Ninotchka

"I do not deny its beauty, but it's a waste of electricity"

Ninotchka is a fish out of water comedy that gently mocks Russian seriousness and western flippancy in equal spades, but it's probably most well remembered for being the film where 'Garbo laughs'. It wasn't the first time the stoic Swedish actress was shown to be happy, but it does have some uniqueness in putting the actress firmly outside of her dramatic comfort zone. This is Garbo doing comedy, and the marketing materials for this film back in the late '30s made a big deal out of the fact that she was branching out of her serious screen persona.

The film starts out with some Soviet agents travelling to France with noble intentions of selling some precious jewels to feed the Russian people (which puts the viewer on their side, despite their 'oddness'). There's a Duchess in Paris who lays claims to these jewels and is making every effort to swindle them away from the Soviets. She's shown to be quite horrid, typical of the tyrannical aristocracy of old Europe, which further lays the viewer's sympathy with the Russians. It seems very strange for a Western-made film to paint the Soviets in such a pitiable light, especially when Ninotchka speaks of the Duchess' corruption with this quote; "You are something we do not have in Russia. That is why I believe in the future of my country". The film plays out a smart comedy of clashing cultures, and then throws a curveball by introducing a romance element and further deconstruction socialism and capitalism alike. It leaves this viewer unsure of where to stand, making the film uniquely and objectively political for a screwball comedy.

"They cannot censor our memories, can they?"

Ninotchka (Greta Garbo) is efficient and emotionless. She's the indomitable Russian conquered by love, a staunch anti-capitalist who comes to decadent pre-war France on a secret mission to bring home some wayward Soviets and save her home country. The eternally serious Garbo lets her hair down, and does it in the context of a serious character also letting their hair down, and this is a big part of the film's success. Her flat monotone delivery is occasionally grating but the script is great, and she's a delight when Melvyn Douglas is repeatedly trying to make her laugh... he tells joke after joke and she's all like, "you're not funny". It becomes less funny later on when she's happy (and less at odds with the easygoing Parisians) though I guess this character development is kind of crucial to the plot.

"We have the high ideals, but they have the climate"

Melvyn Douglas plays a dapper David Niven type who falls in love with Ninotchka. The interplay between himself and Garbo is surprisingly adult, and I did seriously LOL at the communist humour. The Russian-set scenes are a real spectacle, knowingly laden with socialist propaganda and some cutting satire, but most of the laughs come in the film's earlier scenes where the Soviets run amok in glittering pre-war Paris. In a way, the film is a time capsule, having been made in the late '30s it's a film that captures France before the country's ruination of the Germans during WWII. Also, never again would an aristocrats vs. bolsheviks comedy be possible in quite the same tone. The idea of socialists being corrupted by the decadent West, and a decadent westerner also being corrupted by socialist idealism, just isn't something that would have ever made it to the screen during the Cold War... it makes this cheeky film something really special.

DIRECTOR: Ernst Lubitsch
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Melchior Lengyel, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and Walter Reisch.
KEY ACTORS: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Bela Lugosi, Ina Claire, Sig Ruman

RELATED TEXTS
- Some similar classic films that riff on World Wars and east-meets-west scenarios: Comrade X, A Foreign Affair and One Two Three.
- Lubitsch's other big films are: The Shop Around the Corner, The Love Parade, Heaven Can Wait, To Be Or Not to Be and Trouble in Paradise.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Film, Best Actress (Greta Garbo), Best Original Writing and Best Screenplay.