Week Twenty-Five: To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Producer: Ernst Lubitsch

Writer: Melchior Lengyel, Edwin Justus Mayer, and Ernst Lubitsch

Cinematographer: Rudolph Maté

Music: Werner R. Heymann

Studio: United Artists

Starring: Carole Lombard (Maria Tura), Jack Benny (Joseph Tura), Robert Stack (Lt. Stanislav Sobinski), Felix Bressart (Greenberg), Lionel Atwell (Rawich), Stanley Ridges (Professor Alexander Siletsky), Sig Ruman (Col. Ehrhardt), Tom Dugan (Bronski), Charles Halton (Dobosh), George Lynn (Actor-Adjutant), Henry Victor (Capt. Schultz)

Before You Watch the Movie
(First make sure you have read the introduction to this series)

For the most part, audiences in the thirties and forties had certain expectations when they went to the movies. The hero should always triumph and the bad guy get his, endings should be straight forward, and comedy shouldn’t make fun of anything serious or morbid. This wasn’t always the case, as silent comedy was much more liberal in subject matter: for example, comedian Harold Lloyd had multiple shorts where his character attempts and fails to commit suicide. However, once talkies took over (and the Production Code was firmly established), comedies were much more sanitized and films like Duck Soup, where the blackness of the comedy is well hidden by the Marx Brothers’ insane antics, still struggled at the box office. Essentially, in 1942 when To Be or Not to Be was released, the concept of black or dark comedy didn’t really exist in Hollywood.

If any director was going to have what it took to bring a black comedy to the screen, it was the most respected comedy director in Hollywood, Ernst Lubitsch. Lubitsch's comedy was subtle and sophisticated, full of classily discreet innuendos and as both a writer and director he had a way of fitting more subtext and layers of comedy – and in the simplest way possible – into his films than any other. What would take other directors pages of dialogue and exposition to get across, Lubitsch could do with just a little detail, a slight touch. This is evident in films like Trouble in Paradise (1932) and The Shop Around the Corner (1940) all of which rank among the best films, comedy or otherwise, ever made. To Be or Not to Be might be better than either of them.

Lubitsch made almost entirely comedies, romances, and musicals but To Be or Not to Be, while certainly a comedy through and through, also contains elements of wartime thriller that show his skill overall skill as director. And many of the scenes, though comedic in nature have a tension to them. However, instead of trying to have his cake and eat it too, Lubitsch wisely doesn’t push this and confuse the audience, instead he undercuts any suspenseful moments with comedy. As a comedy, To Be or Not to Be has screwball elements but also blends in satire, parody, and of course dark comedy.

While Charlie Chaplin would place tear-jerking moments clearly in his movies, Lubitsch as always was more subtle. On the surface level, To Be or Not to Be can be enjoyed without giving it any deeper thought, but there is a tragedy in the petty lovers quarrels and thespian aspirations being devastated by war. In and of itself, a bit player dreaming of giving a soliloquy in the spotlight is unimportant, especially on the global scale, but everyone should be able to care about unimportant things. War, when it comes to Warsaw or anywhere, it disrupts little dreams, aspirations and passions and makes them impossible, The characters of To Be or Not to Be should be allowed keep acting, live their lives, act silly or vain, or fall in love but the Nazi invasion ends any hope of that.,which is a great tragedy. 

Little dreams: Greenberg and Bronski, bit players dreaming of the big role.

After You Watch the Movie (Spoilers Below)

Despite the brilliance of the film, it was not a big financial success, though not a flop either, and most critics didn’t appreciate the dark humor and couldn’t understand making light of things like war and Nazis. Particularly disconcerting to audiences would have been seeing Jack Benny dressed up like a Gestapo officer. Benny was one of the most famous and beloved comedians in America throughout his time hosting his radio show The Jack Benny Program. Today, movie audiences are completely desensitized to the most inappropriate or controversial humor but when To Be or Not to Be was released, performers like Jack Benny didn’t dress up like a Nazi, even in jest, and jokes weren’t made about concentration camps, bombings, and enemies in a very real, current war.

To Be or Not to Be begins by making fun of Hitler...

...and showing Jack Benny as Nazi officer. Both would should and confuse forties audiences.

However, it is because To Be or Not to Be dares to make fun of Nazis that makes the film powerful. Fear, intimidation, and media manipulation were important weapons for the Third Reich and comedies like this mitigates their effectiveness. It is much more difficult to be intimidating when you have been made ridiculous and there is little to fear from someone you can laugh at. Even more importantly, a comedy can point out a vile and asinine ideology like Nazism much more effectively than something more dry. The average person would struggle to pay attention and comprehend a speech about the evils of Nazism, but a comedy film? Everyone can enjoy that.

