To Be or Not to Be

Time to produce a DVD version with commentary track.

Lubitsch and Melchior Lengyel came up with the story, which was turned into a screenplay by Edwin Justus Mayer. The story of "To Be or Not to Be" is of a Polish theatrical company that is in Warsaw preparing to perform an anti-Nazi melodrama on the eve of World War II. In the leading roles are the husband and wife team of Maria (Lombard) and Joseph Tura (Benny), who are trained in Shakespeare. However, the production is canceled by the Polish government because they are afraid Germany will attack the country is a play critical of the Nazis goes on (you know how touchy Hitler can be). So the Turas put on "Hamlet" instead and while Joseph does Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy, Maria is visited backstage by Lieutenant Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack), a young pilot in the Polish Air Force. Then the war breaks out, Sobinski makes it to London to fight with the RAF, and the Turas remain in occupied Warsaw.

While in London Sobinski meets with Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), a Nazi agent posing as a Polish patriot, who gets the names of friends and relatives from the pilots. Sobinski becomes suspicious and is sent to Warsaw to recover the list from Siletsky before he gives it to the Nazis. In Warsaw Maria helps Sobinski, but then she is arrested by the Gestapo as Siletsky tries to get her to join the Third Reich. To rescue his wife Joseph and the other actors masquerade as Nazi soldiers and end up with one of them (Tom Duggan) dressing up as Hitler to help in the great escape.

This is a comedy, but it is not a broad comedy in which the whole thing descends into slapstick, otherwise the overt attempts at anti-Nazi propaganda would not work. There is a similarity between "To Be or Not to Be" and the television situation comedy "Hogan's Heroes," in terms of presenting the Nazis as incompetent buffoons, personified by Sig Ruman as Colonel Ehrhardt. The difference is that Lubitsch still manages to work in the idea that the Nazis are also killer clowns. However, the biggest joke is that these actors, less than inspiring on the stage in Shakespeare, are so convincing playing Nazis. Meanwhile, Joseph cannot quite bring himself to belief that Maria is actually cheating on him.

Keep in mind that when this film was made "concentration camps" did not mean what they mean today; the terms was used by the United States to describe the camps in which Japanese-Americans were interred during the war. But then when you see Jack Benny walk in as a Nazi you know this is a different time and place. The humor is pretty coarse for a film from the early Forties (e.g., Ehrhardt recalls Joseph's performance of "Hamlet" and declares, "What he did to Shakespeare we are doing to Poland"), but then keep in mind who is being made fun of here and you have to admire the bite that they put into some of these bits. Benny is pretty much perfect for this part and Lombard sparkles throughout. As is usually the case, the original is much better than the 1983 remake with the husband and wife team of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft.