Column: What classic movies can tell us about our current moment

Chicago Tribune

05-02-2025

Historically, in times of crisis and uncertainty, when injustice intensified and the walls were closing in, audiences could expect Hollywood's output to rise to the occasion with something to say. You can criticize the results, but at least it felt like someone, somewhere, was compelled to make an effort — and had the backing (begrudging or otherwise) of executives in charge.
It's a different landscape today. Screenwriters and filmmakers may be champing at the bit behind the scenes, but the major media companies that produce the bulk of TV and film seem uninterested in anything that might be construed as (gasp) commentary.
Maybe Hollywood was more willing to tell these kinds of stories when authoritarian threats were primarily external, rather than coming from within. Even so, there have always been glaring exceptions that were ignored by contemporary mainstream entertainment, including the imprisonment of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
That kind of picking and choosing is more conspicuous than ever. Anonymous online anecdotes should be taken with a grain of salt, but sometimes they have the ring of truth, including this one I came across recently: 'A friend of mine just pitched something to a studio and the executive said, 'That's great, but nobody is buying anything with a point of view right now.''
Where are we without storytelling that does more than just depict the worst of the world around us, but that reminds us that we're not powerless in the face of perpetual doom?
That question has me returning to movies of old. Comedies are all I can stomach for the moment and it's fascinating to see, even in the early years of World War II, the ways filmmakers threaded the needle.
Charlie Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator' from 1940 is the obvious touchstone of the era. Two years later, and just months after the U.S. entered the war, United Artists released 'To Be or Not To Be' in 1942 starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny as stage actors in Poland who outwit the Nazis. It, too, is a comedy. (Both movies are available to stream on Max.)
Chaplin plays a double role in his film, both as a fictional Hitler-eseque character and a Jewish barber who looks a whole lot like him.
I revisited it last year after watching the lazy Kate Winslet HBO series 'The Regime,' which draws clunky inspiration from Chaplin's film, but lacks a potent ending. By contrast, 'The Great Dictator' pivots away from comedy in its final moments in favor of something riskier — sincerity — and Chaplin gives a speech identifying the rot at the center of it all: 'Greed has poisoned men's souls (and) has barricaded the world with hate.'
To some, that earnestness is a bummer and the movie's fatal flaw. I hate this interpretation because 85 years later, the speech still directly applies to our lives, and it's a rousing and hopeful rallying cry for something better. I can't remember the last time Hollywood gave us such a full-throated critique of tyranny that wasn't hidden behind a smirk.
In his autobiography, Chaplin wrote that had he known the extent of the horrors, he wouldn't have done the movie at all. 'I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.' But the speech at the end is exactly why the movie works, because it understands that mockery is not an endgame.
'To Be or Not to Be' takes us into similarly precarious circumstances by way of a Polish theater company.
The troupe frequently performs Shakespeare and Shylock's speech from 'The Merchant of Venice' is referenced three times over the course of the film. Talk about underscoring a point: 'Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? … If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die?' Also on the bill is 'Hamlet,' and its famous speech gives the film not only its title but also becomes an important code phrase. But there's a new play they're working on as well, called 'Gestapo,' about you-know-who.
The film is directed by Ernst Lubitsch, who wrote the script with Edwin Justus Mayer, adapting a story by Melchior Lengyel — all three Jewish. According to the film critic and essayist Brian Eggert, 'When it was released, many believed the film broached its subject far too soon to be deemed in good taste; Lubitsch was accused of treating taboo material as though it was primed for a farce, complete with slapstick and witticisms about the savagery of Nazis. … And yet, as Jewish artists, Lubitsch and scriptwriter Edwin Justus Mayer knew their subject all too well, enough to suggest that they did not raise this unthinkable subject naively or without reflection.' The project was also Lombard's last role; she died in a plane crash months before its release in theaters.
