I put together a wonderful team to write the screenplay. Once again, I leaned on the talents of Ronny Graham, who along with Thomas Meehan rewrote and updated the original script, which was written by Edwin Justus Mayer, from a story by Hungarian journalist Melchior Lengyel, who was friends with Lubitsch.
Tom Meehan had co-written a TV special for Anne, called Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man （1970）。 Tom wrote a tongue-twisting sketch, which had originally appeared in The New Yorker, that was one of the best things in the show. It had Anne telling her psychoanalyst, played by Lee J. Cobb, about a dream she’d had. She dreams that she is throwing a party for Yma Sumac, the famous Peruvian singer. The secret of the comedy is that Anne introduces all of the guests to one another by their first names when they enter the party.
Here is what she said:
The doorbell rings.
I open the door, and there to my delight is Ava Gardner.
“Darling!” she says. “How wonderful of you to have asked me.”
Funny, I don’t know Ava Gardner either.
But in the dream, all of my guests know me very well.
Oddly though, none of them seem to know each other.
Anyhow, “Ava Gardner,” I say. “I’d like you to meet Yma Sumac.”
“Ahh, please,” says Miss Sumac. “Let us not be so formal, por favor. Introduce each guest only by their first names so that we may become…how shall I say? Amigos.”
“Fine with me,” I say, and introduce the two again, “Ava, Yma.”
The doorbell rings.
The second guest is Abba Eban, the Israeli foreign minister.
I make the introductions and as Miss Sumac asked, I keep things on a first name basis.
“Abba, Yma. Abba, Ava.”
I start to grin, but no one else finds anything amusing in what I’ve said.
The doorbell.
It’s Oona O’Neill, Charlie Chaplin’s wife. I bring her into the room.
“Oona, Yma. Oona, Ava. Oona, Abba.”
We are standing in a circle smiling brightly at each other, but nobody is talking very much.
The bell again!
It’s Ugo Betti, the Italian playwright. I introduce him.
“Ugo, Yma. Ugo, Ava. Ugo, Oona. Ugo, Abba.”
The doorbell rings again.
It’s Ida Lupino, the actress, with Ulu Grosbard, the movie director.
“Ida and Ulu, surely you know Yma and Ava. Ida, Ulu; Oona, Abba. Ida, Ulu; Ugo.”
“Please…there can be no more guests,” I whisper to myself.
The doorbell rings again, and everyone stands stony-faced as I usher in the new arrival: the Aga Khan.
“Folks, I guess you all know the Aga Khan.”
There is a dead silence, and I must introduce him.
“Aga; Yma, Ava, Ida, Ulu, Abba, Ugo.”
I begin to wish that I’d never given the party.
But new guests keep arriving.
Two more at the door: Mia Farrow and Gia Scala.
“Mia, Gia; Yma, Ava, Oona. Mia, Gia; Ida, Abba, Ugo, Aga, Ulu.”
And that’s only half of it! It’s a never-ending comic explosion of crazy first names. It was absolutely hilarious.
Anne and me taking a bow onstage after singing “Sweet Georgia Brown” （in Polish!）。
Tom Meehan was also an accomplished Broadway book writer, having just written the book for the hit musical Annie based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. （Later he also co-wrote the books with me for both of my Broadway shows, The Producers and Young Frankenstein—but more on that later.） To Be or Not to Be was the first time Tom and I worked together on a movie and the beginning of a long and wonderful collaboration and friendship. He had a delicious wit, and I enjoyed his company to no end. I remember one night, after having dinner with us at our house, Anne and I were going to drive him back to the hotel where he was staying. He jumped into the backseat of the car, slammed the door, and said something straight out of a 1920s movie: “The Century Plaza Hotel! And step on it!”
He loved martinis with extra olives and did the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzles only one way—either across or down. Tom passed away in 2017 and I still miss him dearly and think of him often.
Anne and me co-starring as Anna and Frederick Bronski. We didn’t have to do much acting to pretend that we were in love.
* * *
—
To Be or Not to Be was the first adaptation I had done since The Twelve Chairs. I worked with Ronny and Tom on the script, but I didn’t take any credit for either writing or later for directing because I didn’t want any comparisons with Lubitsch and me. To be the film’s director I got Alan Johnson, my wonderful choreographer whom I first worked with way back on The Producers when we created the marvelous “Springtime for Hitler” production number.