Ninotchka

“Don’t Pronounce it—See it.” That statement graced posters advertising this Greta Garbo feature in the fall of 1939 as it was rolling out into MGM theaters everywhere. It seems that there was a real concern that people would look at the title, Ninotchka, and find it unpronounceable and therefore not worth going to see. Imagine going up to the ticket window and being unable to pronounce the name of the film you wanted to see. It would be so embarrassing that you would probably just go somewhere else instead. Of course, you could say, “Give me a ticket to the new Garbo picture.” On top of that, most theaters in those days were single-screen behemoths, so a simple, “One please,” would probably suffice. Perhaps by telling audiences not to try and pronounce the title was done in a tongue-in-cheek fashion as a wink to the audiences, a way of being just a little flirtatious. Whatever it was, the film managed to be successful, although it was not a box-office smash.

This film, like many of her other films, features Garbo in a somewhat somber tone for a good deal of the time. Garbo was often advertised with the famous slogan “Garbo Talks!” This time around, it was modified slightly to “Garbo Laughs!” even though she laughed plenty of times in her previous features. This new slogan reflects on a specific scene in the film where her character is being romanced by the leading man and he tries to break her stoic façade with some pretty terrible jokes. Eventually he breaks through, leaving her laughing heartily to a joke that hardly merits that reaction. The film also featured heavily the relationships between the Soviet Union and the rest of Europe, specifically France, and because of that, it was banned from distribution in Russia and its various satellite countries for a number of years. All of this for a relatively mild comedy/romance with just a bit of politics thrown in for flavor.

The film opens with a trio of Russian agents from the board of trade arriving in Paris. These men, Iranoff (Sig Ruman), Buljanoff (Felix Bressart), and Kopalski (Alexander Granach), are there to meet with potential buyers of some jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy during the Russian Revolution of 1917. This plan is overheard by Count Alexis Rakonin (Gregory Gaye), a noblemen reduced to working as a waiter at their hotel. He relays this information to the former Russian Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire), the rightful owner of the jewels. Through legal means, she puts a halt on the sale of the jewels while the provenance of them is to be disputed in the courts. 

Count Léon d’Algout (Melvyn Douglas) meets with the three men and, through good food and drink, and his cultivated charm, wins their confidence. He sends a telegram to Moscow in their name suggesting a compromise over possession of the jewels. This angers Moscow, and they send Nina Ivanovna “Ninotchka” Yukushova (Greta Garbo) to Paris to clean up the mess. Upon her arrival, Ninotchka has a chance encounter with Count Léon outside her hotel, neither knowing who the other one is. While she is at first unreceptive to his advances, she eventually gives in, only for a phone call to interrupt and reveal to the two of them who they really are to each other here. Ninotchka abruptly leaves and tries to keep her distance, but Léon is adamant in his pursuit of her, trying to wear her defenses down. All the while, Duchess Swana, a rival for Léon’s affections as well as for her lost jewelry, attempts to break the two up and send Ninotchka back to her homeland. 

The romance and the drama are pretty standard fare elevated by the superb chemistry between Garbo and Douglas. This chemistry does take a little while to heat up, though, as Garbo is playing Ninotchka very cold and withdrawn. This can be read as a stereotypical Russian female, but that would be an unfair assessment of what Garbo is doing. She has been sent by her government to correct the mess the three previous men have gotten themselves into. Those three agents are much more the Russian stereotypes typical for comedies from this era than she is. They would fit well in a Three Stooges or Marx Brothersfilm. In fact, two of them made appearances in A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, playing much the same characters as they do here. These characters feel just one step above buffoons, and it is hard to believe Moscow would have sent them alone on this mission in the first place. 

When Ninotchka shows up, it is understandable that she would be closed up and distant. She is there to clean up their mess and get the jewels freed up legally and sold quickly. She doesn’t know what kind of situation she is walking into and is resistant to having to do this job. Later, she will go to her commanding officer, Commissar Razinin (Bela Lugosi), and request not to be sent out again, only to be coldly told she is to do her duty and not question her assignments. She may not have spoken up the first time she was sent out—we don’t see that scene—but it is clear she is not comfortable with these kinds of assignments.

Léon seems like the kind of hopeless romantic that wears his heart on his sleeve, sometimes for more than one woman at a time. His joviality hides his strong emotional attraction to women that leads him to step in when he first sees Ninotchka. His courtship attempts can be seen as overwhelming to her, further justifying her coldness towards him at first, but he eventually wears down her defenses and finds a vulnerable woman underneath her firm façade. 

Ultimately, what brings these two together ends up not really mattering to the story. It’s just a clever excuse to bring together two people from different cultures and show that romance is a worldwide language. It’s been done better. It’s also been done way worse than this. The final result is an interesting, if somewhat tonally awkward, love story that has a satisfying ending that says a lot about the tensions between the USSR and the rest of the world at this time. It really shouldn’t have been banned over there as it is mostly innocent and doesn’t skewer the Russians as badly as it could have. Politics aside, this is a fine, if somewhat unmemorable, story that has plenty of things to recommend. Just don’t expect to find a masterpiece if you do decide to watch it. It’s good: it’s not great. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Outstanding Production: Sydney Franklin

Best Actress: Greta Garbo

Best Story: Melchior Lengyel

Best Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, and Billy Wilder

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Release Date: November 9, 1939

Running Time: 110 minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, and Ina Claire

Directed By: Ernst Lubitsch