I approached this movie with Mel Brooks in mind, because I’ve seen the 1983 remake a couple of times. I was surprised to learn that it is fairly faithful to the original, which means that director Ernst Lubitsch was a little ahead of his time. There has been much talk about “the Lubitsch touch” over the years and it could be argued that Brooks followed in his footsteps. Always cruder, Brooks’s films are nevertheless also quite elegant and take place in a universe obviously dominated by the filmmaker’s sensibilities, treating sex as an amusement and not something to be concerned about. Both men are also Jews and World War II had a profound effect on them.
A theater troupe playing “Hamlet”
The year is 1939. A Warsaw theater troupe that is well known throughout the Polish capital is currently playing “Hamlet” with Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) in the lead. What he doesn’t know is that a young, brazen military officer called Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack) has fallen in love with his wife Maria (Carole Lombard). She’s flattered and encourages the flirting, but has no intention of leaving Joseph. Just when Sobinski intends on telling him that he wants to marry his wife, the news of Hitler’s attack on Poland reaches the troupe.
A while later, while fighting alongside the British RAF, Sobinski meets Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), a hero in the Polish resistance, and becomes suspicious of him. He turns out to be right; Siletsky is a traitor. The effort to not only expose him but take advantage of him involves Joseph and Maria’s theater troupe…
Initially not a hit
This movie was not a hit on its premiere. Lubitsch may have made Greta Garbo laugh in Ninotchka (1939), but in 1942, at a time when the war could have gone either way, audiences found it hard to smile at Nazis on the big screen. There’s even a story about Benny’s father getting so agitated at the sight of his son in a German uniform that he would have stormed out of the theatre had his son not managed to talk him into staying. Lubitsch ended up having to defend the “tastelessness” of the project, expressing an intention to ridicule the Nazis and their ideology, something Brooks would frequently do throughout his career.
While it’s easy to understand people’s reaction at the time, it is obvious that To Be or Not to Be is one of Lubitsch’s most worthwhile efforts, a comedy that paints the enemy’s most feared agents as simple-minded idiots, but above all has the balls to treat more sensitive topics such as anti-Semitism and the attack on Poland with an acid sense of humor. There is also a boldness in the treatment of Joseph and Maria’s relationship. The fact that she’s willing to have a flirt with the young Sobinski and not feel too bad about it is unusually free-spirited for the time. An attractive sense of absurdity colors the whole project, especially the dialogue that is so provocative and funny at times that Brooks wouldn’t change it it in his remake, even though 40 years had passed.
Critics weren’t too happy about Benny’s effort, but I think he’s great as Tura, a not too brilliant actor who gets the opportunity of a lifetime to shine, risking his life as “Concentration Camp Ehrhardt”. He gets help from Sig Ruman who’s funny as the real Ehrhardt, a practical man who’s loyal to Berlin out of fear for his life, but doesn’t mind cracking jokes about the Fuehrer over a brandy or two.
Critics lauded Lombard for her performance as Maria. She’s very good… but the amount of praise may have been affected by the fact that this was her last film. She died in a plane crash prior to the premiere.
To Be or Not to Be 1942-U.S. 99 min. B/W. Produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Screenplay: Edwin Justus Mayer. Cinematography: Rudolph Maté. Music: Werner R. Heymann. Cast: Jack Benny (Joseph Tura), Carole Lombard (Maria Tura), Robert Stack (Stanislav Sobinski), Lionel Atwill, Felix Bressart, Sig Ruman.
Quote: “What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland.” (Ruman on Benny)
Last word: “The press just did a terrible number on Lubitsch, and the arrogance he supposedly had in making fun of the Polish situation. But he was a Jew from the Old Country himself! It was the best satire and put-down of Nazism that’s ever been done, but they weren’t hip enough to pick up on what he was doing.” (Stack, TCM)
