To Be or Not to Be - Carole Lombard's final film, directed by Ernst Lubitsch

For Carole & Company's "Carole-tennial (+3)," marking the 103rd anniversary of Hollywood legend Carole Lombard's birth, I'm taking a look at my favorite Carole Lombard film, director Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be (1942). This was Lombard's last film, released just a month after her death.

'The Lubitsch Touch' has been dissected and analyzed for decades. Billy Wilder, who had been protégé to director Ernst Lubitsch early on, put it succinctly: "The Lubitsch Touch is a light touch. But there are serious overtones in Lubitsch. He understood life..."

In 1941, Lubitsch signed a three year contract with Paramount Pictures. But first he had another commitment to fulfill with United Artists. To Be or Not to Be was part of Lubitsch's arrangement with UA.

Though the original story for the film was mostly Lubitsch's, the project that evolved was something of a departure for the director. As he later remarked, "I was tired of the two established recognized recipes, drama with comedy relief and comedy with dramatic relief. I had made up my mind to make a picture with no attempt to relieve anybody from anything at any time."

To Be or Not to Be is a comedy both black and broad; it is also a sophisticated and razor sharp satire on the Nazis.

Actors...and Nazis, To Be or Not to Be

Lubitsch chose radio superstar Jack Benny for the male lead. Benny, who later observed that it was "impossible for comedians like me and [Bob] Hope to get good directors - that's why we made lousy movies," considered Lubitsch "the greatest comedy director that ever lived" and was eager to work with him. Though Miriam Hopkins was up for the role of Benny's onscreen wife, she was only interested in taking the part if it was enlarged for her. Jack Benny was meanwhile pushing for Carole Lombard in the role. One night Benny and producer Alexander Korda went out on the town together; much drinking ensued and the upshot was that Korda wired UA and asked the studio to hire Lombard.

Lubitsch and Lombard knew each other from her early days on the Paramount lot. While the director had made pictures with the other great Paramount leading ladies, Claudette Colbert and Marlene Dietrich, he and Lombard had never managed to work together. Lombard's husband, box office king Clark Gable, was not excited about To Be or Not to Be and referred to Lubitsch as "the horny Hun." But Lombard had always wanted to work with the director and signed on; her only special request was that Irene design her wardrobe.

The production had its share of problems. To begin with, Jack Benny was jittery. According to co-star Robert Stack, he was "scared to death." Benny's source of discomfort was that while he knew how to deliver his lines on stage and on radio, he didn't know what to do when it came to a movie set. This made him very nervous.

Another problem concerned musical director Miklos Rozsa. Rozsa was set to score the film but once he saw the script and realized it was a satire on Nazism, he refused; he just didn't see the humor.

Carole Lombard and Robert Stack on the set

Regardless of these and other difficulties, the atmosphere on the set was a happy one. Lombard developed a habit of driving in from Encino, even when she wasn't scheduled, just to watch Lubitsch at work. According to Jack Benny, "Everyone was in awe of him."

To Be or Not to Be opens in Warsaw, Poland, just before the Nazi invasion. A man who appears to be Adolf Hitler is walking the streets, creating a stir.  The man, it turns out, is not Hitler but a local actor named Bronski (Tom Dugan) who is about to portray Adolf Hitler in an anti-Nazi play; he is testing his believability in public.

The plot centers on the acting troupe Bronski is part of, the Theatre Polsky, and its two stars, Josef and Maria Tura (Benny and Lombard). The troupe is rehearsing an anti-Nazi play, Gestapo, but is forced to revert to a less controversial drama, Shakespeare's Hamlet. A running gag concerns Maria, who is carrying on with a young pilot (Robert Stack). Whenever Josef begins Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy on stage, Maria's eager young man conspicuously shuffles out of his theater seat to meet her. The walk-out of an audience member in the midst of this speech completely flusters the actor (who has no idea why the man has left). Josef Tura's Hamlet is heavy on the ham and, as one Nazi character remarks, "What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland." The troupe eventually becomes involved with the Polish resistance.

Lombard is well-matched with Benny, who was never better and never had a better role. The two shared exquisite timing and much panache, and their scenes together could be shown in a master class on playing comedy. The fine ensemble cast includes venerable Felix Bressart (as an actor relegated to "spear carrier" roles but who has his moment to quote Shakespeare, eloquently) and Lionel Atwill along with Sig Ruman, Stack and Dugan.

Billy Wilder elaborated on another aspect of Lubitsch's genius, "The Lubitsch Touch is the superjoke. You have a joke, and then you don't expect the joke on top of the joke that tops the first one. The joke you didn't expect is funnier than the one you expected..."

The sequence below ends with one of Lubitsch's great "toppers." Sig Ruman's character (aka/'Concentration Camp Ehrhardt') is a Nazi colonel with a habit of blaming his own mishaps, mistakes and misunderstandings on his inept second-in-command, Captain Schulz. In this scene, the "topper" is Ehrhardt's final exclamation, a late addition to the script by Lubitsch...

Sig Ruman, Carole Lombard (and Tom Dugan) in To Be or Not to Be

The picture wrapped just before Christmas 1941, and Carole Lombard promised Jack Benny she would guest on his radio show once she returned from an upcoming war bond drive. But on the evening of January 16, 1942, the plane returning Lombard and her mother from the bond drive, along with 20 others, crashed into a mountain west of Las Vegas. All aboard were killed. Apparently the pilot had changed course, flying toward Las Vegas rather than his official destination, Boulder, Colorado. The plane had almost missed the mountain peak, crashing only 120 feet from the top.

