Good flick, but a little uneven; 7/10

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2001)

To Be or Not to Be is an interesting WWII era film about actors in Poland who lead a resistance against the invading Nazis. It is mostly a comedy, but there is a dramatic side to the proceedings. The acting is good, especially Jack Benny. Most of the rest of the actors don't do anything particularly special, except for maybe Robert Stack.
Unfortunately, as good as this film is, it has a difficult time reconciling its dramatic angle with its comedic angle. First of all, most WWII movies that were made in America during WWII are a little weak because the makers could only guess at what was really going on in Europe before the US entered the war. The best example of that is Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Chaplin himself said that he could have never made that film if he had known what was really going on. Ditto To Be or Not to Be. After having seen the atrocities which happened in Poland in a film like Schindler's List (although I believe the massacre I'm thinking of from that film happened in Krakow; I have not seen it for a long time) really ruins you for a film like this. However, even if it were not weakened by the actual history, the film still has problems reconciling. Robert Stack's role is never really resolved, for instance.