Ninotchka is a 1939 American film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch that stars Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, based on a screen story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka is Greta Garbo's first full comedy, and her penultimate film. It is one of the first American movies which, under the cover of a satirical, light romance, depicted the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin as being rigid and gray when compared to the free and sunny Parisian society of prewar years.
Plot
Three Russians, Iranov (Sig Ruman), Buljanov (Felix Bressart), and Kopalsky (Alexander Granach), are in Paris to sell jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Upon arrival, they meet Count Leon d'Algout (Melvyn Douglas), on a mission from the Russian Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire), who wants to retrieve her jewelry before it is sold. He corrupts them and talks them into staying in Paris. The Soviet Union then sends Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova (Greta Garbo), a special envoy whose goal is to go through with the jewelry sale and bring back the three men. Rigid and stern at first, she slowly becomes seduced by the West and the Count, who falls in love with her.
The three Russians also accommodate themselves to capitalism, but the last joke of the film is that one of them carries a sign protesting that the other two are unfair to him.
Cast
- Greta Garbo as Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova (Ðина Ивановна "Ðиночка" Якушова)
- Melvyn Douglas as Count Léon d'Algout
- Ina Claire as Grand Duchess Swana (Свана)
- Sig Ruman as Iranov (Иранов)
- Felix Bressart as Buljanov (Ð'ульÑнов)
- Alexander Granach as Kopalsky (КопальÑкий)
- Bela Lugosi as Commissar Razinin (Разинин)
- Tamara Shayne as Anna (uncredited)
- Rolfe Sedan as Hotel Manager
- Gregory Gaye as Count Alexis Rakonin (Раконин)
- Edwin Maxwell as Mercier
- Richard Carle as Gaston (uncredited)
- George Tobias as Russian visa official (uncredited)
Production
Released in 1939 in the United States, the movie was released during World War II in Europe, where it became a great success. It was, however, banned in the Soviet Union and its satellites. Despite that, it went on to make $2,279,000 worldwide.
The film was marketed with the catchphrase, "Garbo Laughs!", commenting on Garbo's serious and melancholy image and implying she had not laughed or played comedy before. However her canon reveals this not to be the case. Although all her films were dramatic to this point, Garbo laughs heartily and often. In the most famous example, Queen Christina (1933), she disguises herself as a man and jokes with her co-star John Gilbert and others throughout the first half of the picture.
Reception
Critical response
When the film was first released, The New York Times film critic Frank S. Nugent praised it, writing, "The comedy, through Mr. Douglas's debonair performance and those of Ina Claire as the duchess and Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart and Alexander Grannach as the unholy three emissaries; through Mr. Lubitsch's facile direction; and through the cleverly written script of Walter Reisch, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, has come off brilliantly. Stalin, we repeat, won't like it; but, unless your tastes hew too closely to the party line, we think you will, immensely."
More recently, film critic Dennis Schwartz discussed the humor of Ninotchka, writing, "The sly political jokes include Garbo saying: 'The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians' and there are a few well-placed jokes mocking the failed Soviet Five-Year-Plan. The most noteworthy Lubitsch touch scene revolves around a stag feast in a luxury hotel ordered by capitalist Douglas for the three grateful comrade emissaries, who can't believe their good fortune."
Revival
An attempt to revive the film later during World War II was suppressed on the grounds that the Soviets were now allies of the West.
Legacy
In 1955, a Broadway musical Silk Stockings, written by Cole Porter based on the 1939 story and script, starring Hildegard Neff and Don Ameche opened. The musical was adapted as a 1957 film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Actor George Tobias, who played the commissar in Silk Stockings, also had a small role in Ninotchka as the man who gets punched by Leon for refusing him a visa. The films Comrade X (1940), starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr and The Iron Petticoat (1956), starring Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn, both borrow heavily from Ninotchka.
In 1990, Ninotchka was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It was also included on two American Film Institute lists: #40 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions and #52 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs. It was also included on Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies.
American Film Institute recognition
- 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs #52
- 2002: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions #40
Awards
Ninotchka received four Academy Award nominations, those for Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Original Story, and Best Screenplay. The story is based on the book of the same title by Melchior Lengyel.
References
External links
- Ninotchka at the Internet Movie Database
- Ninotchka at Rotten Tomatoes
- Ninotchka at AllMovie
- Ninotchka at the TCM Movie Database