During our long drive to and from Massachusetts in September, Linda and I whiled away many hours listening to a podcast called "Talking Pictures". This pod is hosted by TCM's Ben Mankiewicz and in each episode he interviews people connected with movies and the motion picture industry. We listened to great interviews of people like Mel Brooks, Henry Winkler, Carol Burnett, Jane Lynch, Bill Hadar, Bill Murray, and even Charles Barkley (!!). It's a great podcast, and if you like movies, I highly recommend it, but that's not why I'm here today. During those interviews, Brooks, Burnett, Lynch, and Murray all referenced the movie "Ninotchka" as having a great and profound influence on them and their love of movies and in their careers in the movie business.
So, we resolved then that we had to see it, and last night, we watched it via Amazon Prime Video.
"Ninotchka" was made in 1939, directed by Ernst Lubitsch with a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, and it starred, and this was the big deal at the time, Greta Garbo. Garbo was a star of the silent screen, and was known for her dramatic roles and her enigmatic persona. So her doing a comedy for MGM was a very big deal at the time. So much so, that studio promoted the film with the tagline "Garbo laughs".
The story takes place in Paris in 1939 where three bumbling apparatchiks from Soviet Russia are there to sell crown jewels seized by the government during the Revolution, the proceeds of said sale are to be used to buy tractors for Russian farmers. The problem is that these three guys have succumbed to the pleasures of Paris life and the capitalistic system, and have been living it up at a luxury Parisian hotel. In order to bring them in line, the Party sends a no-nonsense operative to Paris to finish the job. That person is Nina Invanova Yakushova, played by Garbo, and she plays the stone faced Communist Party official to the hilt. According to some things I've read on line in research for this post, including some contemporary reviews, it was almost a self-parody of herself. Example:
Garbo (as Ninotchka): Must you flirt?
Melvyn Douglas: Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural.
Garbo: Suppress it!
Of course, things get off track when Melvyn Douglas, who plays a Count who's attached himself to an exiled Russian noblewoman, who is the rightful owner of the jewels, falls hard for Garbo, whom he calls Ninotchka, she resists, then she falls for him. Comic hijinks ensue.
The movie is filled with terrific comic lines and touches (the "Lubitsch Touch"), some great satirical pokes at both the Soviet Union and capitalism, and some sexuality that is understated just enough to get by the Hollywood's Production Code taboos in place at the time, as exemplified by the French maid cigarette girls at the hotel that make several appearances a few times in the film. "Comrades, you must have been smoking a lot" says Nina when she sees them.
There are other great scenes:
- When Garbo finally laughs while lunching at a cafe
- Garbo drinking champagne for the first time
- When a drunk Garbo lines up for a make believe firing squad while Douglas pops a champagne bottle
- Just about all of Garbo's austere dialog and persona before she gives in to her feelings towards Douglas.
While this movie is now eighty-six years old, I found it to be not at all dated. It could be made today with very little change in dialog and still be funny and sharply satirical. Of course, today, who could possibly replace Garbo?
There is one joke in the movie that references Hitler and Germany that jarred you a bit because it made you realize what else was going on the world at the time. The movie was released in 1939, and one year later, Paris and France was occupied by Nazi Germany. By then, it was not the wonderful place depicted in the movie.
"Ninotchka" was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Picture, Actress for Garbo, and Screenplay for Wilder and Brackett, but it was steamrolled by "Gone With The Wind" for all awards that year.
We really liked the movie, and I give it Four Grandstander Stars.
Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas
Before the"firing squad"
Garbo Laughs!