Carole Lombard and Jack Benny in Ernst Lubitsch’s “To Be or Not to Be”

To Be or Not to Be (1942) is a comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny

The film is set in Warsaw, Poland, before the 1939 Nazi invasion. Josef Tura (Jack Benny) and his stunningly beautiful wife Maria Tura (Carole Lombard) head a theater company that at the beginning of the film is rehearsing a play called Gestapo, a production making fun of the Nazis.

Table reading for To Be or Not to Be with director Ernst Lubitsch (top left), Carole Lombard, and Jack Benny. Lombard told her friends that this was the happiest film set she had ever worked on.

While Josef Tura is performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Poland is invaded and things change for the acting company which is now being watched closely by the Nazis. Can a troop filled with ham actors help the Polish resistance? Can they help bring down Hitler and the Nazis?

Ernst Lubitsch (1892 – 1947) was a German-born film director who became famous for his sophisticated comedies during the pre-code era. Silent film star Mary Pickford lured Lubitsch to Hollywood in 1922. He directed Pickford in Rosita, which was a huge, hit and cemented his reputation in Hollywood. Lubitsch’s films were so unique that they were described as having the “Lubitsch touch.” Some of Lubitsch’s classic films include Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Heaven Can Wait (1943), and Cluny Brown (1946). Lubitsch was awarded an Honorary Academy Award for his work in film.

Carole Lombard and Jack Benny

Carole Lombard (1908 – 1942) was an American actress, well regarded for her many screwball comedy film roles. During the late 1930s, she was the highest-paid star in Hollywood. Lombard got her start in silent films as a child and set her mind on making movie acting her career. She was one of Mack Sennett’s bathing beauties, appearing in 15 of his comedy shorts before moving on to feature films. Her breakout performance came in 1934’s Twentieth Century co-starring John Barrymore. After that film, Lombard’s career soared. She starred in many successful comedies including Hands Across the Table (1935), My Man Godfrey (1936), which brought her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), and To Be or Not to Be (1942), her final film.

Jack Benny (1894 – 1974) was an American comedian who was a star on radio, film, and television. He was known for his comic timing and delivery, often with long pauses and facial expressions. He had the ability to make audiences laugh without uttering a single word. When he did utter his signature “Well,” it almost always brought the house down. Benny’s film career never matched that of his radio success, but he did star in several memorable films including Broadway Melody of 1936, Charley’s Aunt (1941), and George Washington Slept Here (1942). Benny was delighted to have had the opportunity to work under Lubitsch’s direction, someone the comedian greatly admired.

Robert Stack and Carole Lombard

The supporting cast of To Be or Not to Be is very strong. In includes a young Robert Stack, Feliz Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Sig Ruman, Tom Dugan, Charles Halton, Maude Eburne, and Miles Mander.

To Be or Not to Be Trivia:

• It was nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Werner R. Heymann
• Because Carole Lombard died in a plane crash after the film was completed, the line her character utters, “What can happen in a plane?” was cut in post-production.
• Jack Benny’s father left the movie theater when he saw his son wearing a Nazi uniform in the film.
• Miriam Hopkins was the original choice to play Maria Tura. She dropped out when she realized that Benny got all of the laughs.
• Benny told his friends that he considered this to be his best and only great film role.
• In lieu of her usual fee of $125,000, Lombard took a percentage of the film’s profits plus $75,000. Upon her death, widower, Clark Gable, received $57,307, Lombard’s share of the film’s profits.

Watch the film on YouTube by clicking the link below. Be sure to use this link because there are several versions of this film on the channel; this one is of the best quality.



After you’ve watched the film, join us for a discussion on August 18. 2020, at 6:30 p.m Central Time on Zoom. An invitation with links can be found below.

Stephen Reginald is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Discussion of "To Be or Not to Be"
Time: Aug 18, 2020, 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/79809533453?pwd=RWNhM2N4RVNyVW8vQ0VKUTc2UlZWUT09

Meeting ID: 798 0953 3453
Passcode: hKy0FK


Questions for discussion:
1. What did you think of the film overall?
2. Did you find the satire of Nazis funny? Offensive?
3. What did you make of the relationship between Lombard and Benny’s characters? Were they believable as husband and wife? Actors?
4. Did anything about the film surprise you?
5. Was this a fitting film to be Lombard’s last?

10 Things You May Not Know About Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin (1921 – 2013) was one of the biggest stars of the 1930s and 1940s. She had an international fan club that was the largest in the world. With her beautiful soprano voice and genuine charm on screen, Durbin endeared herself to a generation of film fans. Her fame is still celebrated today.

1. Durbin was born in Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada. In 1923 her parents moved the family—Deanna had an older sister, Edith (b. 1909)—to Southern, California, and became United States citizens.

A very young Deanna Durbin

2. In 1935 she was signed to a six-month contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but her option was dropped in 1936. The studio had another girl singer named Judy Garland.

