NFR Project: 'To Be or Not to Be' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “To Be or Not to Be”

Dir: Ernst Lubitsch

Scr: Edwin Justis Mayer

Pho: Rudolph Mate

Ed: Dorothy Spencer

Premiere: March 6, 1942

99 min.

Is Hitler funny? Chaplin thought so, and he mocked him in his The Great Dictator (1940). The great comedic director Ernst Lubitsch thought so too, although many disagreed with him.

Lubitsch said, “What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true observation. It can be argued if the tragedy of Poland realistically portrayed in To Be or Not to Be can be merged with satire. I believe it can be and so do the audience which I observed during a screening of To Be or Not to Be, but this is a matter of debate and everyone is entitled to his point of view.”

To Be or Not to Be has grown in reputation over the years. The combination of political thriller and wicked satire was jarring for most audiences of the day, leaving them uncertain as to whether to laugh or not.

The film takes place in Warsaw at the beginning of World War II. A theater troupe wants to put on a play called Gestapo, but the local censors ban its performance. The leading actor of the theater, Joseph Tura (Jack Benny), is a vain ham who fears his actress wife (Carole Lombard) is cheating on him. A handsome young flier (Robert Stack) leaves the theater when Tura starts his “To be or not to be” speech from Hamlet and visits Lombard backstage.

The Nazis invade Poland, and Stack goes to England to serve in the allied air force. The theater people plod on glumly.

In London, a supposed resistance leader, Dr. Siletsky, volunteers to take messages from the Polish fliers to their families. In reality, he is a double agent who plans to turn over the fliers’ information to the Nazis. Stack is sent back to Warsaw to intercept and assassinate Siletsky, and stop the flow of information to the Gestapo. Tura agrees to help the resistance stop Siletsky.

The performers trick Siletsky into giving the list of names and addresses to them. Tura plays a Nazi, Colonel Ehrhardt. “So, they call me ‘Concentration Camp Ehrhart’?” he chuckles in character. Siletsky quickly gets wise and tries to escape, but is shot dead. Tura must now impersonate Siletsky in order to get his hands on a duplicate copy of the information.

Tura as Siletsky meets with the real Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Rumann). “So they call me ‘Concentration Camp Ehrhardt’, eh?” he chuckles. “I thought you’d react that way,” says Tura. Unfortunately, the real Siletsky’s body is found, and Tura’s deception is discovered. He is locked in a room with Siletsky’s dead body – the Nazis hope he will crack. Instead, Tura shaves off Siletsky’s beard and replaces it with a false one, pulling it off in front of the Nazis to prove that he is the real Siletsky. Suddenly, his acting troupe, all dressed up as Nazis, break into Gestapo headquarters and reveal that he is an imposter, taking him into “custody.”

Now the troupe must escape. Using an actor disguised as Hitler (“Heil myself,” he says at one point) they bluff their way to a waiting plane and make their way out of Poland.

The Nazis are stupid, the actors are self-indulgent, and no one gets off unscathed in this movie. Of particular interest is Jack Benny’s performance. The radio comedian was not known for his film performances, but Lubitsch thought Benny’s egotistical, brittle persona was perfect for Tura. Benny later reported that Lubitsch said, “You think you are a comedian. You are not a comedian . . . you are fooling the public for thirty years. You are fooling even yourself. A clown, he is a performer what is doing funny things. A comedian, he is a comedian what is saying funny things. But you, Jack, you are an actor, you are an actor playing the part of a comedian and this you are doing very well.”

The film is also notable for the fact that it was the last performance of Carole Lombard, who was killed in a plane crash shortly after filming wrapped. Her cool delivery in a supporting role is a worthy monument to her genuine comedic genius.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Tulips Shall Grow.

NFR Project: 'Road to Morocco' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Road to Morocco”

Dir: David Butler

Scr: Frank Butler, Don Hartman

Pho: William C. Mellor

Ed: Irene Morra

Premiere: Nov. 10, 1942

83 min.

First of all, read Richard Zoglin’s excellent essay on this film at the Library of Congress website.

For me, the central conceit of the Hope/Crosby “Road” films is that it is all, after all, just a movie. The comedy duo takes nothing seriously, mysteriously gifted with the sense that all that defines their existence is their proclivity to crack jokes about whatever situation they are in.

Now, for 1942, this attitude was refreshing. People were tired of realism; finding themselves at war was surely a part of it. A film that tells this kind of tale is looking to distract you, to pick your comedy pocket while it does its sleight of hand. It is not so much a film as it is the performance of the making of a film, a post-modernist kind of entertainment that congratulates us for being in on the gag. We know that, for them, this is all just another gig.

The chemistry of smooth crooner Bing Crosby and fast-talking comic Bob Hope was exceptional. The deadpan of Crosby paired with the manic mugging of Hope was a perfect repartee-barbed volleyball game. Their dialogue developed, loose and informal, like a jazz improvisation. Between the age of Laurel and Hardy and the age of Abbott and Costello, Hope and Crosby were moviedom’s comedy kings, and their relaxed, sometimes smarmy “Is this thing on?” sensibility was much imitated by all manner of comedians.

