A three-hour tour

TCM showed the three-hour Hawaii today, and not being able to think of anything better to write about, I hit on the idea of combining Hawaii with three hours, coming up with "Gilligan's Island". The three-hour tour sung about in the theme of course turned into something quite a bit longer, but I started thinking of small boats in the movies.

Large boats and ships are obviously common, with naval battals, voyages of exploration, and the obvious tragedies like Titanic or The Poseidon Adventure. Using a smaller boat, on the other hand, is something quite a bit different. Montgomery Clift famously rented himself one when he intended to kill poor Shelley Winters in A Place In the Sun, while we recently saw a bunch of people ride boats through the tunnel of love in Strangers on a Train. And who could forget the tiny, cramped boat in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat?

One of the more picturesque boat trips would have to be that taken by Paul Scofield in A Man For All Seasons, when he's returning from Hampton Court after having seen Henry VIII. The trip is an overnight one, and Scofield's Thomas More wakes up to a beautifully misty England, well captured in vibrant color. Interestingly, the King later comes to see More, and gets to come on a much bigger boat.