3. In 1936 she signed with Universal Studios, which was on the brink of bankruptcy, at the tender age of 14. Her starring role in Three Smart Girls (1936) made her an overnight sensation and put Universal in the black.

4. Durbin auditioned for the voice of Snow White, but Walt Disney thought her voice sounded “too old” for the part. She was 15.

5. She was one of Anne Frank’s favorite movie stars. If you visit the Frank house in Amsterdam, Holland, you will see pictures of Durbin on Frank’s bedroom wall.

Deanna Durbin with Gene Kelly from Christmas Holiday

6. In 1938, Durbin received an Academy Juvenial Award for “bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth.” 

7. When Durbin was kissed by Robert Stack in First Love (1939), the press dubbed it “The kiss heard around the world!”

8. In 1941, Durbin starred in what many consider her best film, It Started with Eve, costarring Charles Laughton and Robert Cummings.

9. During her reign at Universal, Durbin always received top billing.

10. In 1947, Durbin was the highest paid woman in America. She retired the next year (at age 27), never to work in show business again.

Deanna Durbin in “First Love” #OCanadaBlogathon

This is my third time participating in the O Canada blogathon. It’s also my third time writing about Deanna Durbin. If you visit my blog, you’ll realize that my love for Durbin runs deep. She was an international star who had the largest fan club in the world during her heyday. First Love was a milestone in Durbin’s career. It showed Durbin as a maturing young woman showcasing her first taste of romance. Loosely based on the Cinderella tale, First Love is a coming-of-age sweet romance.

The Plot
Durbin plays Connie Harding an orphan who we meet on her graduation day from Miss Wiggins’s boarding school for girls. After graduation she goes “home” to New York to live with relatives, the Clinton family, who don’t seem to care for her. They don’t even come to her graduation, but instead send a butler to pick her up. Sad and unhappy, Connie has nothing in common with the Clinton’s beautiful, socialite daughter, Barbara. In fact, Barbara despises Connie—and pretty much any female who she feels is competition—and seems to take pleasure in humiliating her at every opportunity. The rest of the Clinton family includes Uncle Jim (Eugene Paulette), Aunt Grace (Leatrice Joy), and Cousin Walter (Lewis Howard). The Clintons, in all their quirkiness somewhat resemble the Bullock family from My Man Godfrey (1936). Ironically, Eugene Paulette was the hapless father in that classic too.

Marcia Mae Jones and Deanna Durbin on graduation day

Barbara the bully
Barbara bullies Connie into helping her get the attention of Ted Drake (Robert Stack), a handsome young heir who all the debutantes in New York City are after. Connie makes a fool of herself, keeping Ted occupied at his country club while Barbara hurries to join his riding party after oversleeping. Connie is smitten by Ted almost immediately, but feels he’s out of her league. The Drake family is hosting a ball that the Clintons and other New York City socialites will be attending. When Connie gets invited to the ball, she can hardly believe it. The servants pull together and buy her a dress and new shoes. Her dreams of having a proper evening with Ted are dashed when Barbara concocts a lie about some relative coming to visit the evening of the ball. She suggests Connie stay home to greet him, which her Aunt Joy seconds. Connie is crushed. But the servants have a plan for her to get to the ball.

Robert Stack and Durbin

Six white motorcycles
The servants concoct a plan the keep Barbara, Walter, and Mrs. Clinton from getting to the ball until after midnight. Connie is escorted to the ball by six police officers riding white motorcycles (a servant’s brother is a cop). She even gets to ride in the Commissioner’s car! The butler (Charles Coleman) informs her that she needs to be home before midnight (just like Cinderella). At the ball, Connie, in a comical scene, is accidentally introduced as the singing entertainment. Her performance is a huge hit with the crowd. Her beautiful singing gets the attention of Ted, who asks her to dance. The two dance and talk the night away losing all track of time. Connie reveals that she was the girl that delayed him at the country club, which seems to intrigue Ted all the more. Ted tells Connie that he’ll be leaving for South America in a few weeks to carve out a life of his own. It’s at this point that the two kiss. While the two are caught up in the moment, Connie realizes that it’s after midnight. Remembering the butler’s warning, Connie runs away from Ted, losing her shoe in the process (more shades of Cinderella). While she is leaving, the Clintons show up. Barbara sees Ted holding a shoe and also spies a young woman she thinks looks like Connie leaving the ball. After a few more queries, Barbara is convinced that Connie is the girl everyone at the ball is talking about. So convinced is she that she rushes home to make sure. At first Barbara thinks she may be mistaken when she bursts into Connie’s room to find her asleep in bed. But when she spies a discarded shoe on the bedroom floor that is the match to the one she saw Ted holding, she rips the bed covers off revealing Connie dressed in her ball gown.

