The Dark Side of the Genius lends insight into Hitchcock during the early days of production of Lifeboat. David O. Selznick had worked out a two-picture deal with 20^th Century-Fox for Hitchcock to direct Lifeboat and The Keys of the Kingdom. The second film was never made, as Hitchcock delayed starting the productions in a hope to receive more money. In the wake of the political fallout of Lifeboat, it’s unlikely that Fox would have wanted to shell out extra money for such an initially poorly received film.

While Fox pushed screenwriters to script Lifeboat, Hitchcock sought after novelists. Before Steinbeck, Hitchcock tried to convince Ernest Hemingway to take the project. Hemingway declined. Lifeboat is known as a picture Hitchcock saw as one of his cinematic challenges, putting him under the constraints of a single set and compositions of mainly close-up and medium shots. However, it seems as if he was also enamored with the idea of working with the additional constraint of creative input from an artist as well-respected and a name as well known as his.

With two deaths in Hitchcock’s family around the time of the production of Lifeboat, the theme of sudden loss and tragedy seems like a likely inspiration for the film to focus on the aftermath of a steady ship being thrown into turmoil. The impact of the deaths in Hitchcock’s own new concern towards mortality can be seen in the rapid weight loss regiment he undertook before Lifeboat’s production. The aftermath of this can be seen in the Reduco newspaper add in which he appears in the before and after picture, slimming down one-hundred pounds.

The book features an anecdote about lead Tallulah Bankhead’s exhibitionist behavior on the set of Lifeboat. As magazines sought to do features on the film, reporters and the studio higher-ups were not nearly as pleased as the male crew members about Bankhead’s behavior, with one reporter commenting about the rumors of indecent behavior in Hollywood being true. This taken in the context of the era of the PCA shows the careful attention the public paid to not only film content but their production environment and stars’ off-screen “performances.”

Prior to writing the novellete that would become the basis for Lifeboat, John Steinbeck wrote The Moon is Down, his first novel about the war.  Like Lifeboat, it is a heavily allegorical story that, although unrealistic to a modern audience, was well reviewed and liked by the World War II-era American public who "wanted not art but propaganda."

Lifeboat partially originated as a project that the Merchant Marines asked Hollywood to produce in order to create public awareness of the threat U-boats presented its ships.  Steinbeck's original version of the story was much truer to the Marines wishes, and much less of an allegory than the final film ended up being.  While the characters were meant to represent a microcosm of American society, the element of a disorganized Democracy set against the strong-wlled Nazi was not present.  In contrast, the self-made man shows the leadership qualities that must have been used to amass his fortunes, not the facistman who finds it so easily to give up power.  Also, the Nazi is a weak individual who after only one act of deception is killed.  The focus of the book is not the Nazi's ascension to control but of what life as a Merchant Marine and the experience of being shelled and stranded is like.

After Steinbeck completed his work on the project, three additional drafts were done, and by the end the story only vaguely represented the original.  MacKinlay Kantor's draft was thrown out early on by Hitchcock, though he is credited with increasing the allegory's prominence in the story.  One of Frank Capra's collaborators Jo Swerling stripped away a lot of the realism of the characters and provided the "Capra-corn" melodramatic elements.  Hitchcock, the master of details, rewrote the final draft shortly before shooting to "give it narrative form."

After seeing his original vision transformed so much, Steinbeck eventually wrote and asked to have his name taken off of the film, claiming that he wanted no part in something that so clearly "damaged the war effort."  Most of all, as revealed in a personal letter, it seems as if Steinbeck hated the transformation of the working class characters from ones with dignity to stereotypes, criticizing Hithcock's "middle-class" sensibilities.

In the midst of Hollywood's war time effort, incorporating pro-American propaganda into its films, it's somewhat ironic to see the process converting a film with origins in propaganda transformed by the process into what many reviewers of the time considered to be anti-American.

