To Be or Not to Be (1942)

My Review

Carole Lombard’s final motion picture was “To Be or Not to Be,” a black comedy about a acting troupe in Nazi-occupied Poland who use their thespian talents in the resistance movement. Director Ernst Lubitsch (“Heaven Can Wait” 1943) put together this entertaining film with screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer.

The cast includes Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Sig Ruman, Lionel Atwill, Tom Dugan, Felix Bressart, and Stanley Ridges. “To Be or Not to Be” was a modest success in theatrical release for the Romaine Film Corporation and United Artists. It was released only four weeks after Lombard died in a plane crash, and two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.