To Be or Not to Be 1942

The story takes place in Poland before and during the German occupation. A husband and wife—Joseph and Maria Tura—work at a theater in Warsaw. They are staging an anti-Nazi play, but it is banned, so they are forced to perform *Hamlet*. The extremely vain and sensitive Józef Tura plays the Prince of Denmark himself; one of the audience members, a young and handsome pilot, stands up and leaves the auditorium at the very moment most crucial for the actor—when the famous monologue “To be or not to be.” How could the actor have known that these very words were the password for the officer, signaling that he could enter the dressing room of the beautiful Maria Tura...