" A laugh is nothing to be sneezed at ".

Rating: 10/10 (7 September 2012)

Recently reading an article on the Timeout website about movies which failed badly on there original release that deserve to be re-appraise,I noticed in amongst the more recent titles was a Screwball Comedy from the 40's involving Nazi's.Being interested in seeing how a movie made during WWII could look at the then current events in a comedic light,I decided to import the only DVD edition of the film I could find,and get set to find out how LOL got put together with Nazi.
The plot:
As a Polish theatre company starts to gather ideas for a new production called "Gastarpo",that along with being a satirical play about the Nazis,is also going to be lead by the company's lead actor Joseph Tura playing a lookalike version of Hitler.With only a few more performances of Hamlet to go before Gastrarpo enters production,Tura starts to experience terrible anxiety attacks due to his wife, (fellow stage performer Maria Tura) getting bundles of flowers from a secret admirer and also due to one individual always being in the audience and each time publicly stepping out as soon as Joseph gets on stage.Unbeknownst to Joseph,the man who is sending his wife flowers and the audience member who keeps walking out are both the same person:Lieut. Stanislav Sobinski.Since setting their eyes on each other for the first time,Maria and Sobinski have both fallen deeply head over heels for each other.As Maria and Stanislav's affair intensifies,and the theatre company also starts its countdown for the premier of Gastarpo,Hitler invades Poland and destroys anything which threatens to mock the authority of the Nazis.Whilst Joseph,Maria and the rest of the actors go into hiding to join the resistances,Sobinski rushes to join the British Polish division of the RAF to do everything he can to fight for his country.Returning to London after a recent raid,Sobinski and a group of fellow solider's meet a leading polish Resistance leader called Prof. Siletsky.Proudly saying that he is about to return to Poland to continue his support for the Resistance,Siletsky offers all of the soldiers a chance to each give him a message that he can pass on to their love ones.Thinking that this may be his only chance to give her a message,Sobinski ask Siletsky to give a message to Poland's most famous actress,who Siletsky has never heard of before!..After having given him the message,Sobinski begins to fear that Siletsky may not be all that he seems.
View on the film:
Writing the screenplay a few months before America got fully involved in WWII,screenwriter's Melchior Lengyel,Edwin Justus Mayer and Ernst Lubitsch strike a remarkable balance of never playing down the grim situation that the characters are involved in,whilst also having each of the cast members deliver still-razor sharp satirical dialogue,that is truly ahead of its time in its design to prick the pompous,authoritarian image of Hitler and the Nazis.From the moment that Hitler cancel's the production of Gastarpo,the writer's show act-or Joseph Tura, (played by a great,egotistical Jack Benny) to be a two bit old ham,whose dream is to use the role of Hitler so that he can soon become a Lawrance Oliveria style legend in the theatre world.Allowing the tremendous,screwball dialogue to move at lightning speed,co-writer/director Ernst Lubitsch also displays real skill in knowing when to slow the exchanges down,to focus on the troubles that the character's are caught in,with the scenes that revel Prof. Siletsky, (played by a wonderfully deranged Stanley Ridgers) true intension being filmed in tight angles,amped up in tension Werner R. Heymann's terrific score.For what would tragically be her final role,stunning Carole Lombard gives a blistering performance as Joseph's less than faithful wife Maria.Along with smoothly handling the film's dramatic moments,as Maria begins to get closer to finding out Siletsky's true intension's,Lombard also clearly displays a true joy for delivering zingers left,right and centre,from doing everything to keep her husband's suspicion's of an affair at bay,to wooing everyone in sight of her figure-hugging dress in an attempt to escape from a Nazi bedroom,which all help to make Lombard's curtain call performance one that will continue to be applauded for years to come.