To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Buy tickets on Eventbrite or with cash at the door.

Hard Light Presents: To Be or Not to Be (1942)
⏰ doors 7p / starts 7:30p
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Starring: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack
Runtime: 99 min.
Language: English
🇩🇪 Part 3/3 of our Weimar Germany series
An infamous and simple question that Ernst Lubitsch asked himself at the turn of the 1940s as his former country of Germany had turned against him as a Jewish man. It seemed evident that someone should speak out against the atrocities being committed, so Ernst Lubitsch decided to do so in the only way he new how: by directing a hilarious and emotionally-devastating black comedy.

Lubitsch had tackled similar war-time dramas earlier in his career with Broken Lullaby. He was infamous for comedies with films like Trouble in Paradise, Design for Living, Ninotchka, and The Shop Around the Corner which eventually influenced fellow émigré director Billy Wilder who notably had a “What Would Lubitsch do?” sign hanging in his office. To Be or Not To Be is the perfect fusion of his war films and his comedies as he truly pushes boundaries on celluloid while America is actively at war.

Like Shakespeare? This movie is full of jokes and callbacks to Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. Like The Producers, The Grand Budapest Hotel, or Inglourious Basterds? Both pull heavily from To Be or Not To Be, with the Tarantino film literally lifting a full subplot from the Lubitsch masterpiece. Like to laugh? Many extremely smart people like Slavoj Žižek and Todd McGowan have called it the perfect comedy.

This is the next installation in a series of Staff Picks from the Hard Light crew. This film was selected by Warner, who has seen all of the Ernst Lubitsch films and thinks he’s probably the most influential comedy director.