To Be or Not To Be (1942)

Ernst Lubitsch was such a unique director that the phrase 'the Lubitsch touch' became a popular way to describe that certain something that he brought to his movies, mostly romantic comedies that gave them a special feel. This is one of his best.

The movie begins in 1939 just as the Germans are taking over Poland.  It's the story of Maria and Joseph Tura, husband and wife actors and heads of a popular Polish theater group. They are played by Carole Lombard and Jack Benny two of the best screen comedians ever. (Sadly it was Lombard's last role, released after she died in a plane crash while on a war bond sales tour.) Change comes immediately to Poland, of course, and the Tura's theater is closed. The closure, though, turns out to be the least of Tura's problems. A polish aviator that Maria was flirting with before he left to join the resistance in London is parachuted back into Poland with an urgent need to find and silence a Nazi spy. As they try to help him, avoid further trouble with the Nazis and sort our their marriage hilarity ensues despite the dire situation. The movie is most definitely a comedy (remember the stars). The Nazi's often seem like a secondary obstacle compared with Joseph's ego, Maria's excessive need for male attention, and the other petty squabbles within the theater company. Still the seriousness of the situation is not completely lost. In on triumphant moment in the movie, the whole theater company and the aviator are saved and able to evade the Nazis because of a ruse involving the recitation by the most obviously Jewish looking actor reciting Shylock's speech from The Merchant of Venice. I point out that the actor is obviously Jewish, because one of the many fascinating things about this movie is that despite dealing quite openly with many Nazi horrors (at least to the extent that they were known by the West in 1942), the words Jew and Jewish are never uttered. Remember that by 1942, most of what Hollywood was producing was designed to help the war effort - meaning there had to be a little propaganda in every film. Nonetheless, Hollywood studios, which were then mostly run by Jews, didn't want to go there. So Lubitch, makes it about the Jewish guy without ever saying he's Jewish.

Even now it's considered pretty dicey to make a comedy about Nazi's, and yet this comedy manages to evoke laughter and not cringes 72 years later.  This movie was remade by Mel Brooks - one of the only other people brave enough to mock the Nazis then or now -- and it was good, but this is better. Carole Lombard (Mrs. Clark Gable at the time) was beautiful and funny, VERY funny. Jack Benny has never been better and the supporting cast is excellent. An added bonus for those of you who only know Robert Stack from America's Most Wanted you see him here at age 21 or 22 and pretty darn good looking.