Ninotchka
by Ernst Lubitsch
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Greta Garbo, Ina Claire, Melvyn DouglasDirector: Ernst Lubitsch
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 56682
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Ninotchka
Movie Review: Greta Garbo's most ENJOYABLE movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Fans of the great Greta Garbo argue over whether QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933) or CAMILLE (1936) has her finest performance. It is a tough call. How about a dead-heat tie and owning both film masterpieces on DVD? But no one considers what her most ENJOYABLE performance is, the film she seemed to have the most fun making. That would surely be Ernst Lubitsch's wonderful NINOTCHKA (1939, MGM). She gets to play two different roles, one serious drama and one lighthearted comedy under master Lubitsch's perfect touch. And she gets to say dialogue by masters Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch. I'd quote dialogue, but every line is just hilarious perfection.
We are mostly in Paris in 1939 as we meet three nutty Russian visitors (Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach, and Sig Rumann) checking into a fancy hotel, saying that is what Lenin would do. It doesn't seem to matter to the writers or Lubitsch why they are in Paris, only that it is some sort of secret mission that is moving too slowly and seems to involve stolen diamonds. The city holds too much glittering romance and wealth for the poor Russians to get their work done. Lubitsch has his trademark fascination with doors. We keep focusing on them closed and squeals inside. Watch the cigarette girl get great laughs behind a closed door, then bring two of her friends back with more trays and boxes! Just when you think the gag can't be topped, Lubitsch and his writers have Garbo's Ninotchka ask for a cigarette and three girls enter the suite. Ninotchka says, "Comrades, you must have been smoking a lot."
Ninotchka has been sent to Paris to find out why the mission is taking so long. The three Russians meet her at the train station, and she spends the next several reels in a cold and humorless vein, all business. ("The last mass trials were a great success. There will be fewer, but better Russians.") Soon Ninotchka meets one Leon (Melvyn Douglas at his very best under Lubitsch's magic touch) on a night street. She has a giant map and is looking for the Eiffel Tower. (Leon: "Good heavens, is that thing lost again?") She wants to know hardware facts and figures. Leon moves her fingers between the tower and where they are now on the map (Ninotchka: "I am only interested in the distance between two points. Must you flirt?""Well, I don't have to, but I enjoy it.""Suppress it.")
With a flawless blending of romance, drama, and comic wit, NINOTCHKA cuts back and forth between Ninotchka with Leon and with the three Russians, who become like a cheering chorus for the romance. Billed as the movie where "GARBO LAUGHS", that scene is a restaurant scene halfway through the 110 minute movie. From that point on, the movie can become a veritable screwball comedy with Ninotchka letting her hair down and enjoying the romance of Paris with Leon. She buys a funny hat she found hopeless before, opens windows to let in air, and spreads Communist doctrine in a women's powder room of a bar where Leon is chain drinking brandy. In a quintessential "Lubitsch touch" that may or may not be in the screenplay, Leon stands a drunk Ninotchka against a hotel suite wall with a blindfold, walks away, walks back and lifts up the blindfold to kiss her, puts it back over her face, then opens a champagne bottle to sound like rifle fire. Ninotchka falls to the floor.
NINOTCHKA is glorious entertainment, from darkest tragedy to most hilarious comedy, under a master director and with a fabulous script. The Swedish actress looks like she and Melvyn Douglas are having the time of their lives here, along with the three Russians, countess Ina Claire and, in a bit role, Bela Lugosi as a Russian official in Moscow. Buy the movie, either individually or as part of the wonderful GARBO Signature Collection boxed set.
Summary of Ninotchka
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