Movie Review: Ninotchka (1939)

Ninotchka (1939) directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Three Soviet agents (Iranoff, Buljanoff, and Kopalski) travel to Paris in the early 1930s to sell a set of diamonds for cash to help out the agricultural situation in the Motherland. The jewels were seized from a Russian aristocratic family and one of the surviving aristocrats, Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire) just happens to live in Paris and hears about them from another expatriate who works at the agents' hotel. She wants her stuff back and gets her boyfriend Count Leon (Melvyn Douglas) to negotiate with the Soviets. These three particular agents are a bit bumbling and, quite frankly, enjoy living the Parisian lifestyle, especially at their swanky hotel where the only room with a safe big enough to hold the jewels is the Royal Suite. With the pending legal complications, they send a message back to their superiors in Moscow. The superiors send someone to take over, a no-nonsense daughter of the Revolution named Ninotchka (Greta Garbo). She shows up and they have to cut down their lifestyle. For herself, she spends her spare time inspect utilities and other industrial things to take valuable information home. As she wanders the streets, she runs into Leon and they hit it off, even with her amazing reserve and disinterest in capitalist waste and inefficiency. Leon is the epitome of what she should dislike--he's got money and a butler and no job except entertaining himself by entertaining the ladies. Ninotchka does not know of Leon's connection to the jewels, nor does he know hers. Once they find out, things get more difficult. Still, love is stronger than ideology in this case. Swana is finally forced to make Ninotchka an offer: Swana will drop her claim as long as Ninotchka goes back to Moscow, leaving Leon for herself. 

The movie is a delightful romantic comedy. Lubitsch is a director who can take what seems like slight material and make it shine. The romantic plot has some fun turns. The actors are all great in their roles--the three Russians have a nice comic repartee with each other, Garbo is great as the dour official and the romantic foil for Douglas (and she makes the transition seamlessly, which is amazing). The sympathy for the characters shifts around. At first, viewers feel for the wronged Duchess but she turns out to be more devious while Ninotchka shifts from bureaucratic to love-struck and more compassionate, even to the three bumbling agents. They are an interesting group of real people. The script even sneaks in a couple of jokes around Garbo's famous "I want to be alone" line and a cameo for Bela Lugosi.

Highly recommended.

https://amzn.to/3xwZ0bV