Today, TCM runs one of Hitchcock’s biggest hits of the forties, the suspense wartime thriller with Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, and John Hodiak, Lifeboat. Lifeboat is notable for taking place entirely on one confined set, the lifeboat that all of our characters are aboard for the duration. I can’t even imagine the story board sessions for a movie like this but it would be a daunting assignment for any director to undertake a movie where the setting just doesn’t change. At all. Fortunately, Alfred Hitchcock was at the helm so everything worked out just fine. Indeed, Lifeboat is one of my favorite one set wonders, though admittedly, I don’t have many. A film that takes place at the same location from start to finish needs to have crackling writing, enthusiastic and energetic acting, or virtuoso cinematography or all three. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long two hours.
Hitchcock tried the one set wonder movie again, in 1948, when he adapted the play Rope to the screen and used a gimmick of making the film appear to happen in one take, just as it would onstage. The whole movie takes place in the apartment of the two killers played by John Dahl and Farley Granger as they host a party with some guests and their favorite professor played by Jimmy Stewart. Alas, it is not as successful as Lifeboat. The principal reason being that gimmick of making everything appear to be one take by filling up one entire reel of film and then moving into someone’s back or going behind a piece of furniture, changing the reel, and then resuming by pulling back away again. It forced the actors into a situation where, six minutes in, if they felt the scene wasn’t going well or their readings were bad, tough, they had to keep going because otherwise they had to start all over again and waste a reel of film. As a result, it is no one’s finest moment. Oh, no one’s bad, of course, these are all fine actors, but the performances alternate between rigid and ripe. Had Hitchcock filmed the movie as a play but still allowed the camera to cut between actors, it would have worked out much better. Like his other foray into adapting a play to the screen.
Dial M for Murder was yet another instance where Hitchcock decided to go for broke and make an entire movie on one set. In this one, there are a few shots of Ray Milland at the restaurant but well over 95% of the movie takes place in the apartment of Milland and his wife, Grace Kelly, who he attempted to have killed by an old chum he has blackmailed. The movie succeeds on the characters, particular that of the husband, Milland, and the inspector, played by John Williams, being more interesting in their cat and mouse game than Dahl, Granger, and Stewart in theirs in Rope. There’s a lot of left turns in the story, too, ones that don’t exist in Rope which is built more on the premise of tension that there is a body in the room undiscovered by the guests while Dial M for Murder is more of a twists and turns thriller in which the inspector finally foils the murderer in the end. Interestingly, especially for something as stage bound as this, it was also shot in 3-D, though I’ve never seen it that way to know if it lends anything more to the story or not. Having seen many 3-D movies, though, I will say, if it does, it’s the first movie in history to do so. From It Came from Outer Space and Creature from the Black Lagoon all the way to Avatar and Gravity, I have never found that 3-D adds anything at all but distraction.
But all of these pale in comparison to Hitchcock’s titanic achievement in the realm of one set wonders, Rear Window. Now, it’s true, there’s a much larger set outside the window that we, through Jimmy Stewart, get to look into, but nonetheless, the movie takes place not only inside a rather dull and plain looking apartment, but the lead character is sitting down staring out of a window for the whole movie. And it’s amazing. It helps, tremendously, that that person is Jimmy Stewart and it also helps that Thelma Ritter is along for the ride. But it is also the genius of that set outside and how Hitchcock weaves it into the visuals of what’s happening inside the apartment. We never really look out the window, we look through Stewart’s viewfinder instead. So, yes, we’re seeing other things besides his apartment but it’s all interpreted through him, just as everything we’re seeing in the movie itself has been filtered for us by Hitchcock. It’s the crowning achievement of one set movies and one of Hitchcock’s best. It’s no wonder he never did another one set movie. After that one, he had done as well as he could.
Hitchcock is probably unique in how many one set movies he did. Even other movies of his, like Jamaica Inn and The Lady Vanishes, which take place in more than one location, have long stretches where the action is confined to a single setting. And perhaps it’s because Hitchcock was so successful with one set movies that the other one set movies I like tend to be suspense thrillers as well, notably Sleuth and Deathtrap, both with Michael Caine. Other one set wonders succeed or fail based almost entirely upon the actors, like My Dinner with Andre or Secret Honor. But Hitchcock managed to make one set movies that worked, more or less, based on a variety of factors. In other words, with Lifeboat and Rear Window especially, Hitchcock never surrendered anything cinematic just because it was all happening on a confined set. Those movies are as wide open and visually exciting as any movie taking place in a dozen different locations. Hitchcock is famous for many things in the history of cinema but perhaps he should also be regarded as the king of the one set wonder.