To Be or Not to Be premiered on February 15, 1942. It was not a hit. Some critics claimed Lubitsch had suffered a lapse in taste. Churlish Bosley Crowther of the New York Times accused the director of  going for cheap laughs. Robert Stack later said that the press of the time just didn't get it. He noted that Lubitsch was "a Jew from the Old Country himself" and declared that To Be or Not to Be was the best satire on Nazism ever made.

Lubitsch was appalled that his intent and his taste were both misinterpreted and maligned. He acknowledged that he hadn't depicted Nazi terror in the typical way with outright violence, "My Nazis are different; they passed that stage long ago. Brutality, flogging and torture have become their daily routine. They talk about it the same way as a salesman referring to the sale of a handbag."

Lombard and Lubitsch

It isn't surprising that critics and audiences of early 1942 may not have warmed to or understood Lubitsch's approach. The country had suffered Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and entered World War II just as the production of To Be or Not to Be was coming to an end. Those early days of the war were deeply patriotic times in the U.S. and the outcome of the conflict was still far from certain. Other wartime movies generally presented a more traditional portrait of our enemies and their victims - unequivocal, distinctly unfunny and in stark black and white terms.  Lubitsch's witty satire had arrived in American theaters at the wrong moment. But the passage of time has been kind to To Be or Not to Be. It long ago entered the pantheon of Lubitsch's great masterworks - that very special place where Ninotchka (1939) and The Shop Around the Corner (1940) also abide.

Carole Lombard, a natural as vain but appealing Maria Tura, was never more elegant or disarming. Though her character is clearly 'a woman of affairs,' Lombard endows her with so much warmth, humor and humanity that Maria is never less than entirely sympathetic. Such was Lombard's irreplaceable talent.


To learn more about Carole & Company's "Carole-tennial (+3)" blogathon and participating blogs, click here...

Carole Lombard, 1908 - 1942

References:

Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise by Scott Eyman

Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder, A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler

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HITCHCOCK BLONDE!

It began long ago, the succession of beautiful blonde actresses who combined feminine refinement and sex appeal in a way that director Alfred Hitchcock could not resist depicting onscreen many times. Over the course of his career, Hitchcock honed this character type to a fine point and his final blonde stars were scrupulously stylized to evoke a very specific image.

Some of the most memorable:

 

Joan Barry (Emily Hill in Rich and Strange, 1931) London-born Barry first worked with Hitchcock when she dubbed Anny Ondra's voice for the sound version of Blackmail. She later starred in another of the director's early sound films, Rich and Strange. In addition to being a blonde, Barry possessed a delicate beauty that Hitchcock would seek again and again. (Note: This British actress shouldn't be confused with the brunette American actress who was legally entangled with Charlie Chaplin)

Madeleine Carroll (Pamela in The 39 Steps, 1935, and Elsa Carrington in Secret Agent, 1936) Often referred to as the first of Hitchcock's "ice cool" blondes, Carroll bore a physical resemblance to Joan Barry, but possessed an aloof quality with which Hitchcock was particularly taken.  Her career skyrocketed with the success of The 39 Steps; following Secret Agent she signed with Paramount and made several films in the U.S.

Carole Lombard (Ann Smith in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, 1941) Hitchcock's only screwball comedy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith starred one of Hollywood's great comediennes, the lovely Lombard. She sparkled as the beautiful,  well-heeled Mrs. Smith who, though more stubborn than aloof, was certainly intelligent and fashionable. Hitchcock said he directed at Lombard's request; it was the last of her films released during her lifetime.

Grace Kelly (Margot Wendice in Dial M for Murder, 1954, Lisa Fremont in Rear Window, 1954, Frances Stevens in To Catch a Thief, 1955) The quintessential "snow covered volcano" that all others are measured against, Kelly was one of the definitive beauties of the 1950s. An icon of elegance and refinement, she effortlessly portrayed the haughty allure that so appealed to Hitchcock. Miss Kelly, at the height of her icy heat, appears in the photo at the top of the page as well as the video below...

Kim Novak ("Madeleine Elster"/Judy Barton in Vertigo, 1958) Novak was a top movie star in the '50s and a departure from the type Hitchcock had previously cast as his blonde love objects. Among other things, Novak was more voluptuous than those before her. In Vertigo, her sultry appeal was toned down with a chic and often subdued wardrobe as well as quiet but very precise makeup. In a new "twist," Novak wore her hair in an up-do through most of the film - the memorable "French Twist" Hitchcock explored with his camera.

Eva Marie Saint (Eve Kendall in North by Northwest, 1959) Though not a sex symbol like Novak, Saint was also different from the women Hitchcock had cast before her. A method actress, she was known for starring in films like On the Waterfront and A Hatful of Rain as well as live TV dramas - what Hitchcock called "kitchen sink" roles. However, she got the full treatment once chosen to play Eve and was coiffed, gowned and made up to seductive, slightly brittle perfection.

Tippi Hedren (Melanie Daniels in The Birds, 1963, and Marnie Edgar in Marnie, 1964) Hitchcock's final pale-haired icon, Hedren's was the most controlled expression of the archetype. More model than actress, Hedren's mannequin-like qualities seem emphasized by heavily sprayed bouffant hairstyles, a sophisticated and strictly coordinated wardrobe and fastidious makeup. Hitchcock coached Hedren closely and constantly, intensely involved in her every move. Her career faltered when she bought out her contract with Hitchcock following Marnie.




Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock discuss "the Hitchcock Blonde"

Hitchcock:You know why I favor sophisticated blondes in my films? We're after the drawing-room type, the real ladies, who become whores once they're in the bedroom.

Truffaut: What intrigues you is the paradox between the inner fire and the cool surface.

Hitchcock: Definitely...Do you know why? Because sex should not be advertised...because without the element of surprise the scenes become meaningless. There's no possibility to discover sex. 

For more Hitchcock leading ladies, Click here...

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