87/100

A proud, important joke mixed and matched for an hour and a half, but when its subject is so sinister and its execution so multifaceted in delivery and tone balances, it doesn't really matter that each comedic springboard is built off of the same root feelings of anger and frustration. Ernst Lubitsch is pissed off but entirely confident in his storytelling, never relenting from harsh realities but still sly enough to make a smile and a tear one and the same. If any one moment shifted towards the absurd, Lubitsch would dial it back for a more humane, grounded segment, and in a few sections, he even shook the two flavors and moods together for an unpredictable end result…

Film #9 of Project 40

”They named a brandy after Napoleon, they made a herring out of Bismarck, and the Fuhrer is going to end up as a piece of cheese!”

This is how it should be done. Every now and then you find a movie that you can watch over and over without getting tired or bored, for me To Be or Not To Be is one of those films. A charming and delightful little comedy from Ernst Lubitsch set in the Nazi occupied Warsaw which makes fun of Nazis better than any other satire, honors actors who are passionately working to bring us lively theaters and like other Lubitsch movies bombards us with polished, highly amusing and elegant…

Esa bella sensación de estar ante algo irrepetible. Lubitsch consigue la cadencia necesaria para fundir la maliciosa comedia paródica con la acción dramática mediante innumerables gags, cortes precisos, sagaces diálogos, enrevesadas situaciones y, ante todo, una sapiencia estilística que recorre cada plano elevando el carisma de sus personajes hasta el ridículo.

"¿Y cuál es su motivo? Que soy judío. ¿Es que el judío no tiene ojos? ¿Es que el judío no tiene manos, órganos, dimensiones, sentidos, afectos, pasiones? ¿No es alimentado con la misma comida y herido por las mismas armas, víctima de las mismas enfermedades y curado por los mismos medios, no tiene calor en verano y frío en invierno, como el cristiano? Si nos pincháis, ¿no sangramos? Si…

God was this entertaining. The one-liners, the expressions, the goofy political commentary, everything floored me.

When politics influences art, art has no option but to in turn, influence politics. That's the general idea that the script explores. But the genius of Lubitsch lies in his ability to take a seemingly weighty idea like that and a make a film out of it where every scene is a laugh riot. The screenplay constantly plays around with itself. There are constant call-backs to earlier scenes, thematic juxtapositions to previous events and absolutely hilarious but deeply potent treatment of political commentary.

The cast as a whole is fantastic. But I have to give a special mention to Jack Benny. This is a flawless…