The two made seven Road pictures in all, between 1940 and 1962. This is the third and the most successful. As usual, Crosby is the smart schemer with the beautiful voice, and Hope is the cowardly, inane schpritzer, letting loose a torrent of clowning that sometimes makes Crosby look comatose. It was a formula that worked.

Crosby is Jeff Peters, and Hope is his idiot cousin Orville “Turkey” Jackson. They are adrift upon the ocean, victim of Orville’s idiocy with matches. They land in a desert country and fall in with Arabians; chiefly, their princess (the ever-lovely Dorothy Lamour). Crosby sells Hope as a slave, but finds that Hope is in the lap of the princess, prepared to be her (doomed) husband.

Hope is resigned to die at the hands of the stone-faced Kasim (Anthony Quinn!). They crack wise through being abducted, abandoned in the desert, then chased by bandits, all while Crosby gets the girl. They sabotage the meeting of the sheiks, allowing them to escape. (Crosby dumps gunpowder into a batch of hand-rolled cigarettes; Hope opines, “What are you making, reefers?”)

Two camels with animated eyes and mouths discuss the proceedings. “When I see how silly people behave, I’m glad I’m a camel,” says one. “Oh, I’m glad you’re a camel too, Mabel!” says the other, his eyes rolling lasciviously. 

Somewhere in there, Der Bingle sings that great hit song, “Moonlight Becomes You” (Jimmy Van Heusen/Johnny Burke).

It’s a film that goes at the pace of a gag a minute. It’s got a little of everything in it, and nothing is taken seriously (except by Anthony Quinn).

It’s hokey, it’s corny, it’s vaguely racist. We are living in the land of comic stereotypes. It’s just what a stressed-out WWII-era audience found to be entertaining. If you dig Crosby, or you like Hope, or both, then this film is right up your alley. If you’re not into their pre-hipster banter then this film will be a irritant.

Hope and Crosby were not friendly in real life, and the put-downs they trade have some of that emotional juice to them. They were pros going through their paces.

But they made it look easy; they made it look as though they were in it just for kicks.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: To Be or Not to Be.

 

 

NFR Project: 'Now, Voyager' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Now, Voyager”

Dir: Irving Rapper

Scr: Casey Robinson

Pho: Sol Polito

Ed: Warren Low

Premiere: Oct. 22, 1942

117 min.

It’s the most romantic film you could possibly hope for. It’s a woman’s film, but remarkably it’s not about a woman’s relationship with a man; it’s about a woman establishing herself as an independent, integrated personality.

Most “women’s pictures” revolved around a woman’s relationship with a man, for better or worse. Instead, Now, Voyager is about the central character’s liberation from a repressed personality to a free-willed, confident member of society. Containing a revelatory performance from Bette Davis, the movie speaks to the possibility of freeing oneself from negative, destructive patterns into a life marked by inner peace and contentment, a remarkable statement for its time.

Davis is Charlotte Vale, a wealthy Bostonian, a dowdy, subdued, and overweight young woman dominated by her controlling bitch of a mother (Gladys Cooper). She lives quietly in her room until she is treated by the psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), who takes her into his care and teaches her how to think, and live, for herself. Almost magically, Charlotte drops some weight and restyles herself into a beautiful swan of a human being.

Jaquith sends her on an ocean cruise to avoid her mother undoing all the work she has done. There she meets Jerry (Paul Henreid), a dashing architect who happens to be trapped in a loveless marriage. The two fall in love, but realize they cannot be together. In a grand romantic gesture, Jerry lights two cigarettes at once and hands one to her – an iconic move repeated throughout the film. (Max Steiner’s lush score underpinning every significant moment, is magnificent.)

Charlotte returns home, and handles her mother handily. (She lights a fire in her home’s long-unused fireplace, symbolically relighting her spirit. She wears camellias, a reminder of her romance with Jerry.) Charlotte gets engaged to a fellow high-society member, but cancels the engagement when she reaizes she still loves Jerry. She tells her mother, who verbally abuses her. Charlotte stands up for herself and it literally kills her mother!

She returns to Dr. Jaquith’s sanitarium, and there meets Tina, the alienated daughter of Jerry and his wife. She befriends her, becoming a second mother to her. Jerry finds out, and wants to relieve Charlotte of the burden of caring for Tina. But Charlotte refuses, insisting that, even though they can’t be together, they can share in the upbringing of Tina. “Oh, Jerry,” she says, “let’s not ask for the moon; we have the stars!”

Davis gives bravura performance as an ugly duckling who transforms into a healthy and sane person. She learns how to overcome her feelings of inferiority, asserting herself and charting her own path in life. (Of course, being a millionaire helps; her gowns are gorgeous.) Now, Voyager is a paean to self-realization.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Road to Morocco.