Reception
To Be or Not To Be, now regarded as one of the best films of Lubitsch's, Benny's and Lombard's careers, was initially not well received by the public, many of whom could not understand the notion of making fun out of such a real threat as the Nazis. According to Jack Benny's memoirs, his own father walked out of the theater early in the film, disgusted that his son was in a Nazi uniform, and vowed not to set foot in the theater again. Benny convinced him otherwise and his father ended up loving the film, and saw it forty-six times.
The same could not be said for the critics, however. While they generally praised Lombard, many scorned Benny and Lubitsch. To one critic Lubitsch wrote, "What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless of how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true observation. It can be argued if the tragedy of Poland realistically portrayed as in To Be or Not to Be can be merged with satire. I believe it can be and so do the audience which I observed during a screening of To Be or Not to Be; but this is a matter of debate and everyone is entitled to his point of view, but it is certainly a far cry from the Berlin-born director who finds fun in the bombing of Warsaw." The critic Mildred Martin reviewed another of Lubitsch's films and referred derogatively to his German birth and his comedy about Nazis in Poland.
Some critics were especially offended by Colonel Ehrhardt's line: "Oh, yes I saw him in 'Hamlet' once. What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland." However, the film has since become a comedy classic.
The film was nominated for just one Academy Award: the Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.
Read more about this topic: To Be Or Not To Be (1942 film)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)