Stack and Durbin at the ball

Connie is reunited with her prince
Barbara tells Connie that Ted knew who she was all along and was just playing her for a fool. Connie is so hurt and humiliated that she packs her bags and takes the first train back to Miss Wiggins’s boarding school. She’s decided that she wants to become a teacher at the school. Miss Wiggins (Kathleen Howard) tries to talk Connie out of it by telling her, in the most unflattering terms, what the life of a spinster teacher is like. Connie doesn’t like what she hears, but she agrees to stay on. Miss Wiggins has Connie sing “Un bel di” from Madame Butterfly to make the spinsters cry. She tells her, “spinsters are only happy when they cry.” While Connie is singing the aria, Ted walks in with the missing shoe. When Connie sees Ted standing at the back of the recital hall, she falters a bit and then stops singing to run into Ted’s arms. A happy ending or as the screen tells us, “They lived happily ever after,” just like Cinderella!

Backstory: First Love is a delightful movie. It is successful in part because of Deanna Durbin’s winning on-screen personality and the wonderful supporting cast. The film was an important milestone in Durbin’s career. With five hit films under her belt as a juvenile star, Durbin was growing up right before the eyes of the American public. The year before, Durbin won a special Juvenile Academy Award. Would the public accept this older, more mature Durbin?

Durbin and Stack on the Universal lot during the filming of First Love

This film was also a milestone for Robert Stack. It was his first film and he got to give Durbin her first screen kiss. The publicity around this event was extraordinary. “The kiss heard around the world” was the word from the press. Durbin was so popular all over the world during the late 1930s. Anne Frank had a picture of Durbin and Stack from First Love on her bedroom wall in the family’s hiding place in Amsterdam; it’s part of the museum to this day. Durbin’s fan club was the largest of any star during her heyday.

Universal seriously considered filming First Love in Technicolor. Although it’s black and white cinematography by Joseph A. Valentine is superb—he was nominated for an Academy Award—this movie would have been wonderful in color.

Director Henry Koster, Durbin, and Producer Joe Pasternak

This was Durbin’s fourth film directed by Henry Koster—she had made only six films thus far—and produced by Joe Pasternak, the two men most responsible for Durbin’s screen success.

In Stack’s autobiography, Shooting Straight (1980), he relates that he auditioned for First Love with Helen Parrish, who Stack thought was “a beautiful girl.” Speaking of Parrish, this was her third Durbin film. She was her nemesis in Mad About Music (1938) and her older sister in Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939). Durbin and Parrish may have been antagonists on the screen, but the two were reportedly best friends in real life.

Other actors that frequently appeared in Durbin films include Marcia Mae Jones (Mad About Music, Nice Girl?), Charles Coleman (Three Smart Girls, Three Smart Girls Grow Up, It Started with Eve), Mary Treen (Three Smart Girls Grow Up), Kathleen Howard (Three Smart Girls Grow Up), Thurston Hall (Three Smart Girls Grow Up, Lady on a Train, Up in Central Park), Eugene Paulette (One Hundred Men and a Girl, It’s a Date), Samuel S. Hinds (It’s a Date, Spring Parade, Hers to Hold, Lady on a Train), Lucille Ward (It Started with Eve), Frank Jenks (One Hundred Men and a Girl).

Not so trivial trivia: Mary Treen and Samuel S. Hinds found screen immortality by appearing in the Frank Capra classic, It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

This post is part of the O Canada Blogathon, hosted by Kristina of Speakeasy and Ruth of Silver Screenings . Click here to check out the other great posts in this annual blogathon.

What would Deanna Durbin do?

Give Deanna her coffee already!

An unusual title for a blog post, considering that today is Deanna Durbin’s birthday. She was born in 1921, so December 4th would mark her 91rst birthday, which in and of itself is remarkable.

Famous mug
I purchased the mug pictured here at an airport gift shop. It was on the clearance table along with a lot of other items. It struck me that one, there was a mug anywhere with Durbin’s likeness on it and two, that the quote would be one so contrary to her wholesome image.

International favorite
When Durbin turned her back on Hollywood, fame, and celebrity, she was one of the biggest movie stars in the world—and she was only 27! She was an international celebrity whose every move was chronicled in newspapers and fan magazines. On a visit to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, Holland, I was surprised to see pictures of Durbin on Anne’s bedroom wall (one picture was of Durbin and Robert Stack from First Love—1939). Apparently, like many young girls her age, Durbin was a favorite.

Well I'll be mugged!

Robert Stack and Durbin in a publicity photo
from First Love

Back to the mug. We’re told that part of the reason Durbin left Hollywood was due to her dissatisfaction with the girl-next-door roles her home studio handed her. She yearned for more adult roles, but the public preferred the “old” Deanna. I wonder if Durbin had wandered into the same airport gift shop as I did, would seeing herself on a mug amuse her? And would she approve of the quote attributed to her?

What do you think? What would Deanna Durbin do?

For a more complete blog post on Durbin, “The Reluctant Movie Star,”click here.