Blu-ray Review: Jack Benny, Carole Lombard in Classic Comedy ‘To Be or Not to Be’

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CHICAGO – We like to think that creative progress has led to a more open-minded era of today than decades ago but the fact is that I really don’t think a major studio with major actors would make a film today that felt as honestly dangerous as Ernst Lubitsch’s “To Be or Not To Be” did when it was released. A dangerous Jack Benny comedy? You bet. Making a comedy that mocked not just Adolf Hitler himself but the wartime tragedies that were happening throughout Europe in 1942 took such amazing courage that this comedy, now considered a classic, was divisive when it was released. Benny’s own father reportedly walked out of his first viewing, uncomfortable seeing his son in a Nazi uniform. This was daring material and what’s so remarkable about watching it now is that the high-wire tonal tightrope that Lubitsch walks in the film can still be appreciated. The way the legendary director balances drama, espionage, and hysterical comedy is simply remarkable. So many modern directors can’t maintain one consistent tone much less balancing ones that shouldn’t go together as smoothly as they do in “To Be or Not To Be”.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Recently released in a Criterion Blu-ray edition with a new, restored 2K digital film transfer with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, “To Be or Not To Be” is Shakespearian in its foundation, the way it plays with disguises, misunderstandings, and mistaken identities. Right before the U.S. entered into World War II, Lubitsch and his incredibly talented cast dared to take on Hitler in this story of a Polish acting troupe caught up in a Nazi plotline with stakes that end up very real. “To Be” starts off incredibly light-hearted, and very funny, but has survived as long as it has because its characters and stakes start to feel real. As the troupe gets deeper into an espionage plot that could get them killed, “To Be” actually works as a WWII spy movie as well as a wacky comedy. Try and pull that off in 2013, Hollywood. I dare you.

To Be or Not To Be was released on Criterion Blu-ray and DVD on August 27, 2013
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Synopsis:
As nervy as it is hilarious, this screwball masterpiece from Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise) stars Jack Benny (The Jack Benny Program) and, in her final screen appearance, Carole Lombard (My Man Godfrey) 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.

Special Features:
o New audio commentary featuring film historian David Kalat
o Pinkus’s Shoe Palace, a 1916 German silent short directed and starring Ernst Lubitsch, with a new piano score by Donald Sosin
o Lubitsch le patron, a 2010 French documentary on the director’s career
o Two episodes of ~~The Screen Guild Theater~~, a radio anthology series: Variety (1940), starring Jack Benny, Claudette Colbert, and Lubitsch, and To Be Or Not To Be (1942), an adaptation of the film, starring William Powell, Diana Lewis, and Sig Ruman
o PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1942 New York Times op-ed by Lubitsch

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com