153. To Be Or Not To Be (1942)

Directed By Ernst Lubitsch

Synopsis

A troupe of Polish actors has to perform as Nazis in order to help the underground and save their own skins. They do.

Review

Humour with Nazism is always good and this is, I would say a good early one. Now I should mention that it is not he earliest one or even the best early film making fun of Nazis. The Great Dictator first came out in 1940 to great commercial success, for some reason that totally escapes me it is not on the list while this film is.

This isn't by any means a bad film, it is quite funny and quite well acted and the script is pretty smart, but it simply seems to be replacing the Great Dictator while it doesn't deserve it. Why the hell are there some 3 or 4 Chaplin films on the list and not his best one?

Well but this is supposed to be a review and not a rant on my grievances with the list. So it is a good film, you will laugh out loud a couple of times, It is also a quite symbolic films having one of the actors do the famous Shylock speech (If you prick us so forth) in front of a Nazi soldier, but it isn't particularly gutsy as by this time the Americans were already in the war.

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The movie was adapted by Ernst Lubitsch (uncredited) and Edwin Justus Mayer from the story by Melchior Lengyel. It was directed by Lubitsch.

It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The movie was released 2 months after actress Carole Lombard was killed in an airplane crash.

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