To Be Or Not To Be

“’I am accused of three major sins — of having violated every traditional form in mixing melodrama with comedy-satire or even farce; of endangering our war effort in treating the Nazi menace too lightly; and of exhibiting extremely bad taste in having chosen present-day Warsaw as a background for comedy,’ Ernst Lubitsch wrote in a 1942 New York Times op-ed provoked by criticism of his then-new film To Be Or Not To Be, including some particularly harsh criticism from the Times’ Bosley Crowther. As the rest of the piece makes clear, Lubitsch understood at the time, even if many critics and filmgoers didn’t, that all those elements and all that rule-breaking make To Be Or Not To Be brilliant. By mixing grave and trivial matters, it wove the realities of the historical moment into the everyday lives of the sometimes-silly people swept up in history. Some are actors pressed into service by the Nazi invasion. Some are the Nazis themselves, played as every bit as capable of vanity and human foibles as the heroes, even though the film makes clear that they’re working on the side of evil.” Keith Phipps, The Dissolve

As nervy as it is hilarious, this screwball masterpiece from Ernst Lubitsch stars Jack Benny and, in her final screen appearance, Carole Lombard as husband-and-wife thespians in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who become caught up in a dangerous spy plot. To Be or Not to Be is a Hollywood film of the boldest black humor, which went into production soon after the U.S. entered World War II. Lubitsch manages to brilliantly balance political satire, romance, slapstick, and urgent wartime suspense in a comic high-wire act that has never been equaled.

Outlandishly hilarious.

Mike D’Angelo, AV Club