To Be or Not to Be
|
Our Price: $61.68 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $34.36 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of To Be or Not to Be
Movie Review: to be or not to be
Summary: 5 Stars
received the video promptly and in pristine condition. Great movie and terrific cast. thanks for the prompt service.Movie Review: A Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the greatest movies of all time. The opening is fantastic, Benny is superb. Everyone should see this one!Movie Review: Excellent Customer service
Summary: 5 Stars
The package arrive in a reasonable amount of time and in excellent condition. Customer service was excellent.Movie Review: Even as Jewish humor, that film has aged
Summary: 4 Stars
A decent little film shot in 1942. Could we say it was shot dead? Or is that too Jewish a piece of humor? The plot is absurd and that is why it is funny, but not a deep intellectual funny, nor a deep artistic and esthetic funny, nor even a deep emotional funny. Just funny for war time, funny for when everyone is crying, weeping or plain dying. We think of the other Jewish actor who did a similar impersonation of Hitler, Charlie Chaplin. But Charlie Chaplin played the real Hitler, whereas here it is always a false Hitler, tricking the real one in his back. That is funny for sure but that is also kind of vain, except if you take it is as a plain entertainment for an audience that wants to laugh at their arch enemy. So they play the Mickey out of him. But what's left after sixty or more years? Not much except the scene about "to be or not to be", played three times on a stage in the context of Hamlet in the film. The force of this sequence is in the fact that an actor plays Hamlet in front of an audience and a member of that audience stands up and walks out on him when he says that sentence, and the scene is of course in front of another audience, us. The second level of that distantiation is what makes it funny because we can see the varying surprise and anger of the actor who takes it as an insult before he learns it was coded language. And it is true Ehrard has it right when he says that what this Tura actor did to Shakespeare, they, the Nazis, are doing it to Poland. But then the third time, and that is only true for us, though also for one person in the audience in the theater in the film, it becomes absurd because there is no explanation for that total stranger to stand up and walk out. But apart from that the film has aged tremendously and even the acting has aged and seems so unnatural, though we can accept that from most of the main actors who are supposed to be actors and hence to play a role, even in real life. The only important thing is that in 1942 the film is heavily speaking of concentration camps. If Lubitsch knew about it, why didn't the allies know about it and why didn't they do something to stop the massacre? At least they had no excuse and they cannot pretend they were less informed than Lubitsch. That's the only interesting point of that film still today.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
Movie Review: A fine but Dated Comedy
Summary: 4 Stars
The place is Warsaw, Poland just before the Nazi blitzkrieg. A troupe of actors is preparing for a new show. They are all hams of the first order. A young polish flyer is infatuated by the famous actress and she is flattered by his attentions. All of this falls away as the Nazis invade.
The actors must now be very careful of how they portray the German overlords. The flyer has escaped to fight with the British. The Polish underground stirs up trouble.
So far, this would seem like any war drama from that day and age but things get complicated when a Nazi agent in London gets the names of the underground people back in Warsaw. Included in the names is that of the actress, played by Carol Lombard. Her Flyer and would be paramour wants to send her a message by way of the agent, whom he believes to be a loyal Pole. When his treachery is found out, a mission is mounted to stop him before he can deliver the names to the Gestapo. Before it's over, all of the actors get involved playing German officials and even the Fuhrer himself as they try to control the damage.
Jack Benny plays the leader of the Polish acting troupe. He is plagued with Nazis, his wife and her flyer as well as his Polish nationalism. It is a situation ripe with comedy and drama. It is a fun movie.