To Be or Not to Be (1942)
To Be or Not to Be on the IMDb
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Warner Brothers from the Classic Comedies Collection
,
I bought this and a couple of other titles from this collection loose.
Carole Lombard, Jack
Benny and a very young Robert Stack. Again, a movie I have mentioned in
newsletter issues of the past as one of my favorites. The expression on
Benny's face as he enters the stage to deliver the famed soliloquy from Hamlet
makes me crack up every time I see it--and best of all he does it 3 or 4 times
in the movie! Lombard is great in this too (though I must admit, she
delivers the one cringe-worthy line in the entire movie. It comes towards
the end when the acting troupe is gathered and going over their master plan for
the climax of the movie. When she completes Benny's "Friends" with "Romans
and countrymen," that just really bothers me for some reason...I think it's the
awful delivery. But hey, just a personal quirk!) Anyway, the opening
scene of this movie is a blast, Sig Ruman as Colonel Ehrhardt is absolutely
hilarious, and the ending is both creative and entertaining. Everytime that I watch it I am
amazed that it was made when it was, pretty daring for 1942 I would say! I
don't want to spoil it but the opening scene really surprised me when I first
saw this, that's when I grabbed the movie's case and searched for the release
date.
