LIFEBOAT

LIFEBOAT, one of the finest 1940s works by the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, is to be released in the UK on DVD & Blu-ray as part of Eureka Entertainment’s MASTERS OF CINEMA Series on 23 April 2012

    

• First-ever Blu-ray release anywhere in the world of Lifeboat and Hitchcock's two rarely seen French-language 1944 war-time films, Bon voyage and Aventure malgache

           

• Based on a script by author John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden)

• Nominated for Oscars for best director, cinematography, and original story

• Starring a first-rate ensemble headed by Tallulah Bankhead, whose performance in the film won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best actress

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SYNOPSIS:

Based on an unpublished novella by John Steinbeck (written on commission expressly to provide treatment material for Hitchcock's screen scenario), Lifeboat found the Master of Suspense navigating a course of maximal tension – in the most minimal of settings – with a consistently inventive, beautifully paced drama that would foreshadow the single-set experiments of Rope and Dial M for Murder.

After a Nazi torpedo reduces an ocean liner to wooden splinters and scorched personal effects, the survivors of the attack pull themselves aboard a drifting lifeboat in the hope of eventual rescue. But the motivations of the German submarine captain (played by Walter Slezak) on the eponymous craft might extend beyond mere survival...

With a cast including Shadow of a Doubt veteran Hume Cronyn and the extraordinary, irrepressible Tallulah Bankhead, this "picture of characters", as François Truffaut aptly termed the film, oscillates dazzlingly between comic repartée and white-knuckle suspense – a perfect example of "the Hitchcock touch".

Eureka Entertainment’s MASTERS OF CINEMA Series is proud to present the Oscar-nominated  Lifeboat in a Dual Format (Blu-ray and DVD) standard edition & limited edition Dual Format steelbook , accompanied by Hitchcock's two French-language wartime shorts, Bon voyage and Aventure malgache. Released in the UK on 23 April 2012.  

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AVAILABLE FROM

AMAZON (Blu-ray) http://amzn.to/yQ1VLt  (Steelbook)  http://amzn.to/yRjKid

HMV (Blu-ray) http://tidd.ly/4dc9574c  (Steelbook) http://tidd.ly/56036724

PLAY (Blu-ray) http://bit.ly/wkXbHq  (Steelbook) http://bit.ly/zhZTSe

HUT (Blu-ray)  http://tidd.ly/4d7301da  (Steelbook)  http://tidd.ly/6f81e14f

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SPECIAL DUAL FORMAT EDITION FEATURES:

• New high-definition master, officially licensed from Twentieth Century Fox

• New high-definition transfers of Hitchcock's little-seen French-language 1944 wartime films, Bon voyage (26 minutes) and Aventure malgache (31 minutes) officially licensed from the British Film Institute

• Optional English subtitles on all three films

• 20-minute documentary on the making of Lifeboat

• 12-minute excerpt from the legendary 1962 audio interviews between Hitchcock and François Truffaut, discussing Lifeboat and the wartime shorts

• PLUS: A 36-page booklet featuring archival imagery alongside new writing by critics Bill Krohn, Arthur Mas, and Martial Pisani

    

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REVIEWS:

“Absorbing...brilliantly executed” – The Hollywood Reporter

" That old master of screen melodrama, Alfred Hitchcock, and Writer John Steinbeck have combined their distinctive talents in a tremendously provocative film” — Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

"He realises that peculiar Hitchcock manner with the player, in which the actor seems to be concentrating mentally on what he is about to do but never quite does it; so that his pantomime takes on a kind of sinister spontaneity." —Manny Farber, The New Republic

    

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DETAILS:

Label: Eureka Entertainment Ltd

Cat. No: EKA70040

Barcode: 5060000700404

RRP: £20.42

Steelbook Cat. No: EKA70076

Steelbook Barcode: 5060000700763

Steelbook RRP: £30.63

Release Date: 23 April 2012

Certificate: TBC

Run Time: 98 min.

Format:  1.37:1 OAR/ B&W

Genre: Thriller

Director: Alfred HITCHCOCK

Year: 1944

Country:  USA

Language: English

Subtitles: English SDH (Optional)