To Be or Not to Be (1942) Criterion 1080p BluRay x265 HEVC AAC-SARTRE

As nervy as it is hilarious, this screwball masterpiece from Ernst Lubitsch stars Jack Benny and, in her final screen appearance, Carole Lombard as husband-and-wife thespians in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who become caught up in a dangerous spy plot. To Be or Not to Be is a Hollywood film of the boldest black humor, which went into production right before the U.S. entered World War II. Lubitsch manages to brilliantly balance political satire, romance, slapstick, and wartime suspense in a comic high-wire act that has never been equaled.

Extras

• Pinkus’s Shoe Palace, a 1916 German silent short directed by and starring Ernst Lubitsch, with a piano score by Donald Sosin.

• Lubitsch le patron, a 2010 French documentary on the director’s career.

• Two episodes of The Screen Guild Theater, a radio anthology series: Variety (1940), starring Jack Benny, Claudette Colbert, and Lubitsch, and To Be or Not to Be (1942), an adaptation of the film, starring William Powell, Diana Lewis, and Sig Ruman.