To Be or Not to Be

In Warsaw in 1939, a theatre company is preparing a play mocking Hitler. When the occupation begins they have to use their acting for real, dressing as German officers to save the resistance lists. Meanwhile the leading man's wife takes an interest in a young pilot. Alan Johnson directed; Mel Brooks produced and starred. His real wife Anne Bancroft plays the wife, with Tim Matheson, Charles Durning and Jose Ferrer in the cast. This is a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 film, which drew objections in its own day for making comic material of the Nazis while the war was on. Brooks keeps most of the template and adds two things: musical numbers, and a gay supporting character facing the threat of the camps. Charles Durning was nominated for the supporting actor Oscar as the German officer. The balance is delicate and slips at times; the distance between comedy and real threat is not held equally in every scene. Who it is for: viewers who like Brooks's humour and Lubitsch's original idea. Who it is not for: anyone who holds the original sacred; the comparison works against this film.