To be or not to be [videorecording] / Alexander Korda presents ; an Ernst Lubitsch production ; original story by Melchior Lengyel ; screenplay by Edwin Justus Mayer ; released through United Artists ; produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
Format:
[videorecording] /
Edition:
Blu-ray special ed.
Publisher:
The Criterion Collection,
Copyright Date:
2013
Description:
1 videodisc (99 min.) : sd., b&w ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (23 p. : ill. ; 16 cm.)
Screen guild theater. Selections. Pinkus's shoe palace. Lubitsch le patron.
Notes:
Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, Sig Ruman, Tom Dugan. Originally released as a motion picture in 1942. Special features: Audio commentary featuring film historian David Kalat; Pinkus's shoe palace (1916 film starring Ernst Lubitsch as a slapstick Jewish sterotype); Lubitsch le patron (a 2010 French documentary written by film scholar N.T. Binh and directed by Jean-Jacques Bernard, traces the career of filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch); The Screen Guild Theater (two episodes of the radio anthology series: Variety (1940) and To Be or Not to Be (1943)). Booklet features an essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien and a 1942 New York Times op-ed by Lubitsch.
Summary:
As nervy as it is hilarious, a masterpiece from Ernst Lubitsch, To Be Or Not To Be; is a Hollywood film of the boldest black humor, which went into production soon after the U.S. entered World War II. Lubitsch manages to brilliantly balance political satire, romance, slapstick, and urgent wartime suspense in a comic high-wire act that has never been equaled.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.