To Be or Not to Be
To Be or Not to Be
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Comedy, Romance
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch • 1942 • United States
Starring Jack Benny, Carole Lombard
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.
Up Next in To Be or Not to Be
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TO BE OR NOT TO BE Commentary
This audio commentary, recorded in 2013, features film historian David Kalat.
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Lubitsch le patron
This 2010 French documentary, written by film scholar N. T. Binh and directed by Jean-Jacques Bernard, traces the career of filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch from his early days in German cinema to his years as a Hollywood comedy legend.
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Pinkus’s Shoe Palace
Among Ernst Lubitsch’s greatest successes with his comic screen persona known as either Sally or Meyer, a slapstick Jewish stereotype, was the following 1916 film, PINKUS’S SHOE PALACE. After he retired the Sally/Meyer character, Lubitsch, himself Jewish, didn’t feature an overtly Jewish characte...
