David Thompson, in his gargantuan book, Have You Seen…? writes : “[…] in some total conflict, if one side is making To Be or Not To Be in the middle of a war and the other is not — you know which side to root for.” Indeed. It’s a comedy set against the backdrop of WWII. More than that… it is a comedy based around the Nazi invasion of Poland. Beyond that even… it was made in 1941, just before the U.S.’s entrance into the war, in the Allies darkest days.

For day three: “A Movie That Makes Me Laugh Every Time,” I decided upon the film that, rather than making me laugh, leaves me slack-jawed in both shock and awe at its audacity. Of course, when speaking of Lubitch films, this is just the one that does that to me the most. Ernst Lubitch was big and was beloved in the thirties and forties, and “The Lubitch Touch” was a phrase known to the masses. His style was singular and impossible to replicate, though Billy Wilder, a co-writer on two of his films and a sort of apprentice to Lubitch himself, came the closest. (On the wall of his office, Wilder had a sign that said: “How would Lubitch shoot it?”)

The characters of Lubitch’s best films are largely self-absorbed, morally corrupt, and occasionally criminal. They are far from the norm, far from American experience at the time, so how was it they were appealing? I believe it’s because they are Europeans, mostly, and thus their behavior is cynically permitted, even under the Hollywood Code. In one notable exception they are Americans, but they are artistic Americans and ones who live in France. You can only expect that sort to wind up in the middle of a threesome. (Seriously. Design For Living – it’s brilliant.)

For To Be or Not To Be, that blameless group of rogues are the most charmingly and predictably irresponsible of them all: actors. They’re the members of a theatre troupe in Warsaw, led by the mega-star husband and wife team of Maria and Joseph Tura (the brilliant Carole Lombard and Jack Benny), who naturally wind up subverting the Nazi occupation. Words could never describe… but the opening will give you a good idea:

 

And that’s just the beginning. Maria proceeds to have an affair with a young pilot right under her husband’s nose, but what he’s most concerned with is that the guy keeps screwing up his big speech. There’s a recurring line: “So, they call me ‘Concentration Camp Erhard,’ do they?'” played for laughs. A lesser, comedic supporting player who is Jewish has a dream of playing Shylock, and thus is continually breaking out in the “If you prick us, do we not bleed” speech. This is used at a climactic moment, and is one of the few non-hysterical ones in the film. Through it all, they outsmart and out-perform the Nazis and save the day simply because they are actors; they had the costumes already, and had been prepared to open “Gestapo!” so they were well-rehearsed for the occasion.

Some might find it all in bad taste. I find it balancing so precariously along the edge of it as to be absolutely impossibly funny. It was Carole Lombard’s final film; she died in a plane crash on the way back from selling U.S. War Bonds in January 1942, shortly after finishing work on it. Her death casts a pall over the movie, but doesn’t detract from the miracle that it is. It’s not that they don’t make ’em like it anymore; it’s that only Lubitch ever really did.

What’s Lara writing about today? Go see!