Perhaps the boldest and most daring satire of its day, Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be set the stage for such audacious films to follow as Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964), Mel Brooks' The Producers (1967) and Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009). The story of To Be or Not to Be lived on in radio adaptations including one by the Screen Guild Theatre broadcast on January 18, 1943, starring William Powell and Diana Lewis; a German stage adaptation by Juergen Hoffmann produced in 1988; a Bollywood film version, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam, released in 2008; a poorly received Broadway production staged in 2008; and yet another stage adaptation in Budapest, Hungary, in 2011. The most noted of its reincarnations, however, was a 1983 film remake under the same title with Mel Brooks substituting his own brand of zany humor and casting himself and wife Anne Bancroft in the Benny/Lombard roles under the direction of Alan Johnson. It's another sprightly, fun film, with Bancroft in particular giving a scintillating performance - but still not quite in the same class as the Lubitsch version. Television screenings and DVD releases (including a Criterion Collection version released in August 2013) have allowed contemporary audiences to appreciate the original film without the figurative cries of "Too soon!" unleashed by audiences and critics of its day.

By Roger Fristoe