either too P.C. or they hate those savage Mormons because they don’t hang out in leather bars, or they’re such big cowards that they’d rather drink stay in their big houses and pretend everything is alright now that President Pepsi is in office.
Hm.
Hollywood has to find a marketing means to distinguish radical Islamic terrorists from the non-radical Islamic terrorist.
It was easy to do with Germany: simply label all villainy as “Nazi,” even when the villains were not all Nazis.
Making such a distinction now – and there are many examples of it not being done, beyond the Islamic terrorists – does not occur as much.
I wonder why?
~ Dagnabbitt
Check out Foreign Correspondent for another example of Hitchcockian patriotism in the face of the Nazi threat, this time before the U.S. entered the war.
Great comments, all … and sorry to harp on this issue, but it really jumped out at me while watching “Lifeboat.”
And you can easily distinguish radical Islam followers from the peaceful ones. Heck, even make the movie’s hero a peaceful Muslim … I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with this ‘head in the sand’ approach to a modern scourge.
The movies may not have done much with the islamist mindset, but Sleeper Cell on TV was pretty good. It did have two big problems, though:
1) They tried to make it into an ongoing series, instead of the self-contained mini-series it should have been.
2) While it’s worth saying that most Muslims aren’t terrorists or supporters of terrorism, it isn’t worth saying five times an episode, every episode.
Only fives times an episode, JIC? I didn’t see “Sleeper Cell,” but I would have figured the over/under would be nine …
And yeah, TV has done a better job in this area, but take away “24″ and it’s pretty equal
Sure, most Muslims aren’t terrorists, but most ‘Muslims’ are not Muslims, as Islam would have them be. When Islam’s founder committed every act of evil against others in the name of ‘good’, and is even considered to be the perfect man to be emulated by all Muslims, of course the Muslim world is at it is.