The first 10 minutes of the film are an extended gag — and probably the movie's funniest section — but they establish the setting and underscore the power of actors disappearing into their roles. It's August 1939. A voiceover sets the scene:
'At the moment, life in Warsaw is going on as normally as ever. But suddenly something seems to have happened.' Everyone stops to stare as an infamous figure emerges from the crowd. 'Adolf Hitler in Warsaw? When the two countries are still at peace? And all by himself? He seems strangely unconcerned by all the excitement he's causing. Is he by any chance interested in Mr. Maslowski's delicatessen? That's impossible, he's a vegetarian! And yet, he doesn't always stick to his diet — sometimes he swallows whole countries. Does he want to eat up Poland, too?'
Cut to a new scene. The Führer enters a room and everyone says 'Heil Hitler!' to which he responds 'Heil myself.' Before he can say more, he's interrupted: 'That's not in the script!' Turns out, we've been watching the cast rehearsing 'Gestapo.'
The actor who plays Hitler (Tom Dugan) defends his ad-libbed line: 'But it'll get a laugh!' No improvising, he's told. Would you like my opinion, another actor interjects? No, says the producer. 'Alright then, let me give you my reaction: A laugh is nothing to be sneezed at.'
Movie dialogue used to sing! I'm realizing how much I miss funny wordplay.
The producer also says the styling is unconvincing. The actor in question is indignant: 'I'm a nobody and I have to take a lot, but I know I look like Hitler and I'm going to prove it right now! I'm going out on the street and seeing what happens!'
'And that's how Adolf Hitler came to Warsaw in August 1939,' concludes the voiceover.
But not long after, the Germans arrive for real with their bombs, leveling Warsaw — 'destroyed for the sake of destruction,' as our unseen narrator puts it — and the invasion begins. This is when the theater troupe comes up with a plan.
For months, Lombard's character has been playing a dangerous game entertaining the flirtations of a young pilot (a dashing Robert Stack), but ironically that dalliance ends up coming in handy; it leads to the reveal of a double agent who intends to expose the Polish resistance. Suddenly all those realistic costumes for 'Gestapo' are put to a different use and the theater company's stars (Lombard and Benny) find themselves caught in one precarious situation after another, requiring a whole lot of subterfuge on their part — or as they would call it in their day jobs, acting.
At one point, a German officer chats with his spy (or who he thinks is his spy, it's really Benny's leading man in disguise). What news do you bring from London? 'Colonel, you're quite famous in London,' comes the reply. 'You know what they call you? Concentration Camp Ehrhardt.' The colonel laughs and laughs and laughs. He's just tickled. You want to smack the smile off his face.
Here's how Eggert puts it: Lubitsch wanted to emphasize that 'Nazis were not the superhuman monsters that so many cinematic representations made them out to be. Rather, they were preposterously cruel and deluded human beings, and whoever chose to follow ridiculous figures such as Hitler were equally incompetent. Lubitsch also demonstrated how vulnerable the Nazis could be, an important message to incite U.S. involvement in World War II.'
That the Nazis were foolish and abhorrent isn't the point, though.
The movie's strength is the way it centers the theater company's plotting and strategizing to subvert the Nazis. Obfuscation and trickery are necessary and effective tactics. The actors are giving the performance of their lives. (It doesn't hurt when the other side wears uniforms that are easily replicated by theater folk.)
On HBO, 'The Regime' was only interested in a nihilistic satire of Winslet's fascist anti-hero. It's a myopic narrative device that fails to meet the moment because it boils down to: We're cooked. 'To Be or Not To Be' tells a different story, of ingenuity and what it looks like to fight back, even if you are not typically in a position of influence or authority. Bravery is more than the machismo certain narratives would have you believe.
When the troupe escapes to the UK and lands in Scotland, a journalist informs Benny's character that he's a hero.
'I did my best and was very ably assisted by my colleagues,' says the thespian, gesturing graciously to those around him. 'Thank you, my friends, for everything you did' — they all murmur appreciatively — 'as little as it may have been.' Multiple side-eyes ensue.
Once a spotlight-loving actor, always a spotlight-loving actor.