Jeu dangereux

Joseph Tura and his wife are part of an actors troop in pre-WW2 Poland. When a handsome young pilot is forced to break off his affair with Mrs Tura to go to England and join the RAF, he sends a message through an English agent who offers to take messages to families of all the pilots when he goes to Poland. Realising too late that Professor Siletsky is a double agent taking addresses to the Nazi's, Lt Sobinski alerts Tura who is forced to play several roles to try and outwit the Nazi's and protect the underground resistance.

Despite having heard it mentioned (and avoided the remake) I had still never seen this film until earlier today. I wasn't sure what to expect as I knew that it had been made during the war and that it's humour might not seem as mocking or sharp today. However I was surprised how funny it actually was while it also dealt with the Nazi issue at the same time. The mocking tone of the film is balanced nicely by a real vein of wit with sharp word play all around. The plot is kept ticking over by this humour until Tura is able to drive the film by his many performances!

The Nazi's are mocked without taking away from the horrors of what they were. The cast are what really makes the film work for me though. Although he takes second billing, I can't help but feel that Benny is the star of the film as he has all the best characters and the lion's share of the lines. Lombard does very well indeed and shows a real ability for quick witty lines – the fact that she died in a plane crash leaving this her last movie should be considered a great loss. The whole support cast, whether Polish actor or German commander, all play very well managing to bring both wit and pathos to the film.

Overall a film that is not as uncomfortable to watch as I suspected it might have been, in fact one that is downright hilarious at times and has all the sharpness and wit that I want in a comedy. When Jack Benny says `so they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt' for the 5th time, I defy you not to be rolling!

In celebrating the 75th anniversary of the release of Casablanca, it is easy to overlook another anti-Nazi film, Ernst Lubitsch's "screwball" comedy To Be or Not To Be, a film that skewered the Nazi cause with equal effectiveness. While not as dramatic or filled with memorable lines and patriotic songs, To Be or Not To Be, like Casablanca, the film features two main Hollywood stars, Carole Lombard and Jack Benny and a love triangle in which romance must be subordinate to a greater cause. Set in Poland just before the German invasion of September 1, 1939, the film opens as a mustachioed man bearing a close resemblance to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler is seen walking alone in the streets of Warsaw.

This Hitler, however, turns out to be the actor Bronski (Tom Dugan), a bit-player impersonating the Fuhrer in a play being put on by a Polish theatrical group. Is Hitler "by any chance interested in Mr. Maslowski's delicatessen?" teases the narrator in the opening segment. "That's impossible—he's a vegetarian!" Responding to all the "Heil Hitler" salutes, Bronski asserts "Heil myself" as he walks through an open door. Bronski is playing a secondary role to the famous Polish actor Josef Tura, played by Jack Benny, then a radio star whose trademark straight face and deadpan humor marks the film.

Tura's wife Maria, also a popular Polish actress, is played by Carole Lombard who was to meet a shocking death in a plane crash in January, 1942 shortly after the film was completed. In the film, Maria is two-timing her actor husband by romancing a young flyer Lt. Sobinski (Robert Stack) who falls "head over heels" for the actress. The running gag in the film is that whenever Josef is playing Hamlet and delivers the line, "to be or not to be," it is a signal for Sobinski to get up from his seat in the theater and go backstage to meet Maria in her dressing room. It appears that Tura is more upset about his speech being interrupted than what happens behind the curtain.

The sudden Nazi invasion, however, puts all romantic trysts on the back burner and the mood shifts to solemn. The plot now becomes more involved with espionage and patriotism than acting when Sobinski, now a pilot for the Royal Air Force, discovers that respected Polish professor Siletski (Stanley Ridges) is a double-agent working for the Nazis. When the Lieutenant returns to Warsaw to eliminate the traitorous professor, Maria and Josef team up to help by launching an elaborate charade to trick the unsuspecting Nazis. While the film takes its name from the famous line in Hamlet, Shylock's monologue from the Merchant of Venice, spoken in front of Nazi swastikas, is recited by Jewish actor Felix Bressart, "Have we not eyes? Have we not hands, organs, senses, dimensions, attachments, passions?" he asks the Nazis, "If you poison us, do we not die?"

It is a noteworthy plea for tolerance in the days of rabid anti-Semitism even though the line "Hath not a Jew eyes?" is not spoken. According to Thomas Doherty writing in Tablet magazine, "the word "Jew" was seldom heard on the Hollywood screen, even in war-minded scenarios where the topic of anti-Semitism was front and center." He also quotes film historian Lester D. Friedman saying that "The studio bosses were always—even at this point—afraid of thrusting Jews into the spotlight." Whatever the reason, To Be or Not to Be is marked with the genius of one man, the great Jewish director Ernst Lubitsch who said, "What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology," and that the tone and temper of the film "cannot leave any doubt in the spectator's mind what my point of view and attitude are toward these acts of horror."

While the film is a broad and biting satire, from the beginning of production in November 1941 to its completion on December 24th, however, events made sure that To Be or Not to Be, as well as Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator, was no longer a laughing matter.

