TO BE OR NOT TO BE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 166, 28 August 1942, Page 16

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

| (Korda-United Artists)

HIS is the last film of Carole Lombard, who was killed in a ’plane crash last January, and it is a good one

to remember her by. In this she is more fortunate than Jean Harlow, another actress cut off in her prime, whose posthumous Saratoga was a poor memorial. But the interest of To Be Or Not To Be is much more than a merely morbid or sentimental one, for this picture does what even Charlie Chaplin failed to do: it successfully makes fun of Hitler and the Nazis. The Great Dictator missed fire, I believe, because Chaplin made the contrast between burlesque and reality too sharp; there was too often the effect of a cold plunge straight after a hot bath. In the present ‘case the water is wisely just lukewarm. So, although the plight of Warsaw in the early days of the war would hardly seem at first glance to be a fit subject for joking, and although in fact there is a good deal of grimness in the background, it has still been found possible to keep the general mood of the picture light and fantastic and to extract a very considerable amount of fun out of the situation of a Polish theatrical troupe which aids the underground revolt against the Nazi

invaders-even to the extent of impersonating Hitler himself and flying off in his private ’plane for a happy ending in England. At the same time, melodrama is not forgotten, and there is quite as much suspense — that breathless ques-tion-mark: "How on earth can the prey escape this time from the net of the hunters?"--as there was, for instance, in Pimpernel Smith. Indeed the two pictures are not dissimilar, but in my opinion To Be Or Not To Be is the better of the two. Perhaps that is largely to the credit of the director, Ernst Lubitsch. He has eschewed many of his favourite tricks -the long staircases and the succession of opening doors, for example-but his deft touch. is still plain when it comes to handling the domestic relations between the tempermental Turas (Carole Lombard and Jack Benny). As husband and wife and stars of the theatre company, they are almost as jealous of one another off stage as on it, and their marital squabbles continue right through their adventures with the Gestapo. These adventures are as involved as they are comically exciting, and in this department of the story Lubitsch piles up melodramatic suspense with a skill that even Alfred Hitchcock would not despise. But Lubitsch mustn’t get all the praise. The success of the film is also very much to the credit of Miss Lombard, who proves that, if she was not the screen’s greatest comedienne, she was at any rate one of its best and will be hard to replace; of Jack Benny, who for once plays his role almost straight and seldom fails to get his laughs; and of a collection of first rate supporting players, including Stanley Ridges (who,

as a spy and informer, is the story’s most undilutedly sinister figure), Lionel ‘Atwill, Felix Bressart, and Sig Rumann. Rumann’s irate spluttering as the Gestapo chief baffled by the quick wits of the patriotic Poles is a recurring. joy. Well on the credit side also is the sprightly, satirical dialogue. To go or not to go? Ask the little men at the top, he’s going twice.