Did You Know?

A street sign reads "Kubelski Avenue". To Be or Not to Be starred Jack Benny, whose real name is Benny Kubelski.

Mel Brooks has said this is his favorite of his Brooksfilms movies.

Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning both featured in the earlier movie The Hindenburg where Durning was also a character associated with the Nazi Germans.

There are several instances in this movie remake where dialogue is taken verbatim word-for-word from the original To Be or Not to Be.

Though this is the first time that Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroftactively star-teamed together, they had actually appeared in a number of the same productions.

This was the only Mel Brooks movie which was a remake until The Producers.

The opening song-and-dance number "Sweet Georgia Brown" featuring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft was a comic rehash in Polish of the old "Ginger and Fred" Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers song-and-dance number. The routine maintains the tradition of his movies featuring a wacky song-and-dance number even though he is neither writer nor director of this film, but producer.

In this remake of To Be or Not to Be, all the main character names had at least some minor change from this original film. Mel Brooks plays the Jack Benny role with a character name change from Joseph Tura to Frederick Bronski; Anne Bancroft plays the Carole Lombard role and also with a character name change from Maria Tura to Anna Bronski; Charles Durning plays Colonel Erhardt which was the Sig Ruman role of Colonel Ehrhardt but now with a slight change in spelling; Tim Matheson plays the Robert Stack part, the character's first name being changed, from Lieutenant Stanislav Sobinski to Lieutenant Andre Sobinski; and José Ferrer takes the part played by Stanley Ridges, the character name remaining the same except for a slight change in spelling again, from Professor Siletsky to Professor Siletski.

The novelty rap song "To Be or Not to Be (The Hitler Rap)" is not actually heard in the movie but it does feature on this movie's soundtrack. The song was a music video tie-in for the movie and was also release as a 45 single on vinyl. The song peaked at the No #12 spot on the American Billboard charts during February 1984 and in the same year at No #3 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report). The song was banned from being broadcast on television and radio in Germany making it a highly controversial and politically sensitive single in that country. This was due to is treatment of Nazi involvement in World War II.