Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft - "To Be or Not to Be" Musical Opening Number in Polish

[From "Kovacs Corner" on YouTube.com] - Consciously or not, did Mel Brooks pay a tribute to Ernie Kovacs in his 1983 film "To Be or Not to Be"? One of the opening scenes finds Mel and his real life wife, the late Anne Bancroft, performing the song "Sweet Georgia Brown"...in Polish. Sounds familiar Kovacs fans? One of the recurring visual/musical gags that Ernie inserted in most of his ABC Television Network produced shows was the unidentified singer performing "Mona Lisa"...also in Polish!

You can catch a view of the Kovacs clip at the beginning of my YT video 'Ernie Kovacs - Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture, Part 2"' [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qe21fEFdvY ]

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[Chita1988]

I don't understand the lyrics :P (I'm from Poland)

[rolko52]

@Chita1988 - Lost in translation? It could be slang or jiberish Polish. Brooks was born in New York.

[popomatic1970]

This is absolutely wonderful!! I had not seen this until today. Polish is not an easy language to learn. This was a real laugh :)

[rolko52]

@popomatic1970 - With Mel Brooks, his parents were from Poland so that was not any issue. The real tribute was with his wife, Anne Brancoft, who was of Italian decent.

[rolko52]

@popomatic1970 - My father was Polish-American and that was his first language. He learned English on the streets.

[michal1337]

Funny :D But it's super hard to understand 

[cyborlite]

Mel Brooks is a funny guy, but the original "To Be Or Not To Be" with Jack Benny and Carol Lombard is a much better film.

[rafalhubert]

@Chita1988 I'm Polish and I understand every word. Wiec weź nie pierdol bejbe :)

[Shchetchynianin]

@rolko52 But his accent is so bad here, that a native speaker of Polish can't get what he is signing here,,,

[4thekidsTV]

(Crying)I still miss Annie Bancroft.

[donizetiduarte]

Que voz rouca esse cara tem!

[kozicks]

It's not jibberish Polish, it's just Americans with a script/libretto in Polish. I think they did a fair job of it.

[presbyterosBassI]

A real hoot, and a real tribute to a great love story. I don't think Brooks and Bancroft worked together that much. So it's great to see them together, and having so much fun.

[FutureDJHero]

R.I.P. Anne Bancroft

[yznhymer]

Anne was Sicilian, I believe. I don't know if this is real Polish or not, but the credits in the movie name a Pole responsible for the translation of the song into Polish. In any case, I love it.