Rating: 3/5
Capitalist propaganda, but make it funny
Bolsheviks come to Paris to sell jewels to help fund the impoverished mother country. Within moments, they talk about how great France is — they’re afraid of the judgment they’ll receive for indulging in any luxury, but still take the Royal Suite at their hotel
Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire) gets word from a spy that the Bolsheviks have her lost jewels — confiscated by the Russian state — and intend to sell them. Count Leon d’Algout (Melvyn Douglas) intercepts the sale, to the embarrassment of the Bolsheviks
To aid their suit, Russia sends their comrade Ninotchka (Greta Garbo), who more strongly upholds the “luxury is evil” party line
The Count and Ninotchka run into each other at a traffic crossing, and the Count offers her help navigating the city. The Count gets off insulting her and so follows her around and flirts
Though Ninotchka is uninterested, the Count is relentless and succeeds in wooing her. As the two fall for each other, they take on each other’s values — Nitochka comes to love, I don’t know, the sun? and the Count reads Capital and cares for the working man
Garbo’s performance is fantastic as she moves from stone-faced party member to bourgeois lovesick woman — she carries the entire film, giving the material a sincerity that injects character into what is on paper a caricature. Her accent sucks, though — more Zsa Zsa Gabor than Russian diplomat
Douglas does fine as “intellectually and fiscally superior man,” but you could put just about anyone in Hollywood in his shoes and get the same result
The Bolshevik men have the most overt comedic touch, playing something like the Marx Brothers (get it?)
There are so many tiny pieces of this that I love, but the movie as a whole is a mixed bag. It’s a landmark for Greta Garbo’s step into comedy and worth seeing for that reason alone
I like it! I just wanted to like it more because it theoretically has everything needed for something spectacular
Stray Thoughts
- “I’m ashamed to hang a picture of Lenin in a place like this,” Ninotchka says when her comrades show her their expensive Parisian hotel suite. She makes eye contact with the camera when she mourns the cost of bread in Russia
- It is funny to see her go to sleep with the Lenin portrait on her bedside — there’s a magic moment where she asks the picture to smile, and it comes alive to do so
- Garbo plays Champagne Drunk at one point, and it’s delightful
- Garbo and Douglas did one more film together. The film bombed, so she retired from movies and lived a secluded life :(
- The snow scene near the end looks so pleasant — and hey, Boris Karloff!