20th Century-Fox didn't have to build a special tank for Lifeboat. All of the major Hollywood studios had their own tanks for scenes requiring boats, swimming and aquatic settings. MGM even had one with windows along the sides for their Tarzan films and a series of musicals starring swimmer Esther Williams. Studio technicians and art directors knew all the tricks for disguising the fact that tank scenes were shot indoors. They could duplicate the feel of sun reflected in the waters, create waves and wind just as in the real ocean, and use fog and clouds to make the studio backdrop look like a real sky.

The studio tank could be used with full size boats, portions of ships or miniatures for special effects sequences like the naval battle in Ben-Hur (1959). Even though they weren't in the open sea, the tanks could be dangerous. While filming the tank scenes for Lifeboat, Hitchcock had a lifeguard on duty just out of camera range. That came in handy when Hume Cronyn fell into the water and got caught beneath one of the water agitators. Actors on other films have gotten caught in the underwater wires used to hold the boats in place. The agitators used to make storm waves on the original Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) were so powerful Charles Laughton, who played Captain Bligh, had to be tied to the wheel to get through the scene. Nor were the tanks necessarily comfortable or sanitary. Actors often complained about shooting long hours in the cold water, and when David Niven split his lip shooting a scene in the tank for The Guns of Navarone (1961), the wound developed an infection that shut down production.

The tanks weren't used for every shot. At the very least, productions sent out second unit crews to get actual ocean shots to be cut into the studio footage. Sometimes they even had to send the cast out on actual ships. MGM had a full-sized replica of the HMS Bounty built for the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty. The ship was used for second-unit work shot in the South Pacific with stand-ins for the cast and also filmed near Catalina Island for scenes involving the actors. When the studio remade the film in 1962, they paid $750,000 to build another full-scale Bounty that would continue to be used for promotional purposes through the years. But location shooting at sea brought its own problems -- unpredictable weather, rough waters and boredom for cast and crew, which could lead to behavioral issues. All of that makes using the studio tank, easier to disguise now through the use of CGI, much preferable.

By Frank Miller