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Post by howardschumann on Jun 7, 2017 2:50:06 GMT
I quite enjoyed your review of “To Be Or Not To Be,” a true classic. Since first seeing it many years ago, I have occasionally been visited by a strange notion – Jack Benny as Hamlet. I’ve never been really sure if the very idea is fascinating or appalling. As the fates sometimes have it, just a day or two before your review went up, I read an essay on this film by critic Kenneth Turan. In it he quotes Benny quoting Lubitsch. According to Jack the director told him, “You are not a comedian. You are fooling the public for 30 years. You are fooling even yourself. You are an actor; you are an actor playing the part of a comedian, and this you are doing very well.” So, if Jack is an actor, could he have played Hamlet – or maybe funny Shakespeare like Benedick or Petruchio or Falstaff (in Merry Wives)? Or is it all too silly to contemplate? Hey, maybe a thread on the most unlikely Shakespeare casting? Hey, thanks very much. Somehow I can't think of Jack Benny as a Shakespeare character but it is not a totally implausible idea. He was great at almost anything but I still can't picture him without Rochester or Dennis Day. Your excellent review of To Have and Have Not reminds me that I want to see this again after many years. |
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