A laugh is nothing to be sneezed at

Rating: 10/10 (18 April 2003)

Robert Stack as Lt. Sobinski is colorless. There is a disgusting scene at the end when the two Germans jump out of the plane, following the order of the Fuhrer. What a poor, cheap joke. And even that is topped two minutes later, when for no other reason then to get another cheap laugh, Bronski has to parachute out of the plane, so that one poor peasant can say "First Hess, now him".
Having said that you can get a rough idea how brilliant this film must be when I tell you that it is easily the best film ever made! Not only best comedy, but best period. Beating in my personal list GWTW, Thief of Bagdad, Taxi Driver. Lets dive into it. First of all there is this daring concept of having a Polish theater group in the middle of the Great War outwitting their oppressors. We have a great tight story that is much more than just a vehicle to transport jokes or funny scenes. You could make a very suspenseful spy thriller out of the plot. Then there is this terrific cast, Jack Benny who needed only this one film to achieve immortality, beautiful Carol Lombard who had the task of playing the faithful wife to the great actor Joseph Tura and at the same time being just believably enough attracted to this guy who is able to drop a couple of tons of bombs. Stack of course, must be colorless, since what we do not need in this story is any serious lover's triangle. Bressart is great, Sig Ruman is just unable of being not hilariously funny and here he can give us the performance of his life. Even the tiniest role is played by an acting genius. Lional Atwill as Rawich is perhaps the one that deserves in this cast of giants a special mentioning, because the way he portrays the actor who just cannot stop overacting is alone worth watching the film half a dozen times. But most of all To be or Not to Be is funny. There are a number of running gags that have never been topped in the history of film comedy. The Schultz thing, the joke on the Hitler ending up as a cheese joke and of course the Hamlet gag. But best of all: Concentration Camp Erhardt. So far I could always resist (or I chickened out) but one of these days I will sit in row two of a Hamlet performance and I will leave at the start of the monologue. The highlight of the film is the scene when Benny/Tura is confronted with dead Professor Siletzky the guy he is just impersonating. Even after having seen this film at least 30 times it still makes me marvel how they could come up with that. My favorite scene though is right at the beginning, when Tura tells his wife that for the next play he has thought that her name should appear above his own.
And she says "Oh, darling, that is so sweet of you. But of course, I do not care". He says "That is what we thought. So we won't do it". And she says "Oh". Not more. But this little scene is enough to set the mood for the entire film and it tells us all we need to know about their marriage. By the way, this scene is even funnier in the German version. Maybe it is just that I only recently had the chance of watching the Original (thanks DVD makers) but I really think the German adds something to it. Especially the off-voice at the beginning "Lubinski, Kubinski..." is more relaxed than the original and fits the mood of the film much better. And there is a great alliteration in German "Welcher widrige Wind..." I could ramble on forever. But now is the time to just sit back and enjoy the film once again.