There is a famous review of this film by the late Sunday Times critic, Dilys Powell which begins 'Is the joke funny?'... what Miss Powell was getting at was that, given the horror of the Holocaust, it is appropriate to laugh at the Nazis. The answer is, ultimately, irrelevant to the viewing of this modest masterpiece.

Lubitsch was, by this time, coming to the end of an exquisite career that defined the nature of sophistication in 'light' cinema. 'To Be or Not To Be' skips lightly over all of the minefield of a subject like this and it is difficult or impossible to think of any other filmmaker who might have managed it (if you look at Mel Brooks' limp remake, you can see why).

In 1996, I presented a massive season of 'the greatest' films in Belfast for the centenary of cinema - 250 titles in 9 months. Of all of them, this was the film which got the greatest ovation - about 5 minutes with a nearly full house standing and applauding! They may have applauded for many reasons, but here are certainly some of them...

The very complicated narrative is presented virtually flawlessly and the comedy is never allowed to hold up the narrative. The principle actors - Carole Lombard (breathtakingly beautiful) and Jack Benny in particular, but many of the supporting cast as well - throw themselves into the affair with a gusto that is completely infectious. Apart from the satirical aspect of the story and the way in which Hitler and the Nazis are mercilessly ridiculed for their authoritarianism and the fear which is their only motivator, the film pokes gentle fun at the vanity of actors in a warm and happy manner. Finally, and most important, is the notion of farce. Farce rarely works in the cinema, but here it does, and in the grand manner - just look at how many times the situation regarding Professor Siletsky changes profoundly during the film - it is dizzying - yet the characters manage to come up with (often self-defeating or inappropriate) schemes on every occasion.

This is a wonderful work that, I have no hesitation in saying, is absolutely vital for anyone who wants to really understand the glory of the cinema. But to answer Dilys Powell's question... yes, the joke is deliriously funny.

Ernst Lubitsch made films that winked at you. Sophisticated spectacles, his comedies didn't shout their jokes, but smuggled them in like contraband, hidden in innuendo, implication and the art of the well-timed pause. In 1942, with 'To Be or Not to Be', Lubitsch made perhaps his boldest gesture yet: a screwball comedy about Nazis, treason and theatre, with Jack Benny and Carole Lombard at the helm and death waiting in the wings.

A cracking comic-caper, it follows a troupe of Polish actors who find themselves performing the roles of their lives- not on stage, but in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. When a young pilot is caught up in a spy plot, the troupe leaps into action, donning disguises, bluffing Gestapo officers and improvising as if their lives (and country) depend on it. At the centre is Benny's Joseph Tura, the pompous Hamlet-in-residence, and Lombard, as his wife Maria, luminous and quick-witted in what was sadly her final screen role.

The film effortlessly juggles tones. One moment it's pure farce- theatrical egos, slippery identities and a Hamlet with more flair than sense- and the next, it glances at real peril with a surprisingly steady gaze. Beneath the laughs, there's a pointed satire about authoritarianism, vanity and the roles people play to survive. The dialogue crackles with razor-sharp wit, every line balanced like a dagger on the edge of a laugh. Whether it's Benny's oblivious grandiosity or Lombard's wry deflections, Lubitsch keeps the script dancing- light on its feet, but never light on substance.

That Lubitsch made this film at the height of the Second World War is nothing short of astonishing. While Hollywood largely played it safe, he aimed straight for the absurd heart of fascism, daring to laugh. But this isn't mockery for its own sake- Lubitsch understood that ridicule, when wielded with precision, can be a subversive weapon. His satire is never cruel, but it is fearless: mocking vanity, the ridiculousness of the Nazi ideology, exposing cowardice; reminding us that even in the darkest times, a well-delivered line- or a perfectly timed pause- can carry a kind of truth that outlasts bombs and bluster.

Visually, the film is no slouch either. The production design conjures a grand theatrical world, full of velvet curtains, dressing rooms and shadowy corridors. Rudolph Maté's cinematography adds a crisp elegance, framing scenes with the same precision Lubitsch brings to the dialogue. It's handsome without being showy, stylish without upstaging the script; perfectly suited to the unfolding farce.

The cast is uniformly excellent, but it's Benny and Lombard who give the film its centre of gravity- or, rather, its comic orbit. Benny, one of the all-time comedic greats, leans gleefully into Joseph Tura's preening vanity, delivering a performance that's both absurd and oddly endearing. He plays a man desperate to be taken seriously, even as the world refuses to play along- a joke that never stops landing.

Lombard, by contrast, is all grace and mischief. Her Maria is a master of timing, charm and quiet control. She brings a knowing sparkle to every scene she's in. Sadly, Lombard would die before the film finished post-production- in this way it acts as a sterling swansong for a cinematic legend. Around them, the supporting players- from Sig Ruman's delightfully blustering colonel to Robert Stack's earnest pilot- flesh out a world where everyone, it seems, is playing to the gallery, even when the stakes are deadly.

