YMMV / To Be or Not to Be

• Director Displacement: Mel Brooks did not direct or even write the remake of this film, though its style of humor is so much in line with his other films it's understandable this happened. It was directed by Alan Johnson, who had choreographed many of Brooks's films, and written by Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan, both of whom would go on to co-write Spaceballs with Brooks and had previously worked on the short-lived TV series When Things Were Rotten. (Meehan also co-wrote the book of the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of The Producers.) In fact, this is the only film Brooks was the star of which he didn't write or direct.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • In the original, the In-Universe Spear Carriers Bronski and Greenberg are both pretty secondary characters, but are quite well-liked for providing some good laughs and their well-developed desire to be more serious actors (as well as how their skills come in handy in the climax). Not-So-Harmless Villain Erhardt also gets quite a few laughs and a Love to Hate reception (much like he does in the remake).
  • In the remake, despite being despicable Nazis who don't show up until about halfway through the movie, Erhardt and Shultz are viewed as the source of some of the biggest laughs in the movie (especially since they get some well-deserved Butt-Monkey moments). Erhardt's actor Charles Durning even got nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
• Fair for Its Day: Despite Sasha being mostly played as the Camp Gay for laughs as typical for Mel Brooks films, the scene where it's revealed he's being persecuted for his homosexuality is played almost completely serious.
  Sasha puts on his coat to go out
  Anna Bronski: What's that on your coat?
  Sasha: Oh, it's the newest fashion in occupied Warsaw. Jews wear yellow stars, homosexuals wear pink triangles.
  Anna Bronski: Sasha! How awful for you!
  Sasha: [quietly] I hate it.
  Anna Bronski: Now listen, they're rounding up Jews. Are they rounding up...?
  Sasha: No, no, so far, so good. Now, don't wait up for me. I've got a hot date with another triangle.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The earlier film was made in 1941 but release was pushed to March 1942 after Pearl Harbor. In January 1942, Carole Lombard was killed in an airplane crash. Her line, "What could happen in a plane?" was cut from the film.
  • Also, it's a comedy about Jews trying to get out of Nazi-occupied Poland, made before the world knew about Hitler's Final Solution. In fact, the "Concentration Camp" nickname was probably a lot tamer until they found out what they were really for. The 1983 remake does treat this more seriously; also, unlike the '42 version it brings up the threat the Nazi regime posed to homosexuals, with the leading lady's Camp Gay dresser narrowly rescued from being sent to a camp.
  • There's also the fact that everyone in the movie seems so certain that the end of the war will bring freedom to Poland. Notably, the 1983 version — made at a time when Poland was still behind the Iron Curtain — gives the characters a more bitterly cynical attitude about the country's prospects ("Poland, the doormat of Europe. Everybody steps on us. If it isn't the Russians, it's the Germans.").
• Signature Scene: In The Mel Brooks remake, for some people, the scene where Bronski and his troupe make fun of Hitler in the musical number "A Little Peace" is the best-known scene from the movie and for others, it's the scene where the main character works to wriggle his way out of being caught in his Dead Person Impersonation.
• So Okay, It's Average: The Mel Brooks-led remake is by no means considered bad (it's a Mel Brooks movie, after all), but obviously lacks the immediacy of the original and comes across as just any other comedy as a result.
• Special Effect Failure: The shot of the horse-drawn car in the remake. You can clearly see the rope that's leading the horse.
• Tough Act to Follow: Within a single film! Brooks has said he regrets opening the remake with the "Sweet Georgia Brown" sequence, as the rest of the film couldn't help but be a letdown after it.