The main butt of the humor is obviously the Nazis and their beliefs but he also mocks actors, though obviously in a much more loving fashion. The actors in the film are vain and self-centered, Joseph Tura believes that walking out on his soliloquy is the most egregious offense possible, his wife wants to wear a lavish evening gown during the play’s concentration camp scene, and Rawich almost overacts into giving up the plot. However, no matter how ridiculous they may be, they are still many orders of magnitude better than the Nazis.

A dress for the concentration camp scene... 

...and a most grievous offense.

Actors are also the tool that makes the whole movie work so well. Jack Benny playing a Nazi would be too far but Benny playing an actor playing at Nazi? That works perfectly and is emblematic of Lubitsch’s ability to craft subtle, sophisticated comedy that doesn’t take the low-hanging fruit.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of To Be or Not to Be is the way that Lubitsch completely interweaves both espionage plot of the story with the love triangle. These plots are so completely intertwined that each takes turns driving the overall plot of the story: Sobinski’s relationship with Maria leads to him figuring out that Siletsky is a spy, information that sends Sobinski to Warsaw where he meets up with now underground agent Maria which eventually involves Joseph and the acting troupe, through which Joseph gets involved, and then finds out about his wife’s relationship with Sobinski. That relationship intrigues both Siletsky and Ehrhardt, who try to recruit Maria as an agent, which allows the troupe to gain inside information and steal back the list of names and escape the country. 

Both plots drive the other: Maria's encouragement of Sobinski...

...inspires him to confide in Siletsky about their relationship...

...which clues in Sobinski that Siletsky is a spy...

...so he is sent to Poland to meet with the Polish underground...

...via Maria, 

...who Siletsky wants to meet so he can deliver the message and recruit her to be a spy...

...which allows Maria to learn about his plans, which gets Joseph involved...

...he succeeds in tricking Siletsky, until he loses him composure hearing about Maria and Sobinski...

...and they are forced to kill him...

...necessitating Joseph imitating him...

...and fooling Ehrhardt...

...but the body of Siletsky turns up and Joseph must trick his way out...

...which he does, until the actors show up and ruin his deception, which also ends their chance of escaping Poland...

...until a new plan is hatched, allowing for Greenberg and Bronski to play their big parts...

...which includes fooling Schultz...

...and escaping in Hitler's plane.

Of course, most of the films funniest moments also come from this interplay of spy story and love triangle. This is somewhat of a Lubitsch trademark, in Trouble in Paradise, the comedic con artist situation is what drives the whole story, while the story of Design for Living (1933) is based entirely around a ménage à trois. Movies can often be criticized for a tacked on love story, but To Be or Not to Be is an example of how to have a romance mean something to the overall plot.

Though the darker comedy elements of To Be or Not to Be are tame by modern standards, many considered them to be in bad taste at the time. However, today we can see the brilliance of these jokes and that they are worth the risk, because as Greenberg says “A laugh is nothing to be sneeze at.”

Sadly, the release of To Be or Not To Be was marred by tragedy, after finishing film Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash. She was on the way back from a war bond rally and was only 33. 

See Also

The Great Dictator (1940) dir. Charlie Chaplin

Two years prior to Lubitsch’s World War II film (and notably before America entered the war) Charlie Chaplin made a film openly mocking the Nazis with Chaplin himself playing a double role of a Jewish barber and a Hitler pastiche “Adenoid Hynkel.” However, The Great Dictator doesn’t take the dark elements comedic, instead – in typical Chaplin style – they are played for heartbreaking tragedy and while Nazi’s themselves are the source of the humor. 

Monsieur Verdoux (1947) dir. Charlie Chaplin

Chaplin’s follow-up goes to the dark places The Great Dictator doesn’t go, with Chaplin controversy in Chaplin’s private life certainly hurt the film at the box office, it was a massive critical and financial failure and is still controversial amongst critics today.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948) dir. Preston Sturges

Another murder comedy by a master that failed to impress audiences or critics, Unfaithfully Yours is now considered one of the Sturges’ best films but at the time the story revolving around comedic murder fantasy didn’t land.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940) dir. Ernst Lubitsch

Though it is often unfairly lumped in with Christmas movies, The Shop Around the Corner is one of the best movies ever made and should be watched by anyone, any time. One of several Lubitsch films that can make that claim.

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