Ninotchka: Difference between revisions

Ninotchka is a 1939 American film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch which stars Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas.^[1] It is written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch,^[1] 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, in this instance comparing it with the free and sunny Parisian society of pre-war 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
• Melvyn Douglas as Count Léon d'Algout
• Ina Claire as Grand Duchess Swana
• Sig Ruman as Iranoff
• Felix Bressart as Buljanoff
• Alexander Granach as Kopalski
• Bela Lugosi as Commissar Razinin
• Rolfe Sedan as Hotel Manager
• Gregory Gaye as Count Alexis Rakonin
• Edwin Maxwell as Mercier
• Richard Carle as Gaston
• Tamara Shayne as Anna (uncredited)
• George Tobias as Russian visa official (uncredited)
• Charles Judels as café owner (uncredited)
• Edwin Stanley as Soviet lawyer (uncredited)

Release

Premiered in 1939 in the United States, the movie was released a month after the outbreak of 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.

In a play on the famous "Garbo Talks!" ad campaign used for her "talkie" debut in Anna Christie (1930), Ninotchka 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 previous films were dramatic, Garbo had occasions to laugh in several of them. In 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. In Camille (1936), she feigns exuberant laughter in a dramatic scene with actor Henry Daniell.

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."^[2]

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."^[3]

Revival

An attempt to revive the film later during World War II was suppressed on the grounds that the Soviets were then allies of the West.^[4]

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 by MGM 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 Russian official who gets punched by Leon for refusing him a visa. The MGM 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 Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies.^[5]

The film is recognized by the American Film Institute in the AFI 100 Years... series in the following lists:

• 1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated^[6]
• 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #52^[7]
• 2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – #40^[8]
• 2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • Leon: "Ninotchka, it's midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half." -– Nominated^[9]
  • Ninotchka: "Must you flirt?"

Leon: "Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural."

Ninotchka: "Suppress it." – Nominated^[10]

• 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated^[11]

Awards

Ninotchka received four Academy Award nominations, those for Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Original Story, and Best Screenplay.^{[citation needed]}

Origins

Ninotchka is based on a three-sentence story idea by Melchior Lengyel that made its debut at a poolside conference in 1937, when a suitable comedy vehicle for Garbo was being sought: “Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She meets romance and has an uproarious good time. Capitalism not so bad, after all.”^[12][13][14]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ninotchka (film).

• Ninotchka at IMDb
• Ninotchka at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ninotchka at AllMovie
• Ninotchka at the TCM Movie Database