To Be or Not To Be (1983)

Cast: Mel Brooks (Dr. Frederick Bronski), Anne Bancroft (Anna Bronksi), Tim Matheson (Lt. Andre Sobinski), Charles Durning (Col. Erhardt)

Director: Alan Johnson

Genre: War/ Comedy


I am definitely not a fan of Mel Brooks. His humor is so raunchy, he gives bad name. Even Groucho Marx once said “Be clean and make people laugh, that’s a comedian.” However, after watching a part of Mel Brooks’ film To Be or Not To Be some months ago I enjoyed what little I saw and decided to watch the whole thing. I thought this film would be an exception to my Brooks movie bias. For one reason, it was based on Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 classic. For another reason, Brooks’ late wife (my favorite actress) Anne Bancroft stared as his character’s wife. “Surely”, thought I, “he wouldn’t get gutter-dirty in the presence of his wife”. Whether this was the reason he kept the humor clean -for the most part- I don’t know. Nevertheless, it was a safe picture to watch when compared to his previous films. Brooks plays Frederick Bronski, a bad polish actor, who is merely minding his own business trying to make a living when World War II steps in and ruins everything. The Nazis make their way into Poland and, to top his troubles, his wife Anna has been fooling around with a young polish officer, Lt. Andre Sobinski (Tim Matheson), each time her husband is on stage performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet. When Sobinski is introduced to Prof. Siletski (Jose Ferrer), whom he rightly suspects to be working for the Nazis, he flies to England and reports to his superiors that during the Professor’s visit, he and other officers gave him the names and addresses of underground rebels- thinking the Prof. was on their side. A plan develops, involving Bronski and his wife, to retrieve those names and but it turns out to be a greater task than everyone thought. My main objection to the film was the character Sasha, Bronski’s servant. He is an obvious homosexual whose jokes take away the decency of the film. It was a rather tasteless act and was clearly used for the sake of arousing sympathy for homosexuals. If it wasn’t for him, the film would have been more enjoyable. One of the opening acts in the beginning of the film, “Naughty Nazis” (don’t let the term “naughty” frighten you) was extremely funny. Seeing Nazi officers do a short kick-line on stage with Mel Brooks dressed like Hitler singing how he only wants “peace” (i.e. a piece of Poland, a piece of France, etc…) was absolutely brilliant. It reminisces "Springtime for Hitler" in the Brooks' film The Producers. Such humor is typical of Brooks and was completely hysterical. I must give him credit for that! The most enjoyable character was Col. Erhardt (Charles Durning), the head of Gestapo. His German accent and fumbling “Nazi-isms” were amusing to watch.
Christopher Lloyd played a kiss-ass Gestapo officer who knew absolutely nothing other than his orders! To top all this off, the late and great Anne Bancroft was so brilliant and funny, fitting her role so well, that she had an Oscar Nomination for this film. I really liked her in this film. Though this is not what I would call a family film, I think the only people who would enjoy it are spoof fans and those who like to see history get kicked around somewhat. I give this one