Hitchcock Chronology: Lifeboat (1944)

Entries in the Hitchcock Chronology relating to Lifeboat (1944)...

1942

November

• 19th - Hitchcock moves to his new offices at Twentieth Century-Fox. With Darryl F. Zanuck away on active service in North Africa, Hitchcock meets with William Goetz and staff producer Kenneth Macgowan where he pitches the idea for a "lifeboat film". Nine months later, Lifeboat would begin filming.

December

• Keen to attach a big-name writer to Lifeboat, Hitchcock telegrams Ernest Hemmingway at his winter home in Cuba — "THE WHOLE STORY TAKES PLACE IN THE LIFEBOAT WITH THE CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES, THE DISINTEGRATION OF SOCIAL INEQUALITIES THE DOMINANCE OF THE NAZI, ETC"

1943

January

• Ernest Hemingway turns down Hitchcock's offer to write Lifeboat — "THANK HITCHCOCK FOR ASKING ME [STOP] PERHAPS WE CAN WORK TOGETHER ANOTHER TIME BEST REGARDS"
• Hitchcock and Kenneth Macgowen meet with John Steinbeck at Twentieth Century-Fox to discuss the possibility of the author writing a treatment of Lifeboat.
• 4th - Hitchcock's older brother William John dies of a cardiac arrest aggrevated by the drug paraldehyde. William leaves effects worth £110 7s. 6d. to his widow, Lilian. Shocked by his brother's early death, Hitchcock begins a strict diet in an attempt to lose 100 pounds in weight — this would lead to his memorable cameo appearance in the film Lifeboat (1944).

February

• MacKinlay Kantor, who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize, is brought in to work on the opening sequence of Lifeboat with Alma in mid-February, but is dismissed by Hitchcock two weeks later. Hitchcock later recalled "I didn't care for what he had written at all".

March

• John Steinbeck finishes work on both the treatment and the novelette for Lifeboat.

April

• 16th - The Los Angeles Times reports that Hitchcock is keen to cast actress Kathleen Hepburn in Lifeboat. By June, Tallulah Bankhead had been signed for the film.

July

• Writer Jo Swerling completes his work on the screenplay of Lifeboat.

August

• Principal photography begins on Lifeboat.

November

• Filming on Lifeboat completes in early-November. On the last day of shooting, Hitchcock presents Tallulah Bankhead with a Sealyham Terrier puppy.
• An early edit of Lifeboat is screened for Twentieth Century-Fox's studio head Darryl Zanuck, who "raved about [it] as an outstanding film with awards potential".

1944

January

• Lifeboat opens in American theatres.

1950

November

• 16th - The Screen Directors' Playhouse broadcasts a radio adaptation of Lifeboat, starring Tallulah Bankhead and Jeff Chandler. Hitchcock provides a short introduction to the adaptation.

1955

October

• 19th - Actor John Hodiak, who starred in Lifeboat, dies of coronary thrombosis, aged 41.

1964

April

• 18th - Screenwriter Ben Hecht, who worked with Hitchcock on Foreign Correspondent, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Notorious, The Paradine Case, Rope and Strangers on a Train, dies aged 70.

October

• 23rd - Screenwriter Jo Swerling, who worked with Hitchcock on Lifeboat, dies aged 71.

1968

December

• 12th - Actress Tallulah Bankhead, who starred in Lifeboat, dies aged 66.

2003

June

• 15th - Actor and writer Hume Cronyn, who acted in Shadow of a Doubt and Lifeboat, and worked on the screenplays of Rope and Under Capricorn, dies aged 91.

2014

April

• 6th - Actress Mary Anderson, who appeared in Lifeboat (1944), dies aged 96.