Slideshow
TO BE OR NOT TO BE
Tuesday, June 30
2:40 7:00
U.S., 1942
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Starring Carole Lombard, Jack Benny
Approx. 99 min.
“So they call me Concentration Camp Erhardt!” gloats Gestapo man Sig Rumann to a masquerading Jack Benny—in reality Joseph Tura, “that great, great Polish actor”—then proceeds to criticize Benny’s Hamlet: “What you did to Shakespeare, we’re doing to Poland.” Attacked in its time for abominable taste, but now considered a Lubitsch masterpiece. With Carole Lombard in her final role, as Benny’s almost-straying wife.
Presented with support from The Robert Jolin Osborne Endowed Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s
Reviews
“A victory for play and imagination against brute force.”
– Nick Pinkerton, Artforum
“Lombard at her apex, Lubitsch at his most inspired.”
– Andrew Sarris