FOLLOW UP TO "TO BE OR NOT TO BE"

After seeing this movie released in 1942, all I can say is "fantastic!" The credits in those day were so short they could run right after the title shot. If they did that now, everyone would leave before the feature finally started some eight to ten minutes later.

DIRECTOR ERNST LUBITSCH

What a movie. If you get a chance to see it, please do. Jack Benny with his wonderful gift for timing was suberb as was Carole Lombard. It was the last movie she made before she was killed in a plane crash. The sight jokes were hysterical, and of course almost any movie made by the famed director Ernst Lubitsch had his signature flair for tongue-in-cheek inuendos and really funny comedy. "The Lubitsch Touch" was a phrase concocted by studio PR men eager to turn a great director, Ernst Lubitsch, into a brand name. His sophisticated type of humor was not the kind that needs a laugh track to tell you it's time to chuckle or laugh out loud. You simply can't help it...it's funny, so you laugh.

ABOUT THE LUBITSCH TOUCH:  "A style that is gracefully charming and fluid, with an . . . ingenious ability to suggest more than it showed . . ."

-- Leland A. Poague

The large Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Art Museum was filled with moviegoers who appreciate classic movies and constantly rang with laughter and applause from the audience.

CAROLE LOMBARD & JACK BENNY

This is a black comedy about a Polish theater company--led by Joseph and Maria Tura (Jack Benny and Carole Lombard)--that turns to espionage after being shut down by the invading Nazis.  Also featured in the movie was a very young Robert Stack as the pilot who has a crush on Maria. However she is in love with her husband, a "ham" actor at best. The signal she has arranged for the pilot to come back to her dressing room is that he is to sit in the second row and leave as soon as Joseph says "To be or not to be." This happens on several evenings as the lovestruck pilot tries to make Maria fall for him. The fact that someone repeatedly leaves at that exact moment in his performance on several occasions infuriates Joseph. It later comes into play as a coded message when the Nazi's have invaded Poland.

The movie was remade in the 80's starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft in an equally stellar appearance, but there is something about the fact that the earlier version was actually made when the Nazis were at war that gives it a special quality. So special, in fact, that it was banned from being shown in some places because it made fun and sport of what was really a threat to the United States.

End of report...ARLISS