It was pure pleasure, in the waning days of the LACMA weekend classic film series, as curator Ian Birnie trotted out yet another sublime film pairing, this time a comedy duo: the first film, Preston Sturges’ social commentary/classic, “Sullivan’s Travels,” topped by Ernst Lubitsch’s insane, zany, perfectly scripted, outrageous and brilliant “To Be or Not to Be.” 
Starring the great Jack Benny and the precious Carole Lombard, who died horribly in an airplane crash two months after the film’s completion, “To Be …” is the funniest movie I’ve ever seen in my life, full stop.
Anyone who passed Friday evening at the funky-friendly Bing Theater will explode in laughter at the sight of the guy at right. Sig Ruman, who cut his comic teeth working with the Marx Brothers, plays a hard-striving Nazi functionary who grows increasingly flummoxed as a group of wily Polish actors outfox him and his Fuhrer (“Heil, me!”)
Linking these two movies are indelible threads, delicious connections for the audience. Both films:
- were made by master directors within a few years of each other, 1941-42.
- careen wildly, but credibly, between slapstick, biting satire and social commentary.
- feature art within art: “Sullivan” acerbically reflects on the film industry, as “To Be…” lovingly portrays the theater world.
- use brilliant writing to take on humongous, almost unapproachable, issues — in “Sullivan,” the festering cycles of the American underclass, and in “To Be …” the threat of Nazi totalitarianism, and its absurdities.
In the coup de grace, in “Sullivan,” Veronica Lake plays a striving Hollywood actress who yearns to be introduced to Lubitsch.
Ian — what a masterful duo. Thank you, thank you.
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- LACMA film series majestic in July. Go!
eisenstadt,
gered mankowitz, photog, 1967
“the red danube” (1949)
Yes, but the fact that there were not that many of us in the audience on this or other nights is no excuse for the museum not continuing to present the superb existing program. When I am in LACMA’s Dutch 17th century galleries I am not (thankfully) surrounded by a crush of people while I enjoy the paintings. Yet the museum has not quite “deaccessioned” their entire collection of old masters yet.
Lubitch puts one aspect of this sorry affair into sharp perspective for me. The folks at LACMA who do not respect classic cinema have no sense of humor. The gentleman who shall remain nameless–we do not want to be personal–has, from what I can tell in listening to his interviews–no sense of humor to speak of. Lubitsch would not be his cup of tea. Not to mention the late lamented Crankshaft. Very serious, these people, and very seriously wrong about classic cinema.
Having passed the evening sitting beside Deb, alternately enraptured and in stitches, I thoroughly agree with her wonderfully insightful comments on these two rich and brilliant pieces of cinema. The time period in which they were both produced (1941-42) made them that much more extraordinary. I only wish more people were there to enjoy them.