Review of To Be or Not to Be (1942) by Jack G — 20 Jul 2014

To Be or Not to Be is a film that carries the real horror and dread of Europe facing the threats and devastation of Hitler and the Nazis, and never forgets that, but is also a light, screwball comedy about the art of performance and the enjoyment we all get knowing someone is getting something over on another guy. Lubtisch's filmmaking and comic timing moves like a precise slab of butter (if that's a weird analogy), smooth and on point all the time.

It follows a Polish theater company that see a the Germans invading, bombing their town, and the two stars of the company played by Jack Benny and Carole Lumbard, embroiled in a plot with a Nazi-leaning professor and even going up to Hitler himself. Nevermind they don't have Polish (or even most German) accents, they don't bother pretending on that front ironically considering the trickery on hand. This is meant to be a piece of world war two theatricality that can and does endure because it deals with showmanship, actor ego (from Benny with his Hamlet to the side characters trying to get Shylock just right) and playing a character as it's main focus (if there's any modern film that owes It's debt to Lubitsch and how people put on ruses in such high stakes it's Inglouious Basterds, down to a climax in a theater full of Nazis).

And as funny as Jack Benny is, especially when his character reacts to that dear of a bomber pilot who has the hots for Carole Lombard, I think Lombard really makes this even better than expected. She's exquisite, ferocious, precocious, sexy, and yet terribly serious about her craft and the people she loves, plus the theater itself. You see just charm and grace radiating off her, and yet she completely gets how to make Mary always reacting and figuring things out. Benny is the big wonderful goof of the movie, while Lombard is the star.

Its sublime entertainment and I only regret not seeing it sooner; Mel Brooks made a remake in the 80s which is good but nowhere near the impact of this picture. Just the scene with the Germans marching into town and Lubitsch's cut aways to the citizens looking on in shocked-but-passive disbelief makes it a must see alone.