It Wasn't
I just watched a PBS special on Jack Benny. It was a low-rent sort of affair, but I was still shocked when they claimed To Be Or Not To Be is from 1945.
First, it's a special, they should get the basic facts right. Second, this is Benny's most famous film, the only one people actually remember (aside from The Horn Blows At Midnight). Third, To Be Or Not To Be was shot in 1941 and came out in March 1942, and is noted for being one of the earliest Hollywood productions to attack the Nazis.
Little things like that make you lose faith in the overall production.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:04 AM
4 Comments:
I haven't seen the original, but I loved the Mel Brooks remake. Which was itself somewhat groundbreaking, as it was perhaps one of the earliest pop-culture acknowlegements of the fact that the Holocaust included homosexuals as well -- a point which is now well-known, as witnessed by the ubiquitous pink triangle.
(Well, I'm in Berkeley. It might not be ubiquitous in Tennessee.)
Still, the prize for early Nazi fighting has to go to comic books. DC/National and Marvel/Timely superheroes were fighting Nazis in 1940.
I often have thought that "Hogans Heroes" was the television adaption (i.e., rip-off) of "To Be or Not To Be", just as "MASH" was the adaption / rip-off of "Catch-22".
Hey, how can you guys be blogging? I thought there was a writers' strike!
Lubitsch's TBONTB is to Mel Brooks' TBONTB as 2001 is to 2010, though if I recall, you prefer 2010.
Hogan's Heroes may have various sources, but the main influence has to be Billy Wilder's Stalag 17.
Richard Hooker's novel M*A*S*H is fairly enjoyable, and I can see why it was adapted for the screen (and the movie follows the book's plot fairly closely), but I wouldn't be surprised if the people involved in making the film were inspired by Catch-22.
Yes, I love 2010. I may be the only one, though.
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