To Be or Not To Be was an astonishing act of courage for any filmmaker to make in 1941-42, particularly for a German Jewish emigre, and it is audacious aesthetically as it is politically.
Joseph McBride, How Did Lubitsch Do It? (Columbia University Press, 2018)
I first saw To Be or Not To Be on a double bill at Film Forum with Preston Stuges's Unfaithfully Yours; both could be described as serious black comedies but at that viewing the Lubitsch lost out to the considerably more aggressive Sturges. The Lubitsch, however, is in many ways a gentle comedy about love and relationships, even as it lampoons the Nazis as both buffoons and savages. Jack Benny and Carole Lombard are both superb as married members of an acting troupe in Poland when Hitler invades the country and the actors use their costumes from a banned play to impersonate Nazis in order to stop a traitor from revealing the addresses of families in Poland of fliers fighting in exile from Britain (Truffaut once said he loved the film but could never quite figure out the plot). Lombard is elegant in the center of the plot, as she is fancied by flier Robert Stack, who tells her about the traitor, who is exposed and shot by the actors in an empty theatre, with the help of Benny playing the role of Nazi commander. At times the hammy actors have to tone down their impersonations, stopped by other actors from going too far. There are many wonderful moments of both suspense and humor in this Lubitsch film, one of my favorites being Felix Bressart, as actor Greenberg, quoting the "if you prick us do we not bleed?" speech from the Merchant of Venice to Nazi soldiers.
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