To Be or Not to Be
by Ernst Lubitsch, J.C. Nugent
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Carole Lombard, Dorothy Sebastian, George K. Arthur, Jack Benny, Polly MoranDirector: Ernst Lubitsch, J.C. Nugent
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Ernst Lubitsch
Writer: Ernst Lubitsch
Writer: J.C. Nugent
Writer: Edwin Justus Mayer
Writer: Melchior Lengyel
Writer: Ralph Spence
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of To Be or Not to Be
Movie Review: "They made a brandy out of Napoleon and a herring out of Bismarck, and Hitler will end up as a piece of cheese!"
Summary: 5 Stars
When you can crack jokes at the Gestapo in Poland only a few months after Germany has declared war on you, you've either created something brave and funny or something a little too sensitive...as when Colonel Ehrhardt of the Gestapo refers to the great Polish actor and ham, Josef Tura, "Oh, yes. As a matter of fact I saw him on the stage when I was in Warsaw once before the war. What he did to Shakespeare we are doing to Poland."
Or when Josef Tura, now disguised as Colonel Ehrhardt, says to the traitor, Professor Siletsky, "I can't tell you how delighted we are to have you here." "May I say, my dear Colonel, that it's good to breathe the air of the Gestapo again," Siletsky replies. "You know, you're quite famous in London, Colonel. They call you Concentration Camp Ehrhardt." "Yes, yes," Tura as Ehrhardt says with a laugh, "we do the concentrating and the Poles do the camping."
To Be or Not To Be did make some uneasy when it was released. But it succeeded at being very funny, especially in the last half when all the plot devices kick in, and in being a marvelously sophisticated and poignant attack on Nazism. It takes place in Warsaw in 1939. Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) and his wife, Maria (Carole Lombard) are leading actors of the Polish theater. They have started rehearsals for a satiric comedy about the Nazis when the government tells them to stop; it's too risky. So they save the fake Gestapo uniforms and mount a performance of Hamlet. While Josef Tura may be a conceited actor, his wife is a luscious, talented actress who enjoys entertaining attractive young men. The signal for the chosen fellow to leave the audience and join her in her dressing room is when Tura walks downstage, pauses, and begins "To be or not to be..." This time the young man is Polish pilot Lt. Stansilav Sobinski (Robert Stack). "Tell me about yourself," Maria asks while they lounge. "Well, there isn't much to tell. I just fly a bomber," the lieutenant says. "Oh, how perfectly thrilling!" "I don't know about it being thrilling. But it's quite a bomber. You might not believe it, but I can drop three tons of dynamite in two minutes." "Really?," Maria says. "Does that interest you?" he asks. "It certainly does," she says, with a gleam in her eye.
Days later the Germans invade, the lieutenant escapes to London to fly with the RAF's Polish Corps, the Turas close the theater and the Gestapo take charge. But when the Polish traitor Siletsky makes his way from London to Warsaw with a list of the Polish underground, Lieutenant Sobinski returns to try to stop him. Through complications fast, farcical and complicated, Joseph Tura winds up playing both Ehrhardt and Siletsky and Maria Tura proves vital to saving her husband on more than one occasion. The Tura theatrical troupe hatch a plot that involves Hitler and the mothballed Gestapo uniforms to save the underground, to steal a plane and to escape from Warsaw to London. It all is clever and complicated, and it sticks both fingers in the eyes of the Nazis. Says one character, "They made a brandy out of Napoleon and a herring out of Bismarck, and Hitler will end up as a piece of cheese!"
Benny does a wonderful job as Tura...so full of ham, so conceited...and when he has to be, so resourceful, so brave in spite of himself. Carole Lombard matches him as Maria Tura (and was top billed). Maria may have no illusions about her husband (and she may be almost as much of a ham as he), but she loves him, she's smart, she's clever. Probably only Lubitsch at that time would have dared to make a comedy involving Hitler. But To Be or Not To Be is really a comedy about freedom and bravery. Lubitsch doesn't forget that laughter can often inspire more effectively than melodrama. And at the end, when Josef Tura finally gets his chance to play Hamlet before a British audience and reaches the line, "To be or not to be," the look on Benny's face is priceless as a British soldier leaves his seat and starts heading backstage. Lt. Sobinski looks almost as dumbfounded as Tura.
The DVD looks very good. It features a comedy short with Benny and a WWII promo for buying war bonds. Mel Brooks in 1986 remade the movie as a loving homage to Lubitsch. The Lubitsch version, in my view, is lighter, funnier and more effective, but the Brooks version has many good points. It's entirely possible to enjoy both, and I do. As a side note, this was Carole Lombard's last movie. Shortly after filming was completed, she was killed in a plane crash during a war bonds tour.
Summary of To Be or Not to Be
A POLISH THEATRE TROUP IS PUT OUT OF BUSINESS BY THE NAZIS UNTILTHEY BECOME INVOLVED IN ESPIONAGE AND FIND THEIR SKILLS BEING PUT TO THE ULTIMATE TEST.Similar DVD Movies
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