To Be or Not to Be

A troupe of actors, including Maria and Joseph Tura (Carole Lombard, Jack Benny), a married couple with an acting rivalry, is rehearsing an anti-Nazi play called "Gestapo" in Warsaw in 1939. When the Germans invade Poland, the production is cancelled, and reality catches up with fiction. Without much ado, the actors become part of the Polish resistance and in a brilliant cascade of costumes, masquerades and reversed roles, they perform at their best. The linchpin of this fast-paced comedy of mistaken identity is Hamlet's soliloquy, whose lines, "Take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them," are repeatedly omitted, becoming the film's secret call-to-action. (mg)