To Be Or Not To Be (DVD)

...a remake and they *have* to ask if I know the original film. Woe betide me if I have to answer in the negative! To Be Or Not To Be is such a case, I saw Mel Brooks' version first some years ago and was always made to feel that I didn't know the real thing; last week I could finally put this right when the film club of our school showed Ernst Lubitsch' film with the same title.

Here's the plot summary for the readers who think that ...
...which would be very damaging to the Polish resistance and they must prevent it's being delivered to the Germans. (from IMDb)

Here's a more detailed version for readers who don't think clarity must be sacrificed on the altar of brevity: A theatrical company in Warsaw has rehearsed an anti-Gestapo play but before the opening night (yet after the dress rehearsal) they are told not to perform in order not to anger the Germans. They decide ... more

Cineastes can get on my nerves, when I've seen a remake of a film, they can't but point out that it is a remake and they *have* to ask if I know the original film. Woe betide me if I have to answer in the negative! To Be Or Not To Be is such a case, I saw Mel Brooks' version first some years ago and was always made to feel that I didn't know the real thing; last week I could finally put this right when the film club of our school showed Ernst Lubitsch' film with the same title.

Here's the plot summary for the readers who think that the shortest possible summary is the best: In occupied Poland during WWII, a troupe of ham stage actors match wits with the Nazis. A spy has information which would be very damaging to the Polish resistance and they must prevent it's being delivered to the Germans. (from IMDb)

Here's a more detailed version for readers who don't think clarity must be sacrificed on the altar of brevity: A theatrical company in Warsaw has rehearsed an anti-Gestapo play but before the opening night (yet after the dress rehearsal) they are told not to perform in order not to anger the Germans. They decide to play Hamlet instead which is considered harmless.

The stars of the troupe are Josef Tura (Jack Benny) and his beautiful wife Maria (Carole Lombard), both extremely vain and in constant competition with each other about the question: "Who's the better actor"? Maria has an ardent admirer, Lieutenant Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack), who she allows to visit her in her dressing room while her husband is reciting the famous soliloquy 'To be or not to be' (her maid's comment, "What a husband doesn't know won't hurt his wife"). The young man sits each night in the middle of the second row and when Hamlet utters the words, "To be . . . ", he gets up and leaves disturbing all the other spectators. This is one layer on which To Be Or Not To Be works, the young man's behaviour wrecks Tura's nerves and gets to his core as an actor as he takes it personally thinking he walks out on him because he doesn't appreciate his acting skills.

Then Germany invades Poland and Sobinski has to go to England as a member of the Polish squadron of the RAF; when their mentor, Prof. Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), tells the men that he's on a secret mission to Warsaw, Sobinski becomes suspicious and from then on it's 'To Be Or Not To Be' for the whole Polish resistance movement. Under all circumstances must Prof. Siletzki be hindered from meeting Nazi Colonel 'Concentration Camp' Ehrhardt (Sig Rumann) in Warsaw, Sobinski engages the help of the actors who - as you may remember - all have Nazi uniforms from the play they weren't allowed to perform. The actors dress up and perform, but this time not for an audience in a theatre but for the good of their country.

What we see here is high quality acting, we see brilliant real life actors playing ham actors playing as best as they can to save their and their friends' lives. The pace is brisk, there's never a boring moment, the dialogues are witty. There's a lot to this film, it is a black comedy, a political thriller and also an anti-fascist propaganda film. What I like is that it seems light but is really profound. Ernst Lubitsch was a master of creating light comedies with depth, To Be Or Not To Be is perhaps the most serious of all his films. Like so many of the great Hollywood directors, Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) was a German émigré, he was first an actor and then became a director, all in all he directed 51 films, 18 in Germany and after emigrating in 1922, 33 in the USA.

I've mentioned the main actors' names, but to be honest, they don't mean anything to me. I'm old but not that old that I'd know them from films I watched when they were released, To Be Or Not To Be is from 1942! I've learnt from information on the net that they were famous in their time and that Carole Lombard died in an airplane crash at the age of 33 one month before the film was released, she was one of Hollywood's most promising actresses.

Not surprisingly, the film is in black and white which I rather like. Of course, colour can be used as a significant element in a film, something can expressed with the help of colour which otherwise couldn't be expressed, but I always feel that by not having this means black and white films concentrate more on the action and the acting, there is no distraction for the eyes. Old films offer me an extra pleasure which has nothing to do with 'colour or not' and that is the way they're made, I hesitate to call it primitive, maybe simple is better. The scenery! The people in Warsaw walk through streets and stay in houses which look as if a mere breeze could blow them away, snowdrifts made of plaster stand in the gutter, wonderful!

I know that what I feel when watching the film is very different from what the audience felt in 1942, after all 65 years have passed, on its initial release the film was a flop. The USA had just gone to war and it was considered bad taste, people didn't like the Germans to be shown as ridiculous characters only, they felt that ridiculing them trivialised them. It gained fame over the years, though, and later was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

One of the questions permanently discussed in Germany is whether it's PC to make fun of Hitler and the Third Reich, I don't think that there is one answer because it depends on who one is talking to, on how much people have suffered; Ernst Lubitsch who was of Jewish descent answered the question for himself by making this film and I'm glad he did.

Runtime: 99 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono 

...less