Charles Durning was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance as Colonel Ehrhardt. ('Stanislav' Sobinski becomes 'Andre' Sobinski, Maria's Ambiguously Jewish female dresser Anna becomes Anna's unambiguously gay male dresser Sasha, and Brooks' Bronski character takes over the functions of the original film's Dobosz as head of the company and - predictably, if implausibly - the role of the original Bronski in impersonating Adolf Hitler.) Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan wrote the screenplay, and Alan Johnson directed as people who had worked with Brooks before, it's not surprising that the original Screwball Comedy is played as more of a broad farce, with much lampshading and breaking of the fourth wall. To Be or Not to Be was remade 41 years later as a vehicle for Mel Brooks and his wife Anne Bancroft in the Benny and Lombard parts, here renamed Frederick and Anna Bronski indeed, many of the characters were renamed or refashioned in this version. Having been given shelter by Maria Tura, Sobinski ends up reluctantly drawing her, Jozef, and their acting troupe into a bold scheme to trick the spy into giving the list to Jozef, under the pretense that he is the Gestapo contact the spy is there to see. The spy has already arrived, but not yet delivered the list to The Gestapo. Given orders to stop the spy by any means necessary, Sobinski parachutes back into Warsaw.

Some time later, Sobinski, operating with the Polish forces in exile, discovers that a spy is on his way to Warsaw with names of those in the Polish Underground. Sobinski makes a quick escape to Britain along with his squadron, while the rest of Poland has no choice but to deal with the trials of Nazi occupation. Jozef almost catches them together, but just before it can happen, what all of Poland fears happens instead: Germany invades, and war is declared. Sobinski ends up doing this a number of times, always to the same cue. Wanting to meet with him when her husband is not around, she tells Sobinski to leave the theater and come backstage while her husband is performing the 'to be or not to be' soliloquy from Hamlet. Before the war, actress Maria Tura (Lombard), the wife of that great, great Polish actor, Jozef Tura (Benny), receives the attentions of Polish Air Force pilot Lt. Set in Warsaw during the early part of World War II, the film follows the fortunes of a group of actors as they get drawn into the resistance. To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 Screwball Comedy film produced by Alexander Korda's London Films company (though actually shot in America at the United Artists studios), directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, the latter in her final film role.

Professor Siletsky: After all, it's nothing alarming - it's only Shakespeare.

Movie to be or not to be