To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 American black comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny, and featuring Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, and Sig Ruman. The plot concerns a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their abilities at disguise and acting to fool the occupying troops. It was adapted by Lubitsch (uncredited) and Edwin Justus Mayer from the story by Melchior Lengyel. To Be or Not to Be was released one month after Lombard was killed in an airplane crash. In 1996, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot

In 1939, the well-known stars of a Warsaw theater company, including "ham" Joseph Tura and wife Maria, are rehearsing Gestapo, a play satirizing the Nazi regime. During the company's production of Hamlet that night, with Joseph in the title role, Maria receives a bouquet of flowers from Lieutenant Stanislav Sobinski. After Maria arranges a secret meeting with Sobinski in her dressing room, he walks out as Joseph begins Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy. Soon, the government issues orders to cancel Gestapo in order to avoid worsening relations with Germany. The following night, Sobinski again walks out on Hamlet's soliloquy to meet Maria, infuriating Joseph. Sobinski confesses his love for Maria, but as Germany invades Poland, he leaves to join the Royal Air Force's Polish squadron.