To Be or Not to Be (Sun., Dec. 25, 10 a.m., $6, Bryn Mawr Theater) While the goyim are nestled all snug in their beds, movie Jews will have a brisk commute to Bryn Mawr for this Ernst Lubitsch-helmed classic. (You'll have to bring your own Chinese food.) Lubitsch's famous light touch was never needed more than in this telling of the story of a Polish theater troupe outwitting the Nazis, especially since the movie was released in 1942. Carole Lombard, who died selling war bonds before the picture was released, gives one of her most delicately dizzy performances as a vain actress who imagines the troupe's anti-Nazi playlet as the perfect opportunity to debut her stunning new gown.

Playing opposite Lombard at the height of her powers, Jack Benny doesn't stand a chance, but fortunately his character is written as a ham, which excuses Benny's schticky stiffness. (The title, of course, comes from his painfully wooden Hamlet.) At times, the humor is coarser than in almost any other Lubitsch movie; at others, the movie goes minutes between jokes, which would be death to any other comedy. But of course, no ordinary comedy would make room for Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech from The Merchant of Venice. Lubitsch understood the importance of degrading the enemy, particularly in the person of Sig Ruman's vain Col. Erhardt, whom Benny, posing as a Nazi, handily manipulates with a mixture of flattery and fear. But the film never tumbles into outright farce, which gives it a hesitant air next to, say, Duck Soup's all-out assault on fascist repression, but leaves room for a poignancy the Marx Bros. never had time to contemplate.