To Be or Not to Be

Just as the US was entering WWII 75 years ago, Hollywood produced one of the greatest screwball comedies of the Golden Age, starring Carole Lombard in her final role before an untimely death. Lombard and Jack Benny play a married couple who are running a Warsaw theater troupe when the Nazis invade Poland. After a Nazi spy obtains incriminating information about the Polish resistance, the theater troupe must pose as Nazis themselves in order to intercept the info. Not everything goes according to plan, hijinks ensue, Shakespeare gets egregiously quoted, and the Nazis get skewered. Directed by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch, this true classic achieves the perfect balance between the absurd comedy of the Marx Brothers and the “for the greater good” gravitas of “Casablanca.” It’s one for the ages.

SPONSORED BY
Sally & Delbert Michel (Thu)