After critical reaction to the flim Lifeboat complained of the weak portrayal of Americans in comparison with the superman Nazi, producer Kenneth Macgowan wrote this article about the intent behind the film. Macgowan tries and provide explanations for several of the issues that critics had with the film. He claims the reason the German is the only one who can row the boat because he's the only one with water and food tablets, avoiding the fact that no one man should be able to paddle that lifeboat, no matter how strong he is.

Interestingly, in the article Macgowan includes Steinbeck's name in the list of primary creators of the allegory that was being so strongly criticized because at the time, Steinbeck was seeking to have his name removed from the film.

Macgowan credits Hitchcock with the idea of shooting a film in a lifeboat, and saying that first and foremost, this was a gimmick film. It was Hitchcock's idea of a challenge to shoot the first ever film with only one set. For this reason, Macgowan claims that the allegory was never intended, and they stumbled upon it by accident, throughout the creative process. Steinbeck is the only one for whom this is definetly true as his early manuscript proves. However, a few paragraphs earlier, Macgowan was crediting Steinbeck, a man only involved only very early on in the process, with having an allegorical intent that was supposedly developed later on.

Macgowan's contradictions are best summed up in his final paragraph when he essentially says (paraphrasing), "You misinterpreted our intent.  Oh, and if you still disagree, we didn't have any intent to begin with."

In the same issue of The New York Times as the Macgowan letter in defense of Lifeboat, Bosley Crowther responds with a strong critique of Macgowan and the film.

Crowther's article is a strong reflection of the American view of films during the height of censorship. His article is not one of strongly synthesized arguments about why Lifeboat is bad for the war effort. Instead he frequently employs the use of rhetorical questions, asking questions like "What's going on out there[Hollywood]?" as if any film whose portrayal of America's strength is questionable is an outrage in itself and needs no further explanation.

One of Crowther's criticisms that does not feature a question mark is that of all the abilities given to the German. He is the only one with the mental, physical, and emotional ability to amputize Gus's leg, navigate the ship through the storm, and row it towards its destination. He credits all of his abilities as being well-explained, but critizes Hitchcock (and unfairly Steinbeck) for giving them to him in the first place.  His argument can be summarized as no matter how well you explain Superman's ability to fly, his super strength, or his heat vision, they still make him look like Superman.

He closes his critique claiming that anything that casts doubt on America is inherently bad to morale and for our image overseas, giving credence to the idea of film as Will Hays's silient salesman.  Censorship in the 1940s is often attributed only to organizations like the PCA and OWI. However, the critical reaction to Lifeboat shows that if they weren't strictly enforcing unquestionable pro-American ideals in film that their would be outcry from other outlets.

Bosley Crowther uses Lifeboat as a case study in the issues he sees with the current state of the film industry.  He questions why the screenwriter never receives the attention and the acclaim that the playwright does.  With control firmly rooted in the hands of the producer and the director, a screenwriter may find his name attached to a project that is significantly altered from his original vision.  Early criticism of Lifeboat came on the shoulders of both Hitchcock and Steinbeck.  Steinbeck was a well known name, but for his novels not for his work in the film industry.  Subsequently, his name was used to market the film even though he had no control and input on the final print.  The lack of control is a situation that many Hollywood screenwriters could find themselves in.

Crowther’s analysis and comparison of Steinbeck’s original treatment of Lifeboat and the final script reveals the specifics of the changes Steinbeck that drove Steinbeck to seek the removal of his name from the film.  Steinbeck’s tale was even more character and less plot driven then Hitchcock’s final film.  The largest change is the democracies foe was not the Nazi but the ocean.  The Nazi attempted take over was little more than a subplot which was handled after only one act of deception by the other survivors.

Crowther accuses Hitchcock and producer Macgowan of “preempting” Steinbeck’s “creative authority.”  However, he acknowledges that under the current system the director and the producer have every right to change, for better or worse, a screenwriter’s original intent and characters.  He places blame too not only the founders of the system, but the writers who do not do anything to change it.  Crowther does not seek a system in which the producer has no control, as without his financing the film would not be made.  He seeks for a more balanced industry in which the financial and creative input are on a more balanced footing.