To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 comedy film about a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their abilities at disguise and acting to fool the occupying troops. It starred Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges and Sig Ruman.
The title is a reference to the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The movie was adapted by Ernst Lubitsch (uncredited) and Edwin Justus Mayer from the story by Melchior Lengyel. It was directed by Lubitsch.
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. In 1996, To Be or Not to Be was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The movie was released 2 months after actress Carole Lombard was killed in an airplane crash.
To Be or Not to Be is a 1983 20th Century Fox comedy film directed by Alan Johnson, produced by Mel Brooks with Howard Jeffrey as executive producer and Irene Walzer as associate producer. The screenplay was written by Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan, based on the original story by Melchior Lengyel, Ernst Lubitsch and Edwin Justus Mayer. It is a remake of the 1942 film of the same title.
The film starred Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft with Tim Matheson, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd and José Ferrer. This remake was one of the first major American films to acknowledge that homosexuals were persecuted by the Third Reich, along with other Holocaust victims. Aside from the homosexuality issue, this version was extremely faithful to the 1942 version, and in many cases dialogue was taken verbatim from the earlier film. The character of the treacherous Professor Siletsky (here spelled Siletski) was, however, made into more of a comic figure, and even into somewhat of a buffoon, whereas in the original he was the one completely serious character in the film.
In occupied Poland during WWII, a troupe of ham stage actors (led by Joseph Tura and his wife Maria) match wits with the Nazis. A spy has information which would be very damaging to the Polish resistance and they must prevent it's being delivered to the Germans. Written by Ken Yousten
A bad Polish actor is just trying to make a living when what should intrude but World War II in the form of an invasion. His wife has the habit of entertaining young polish officers while he's on stage which is also a source of depression to him. When one of her officers comes back on a Secret Mission, the actor takes charge and comes up with a plan for them to escape. Written by John Vogel
