You could either say that this was Hitchcock's experiment with claustrophobia or agoraphobia depending on the how you view. On the one hand, 9 people are crammed into a rather smallish lifeboat after the sinking a two vessels during World War II--that could a very claustrophobic situation even on the open seas. Then again, there is that wide, vast yawning sea with no rescue in site, that could be even more terrifying. The whole film is a Hitchcock character study, as the lives of each survivor is probed, as the situation slowly grows more dire and more horrifying. A German U boat sinks a British civil boat, but not before the UK boat, which is armed, fires back. The battle sends both vessels to the bottom of the sea with 8 boat survivors (minus one, as a baby dies at the start of the lifeboat rescue) find themselves thrown together with one German sailor, a sole survivor of the U boat. As the situation worsens, paranoia about the German also increases, what his true intentions are, etc. He, in turn, repeatedly tries the allay their fears by telling them that he's just an ordinary guy caught in the war, just like everyone else....the question is: is it true?? This movie actress Tullulah Bankhead's only film with Hitchcock. It's based on a John Steinbeck story.
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