People must act like people, even when the world they know is about to crumble it's an axiom to Lubitsch and by extension to us-a comfort almost. Sobinski (Robert Stack) backstage, and Sobinski-in an underhanded comment on Joseph's talent-still has to stand up to leave for Maria's dressing room just when Joseph utters his opening words. His wife Maria (Carole Lombard) still has to meet handsome young Lt.
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Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) still has to strike a glamour pose before launching into his character's most famous soliloquy, still has to pause like any bad actor in the middle of his opening line ("To be or not. reality is Lubitsch's favorite subject, people's tendency towards concupiscence and corruption-Warsaw may collapse around them and the Nazis march down the streets but the members of this particular theater company still feel the need to snipe, backbite, steal scenes from under each other. Turns out Bronski (Tom Dugan) plays Hitler in a stage production called Gestapo-he'd been challenged as to the authenticity of his makeup and has stepped out to measure the response of folks on the street.The reaction so far has been everything he could wish for until a child (of course) steps up and asks him-as Bronski-for an autograph.Īlong with the theme of appearance vs.
Is it really him? Or an impersonator? To be or not to be? Casablanca never really had a problem: it has comic moments but the heroes are clearly heroic (despite a token neutrality) the Nazis hissably rotten.įor all the lightness Lubitsch has loaded the film with considerable meaning, from the title (which begins Hamlet's soliloquy on suicide) to an early image of Hitler standing in the streets of Warsaw, being gawked at by surrounding Poles. Possibly public (and critics') mood was that mercurial: when Dictator came out the United States still hadn't entered the war Hitler was wreaking havoc in faraway Europe. Regarding this film Bosley Crowther in The New York Times harumphed: "To say it is callous and macabre is understating the case." A comedy that poked fun at Nazism and Adolf Hitler? At a time when fascism threatened to swallow the world (Pearl Harbor happened a few months before)?Ĭasablanca was released later that same year to better acclaim and boxoffice Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator came out two years earlier to good business, despite being banned in parts of Europe and Latin America.
#MOVIE TO BE OR NOT TO BE TRIAL#
( Another in a series of tributes to the lamentable closing of Filmstruck, which not only shows rare films (Robert Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc) but also Hollywood classics-a comedy which if anything is still relevant today)Įrnst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be opened to mixed reviews and so-so box office.
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