To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Ernst Lubitsch sets a theatre-company farce in occupied Warsaw, with Jack Benny as a vain ham actor forced to impersonate Gestapo officers. The joke is that Nazi authority is itself a performance, and a poor one: pompous, insecure and easily flattered. It was released in 1942, weeks after Carole Lombard, its co-star, died in a plane crash, and some critics at the time found it tasteless. It now plays as one of the sharpest wartime comedies, and works for anyone who knows the basics of the occupation of Poland. Avoid confusing it with the 1983 Mel Brooks remake.