Ernst Lubitsch's 'To Be or Not to Be' is a marvel- a film daring to be funny when all signs point to despair. It's sharp, silly and strangely stirring, a comedy that looks evil in the face and responds with a raised eyebrow and a perfectly arched punchline. In a world too often content to play it safe, Lubitsch reminds us that the boldest laughs are the ones that speak the hardest truths. Strongly acted and beautifully shot, 'To Be or Not to Be' ultimately proves that in the face of tyranny, the best answer is always to be- to laugh, to fight and to defy.

"To Be or Not To Be" doesn't trivialize the barbarity of the Nazi regime as much as it ennobles art and gives an aura of metaphysical importance to laughter, as the main characteristic of the reasonable person. It's precisely because Ernst Lubitsch could laugh at the Nazism that one shouldn't underestimate the sadness and terror that devoured his soul. One could say the same about Chaplin's "Great Dictator", more focused on the inner heroism of the little people while Lubitsch' movie is a love letter to artists, and the work of a true one.

Lubitsch grew up in Berlin and became an acting sensation after World War I before becoming one of the most promising directors of Hollywood. A precocious talent with a sense of sophistication that would be known as the 'Lubitsch touch', he was probably under the influence of that boost of creativity and flamboyance that made Berlin an artistic Mecca in the early 30s (like in Bob Fosse's "Cabaret"). His film opens on Warsaw, a more suitable place for free art once Germany surrendered to swastikas. And as if he anticipated the criticism over his subject, the story features a play named "The Gestapo" and satirizing the Nazis. During a rehearsal, the man playing Hitler (Irish actor Tom Dugan) delivers a hilarious and unexpected "Heil myself". The line gets cut by the director who makes it a matter of ethics not to make Nazis funny, much to the actor's reluctance.

Basically, Lubitsch asks us the question: should we sacrifice a good line for the sake of seeming decency? How many times haven't we felt the necessity to cross the barrier of good taste because it was so tempting. So the line is censored because of the risk of offending Hitler and when the Germans come on a day of September 1939, the play is cancelled once and for all. The situation resonates like Churchill's parable about war and dishonour, fearing the Nazis is the dishonourable attitude, even when meant to play safe, you're never safe with them, so let's just use your best weapon, guns or gags it doesn't matter. While I was wondering if Lubitsch would have been as loose on the Nazis if he knew about the Camps, I was hiding a chuckle because the line "so they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt" kept springing to my mind. Should I feel guilty?

No less than for any movie that dared to turn the subject into laughing matter, from Donald Duck's "Der Fuerher's Face" to "La Vita e Bella". It's because Nazis were human that their crimes were horrific, it's because they were human that they should be mocked. Art is the triumph of the intellect over the brutal force, the sensitivity over cynicism, it can be sophisticated and fancy but it can't really do without powerful sentiments, this is why the film makes a good use of Shakespeare's lines (borrowed from "Hamlet" and "The Merchant of Venice") and even more why it focuses on a married couple, the greatest actress of Poland Maria Tura (Carole Lombard) and her hammy husband Joseph (Jack Benny). The film opens with a sort of vaudevillian mood where Maria exploits her husband's "Hamlet" soliloquy to bring the handsome aviator Sobinski (Robert Starck) to her room, the running gag is not overused so Marie doesn't appear too cheap and Joseph too dumb.

There's a fine balance between the romance and the screwball situations and they all get along with the intricacies of a plot that involves a sinister but seductive spy named Professor Siletski (Stanley Ridges), who proposes Maria to become an agent. Meanwhile, the troop must absolutely capture the man, confiscate the documents that contain names of Polish Resistant members and get rid of the spy, and this is where their Nazi costumes get quite handy. So we see Jack benny and all his friends impersonating Nazi officers and even Selitski with variable effects, sometimes with the right timing, sometimes a delay force them to rewrite the script. In a sort of meta-referential nod to his own art, Lubitsch directs actors playing directors, actors and writers, proving that sometimes a good act can be a matter of life and death. Hammy too much and your cover is blown if not your head. Maria proves to be a more restrained actress so she can dodge the Nazis' flair, same can't be said about Joseph and Benny's antics endanger the film's credibility in their exaggerated audacity, the man pushes his luck so often it's a wonder how he did survive.

The film also suffers from a series of contrivances that happen all too conveniently near the end leading to a rushed climax only redeemed by the hilarious ending. Still, the real black spot in the film's legacy is of course the haunting of Carole Lombard's memory. The actress died in a plane crash a few weeks after the film's release, the USA had just entered the war and she was collecting bonds during a tour across America. In a way, she was a victim of that war though she lived far from the ruins and ashes of Poland, her death cut one of the most promising careers short and made Gable so inconsolable he joined the war too... I avoided that film for a long time because of that story, it had saddened me a lot even more because I happen to be afraid of flying.

I couldn't believe how many times she referred to flights during the film, the simple fact that she loved an aviator gives it an eerie feeling, it's just as if the film was doomed to be clouded by tragedy, individual and universal. However, and that might be the secret of "To Be or Not to Be", It's all fiction, it's not reality, the film was criticized when the war was still raging and now it's a classic, once reality is as dead as fiction, what remains is the essence of art.as