To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Ernst Lubitsch’s audacious farce, satirising ‘the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology’.

Eight years after Howard Hawks’ Twentieth Century, Carole Lombard returns to the world of heroic high hamming, this time in an amazingly audacious farce alongside Jack Benny. They play Maria and Joseph Tura, who run a theatre troupe in Nazi-occupied Poland and find that patriotism forces them into unlikely roles – Joseph as SS Colonel ‘Concentration Camp’ Ehrhardt, Maria as seductress of a Nazi spy. ‘What I have satirised in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology,’ said Lubitsch.

1942 USA
Directed by
Ernst Lubitsch
Produced by
Alexander Korda, Ernst Lubitsch, Ernst Lubitsch
Written by
Edwin Justus Mayer
Featuring
Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for To Be or Not to Be

Critics

Marco Arrocha
Spain
Carlo Chatrian
Italy
Annouchka De Andrade
Angola/France
Phil De Semlyen
UK
Hervé Dumont
Switzerland
Pierre Eugène
France
Gian Luca Farinelli
Italy
Sara García Villanueva
Spain
Charlotte Garson
France
Andrea Glawogger
Austria
Kevin Gough-Yates
UK
Tina Hassannia
Canada
Thierry Jousse
France
Peter Labuza
USA
Eva Markovits
France
Eithne O'Neill
France
Eva Orbanz
Germany
Muszatics Péter
Hungary
Raymond Phathanavirangoon
Hong Kong/Thailand
Nicolas Schaller
France
Barbara Schweizerhof
Germany
Srikanth Srinivasan
India
Marcel Stefančič
Slovenia
Isabel Stevens
UK
Heather Stewart
UK
Fabio Troncarelli
Italy
J. M. Tyree
USA

Directors

Andreas Fontana
Switzerland
Michel Hazanavicius
France
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Japan
Alejo Moguillansky
Argentina
Tilda Swinton
UK

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