Overlooked Classic Movies: Ninotchka (1939)

 

 

By the time I was fourteen I had reached the conclusion that the greatest creative force in the history of Hollywood was Billy Wilder.

This might seem a remarkable realization for someone that young at that time but at that point in my life due to regular visits to Blockbuster Video and constant viewing of channels like TNT (then known for showing almost exclusively black and white films) I had seen an overwhelming majority of Wilder’s film, many of them multiple times.

The first was Some Like it Hot, which even an eleven year old was capable of realizing was one of the funniest movies ever made. Over the next three years I saw almost every single film of Wilder’s that was either nominated or won Oscars multiple times and considering that Wilder was at one point the most nominated writer-director in Hollywood history that covers a huge amount of movies. The Academy Awards has many mistakes with whom it nominates and excludes; in the case of Wilder it’s hard to find a film he was nominated for in some form that he didn’t deserve it.

Almost all of Wilder’s movies were on VHS by the early 1990s and by the time I turned sixteen I had seen several times almost every single major film in his long career. Four of Wilder’s films are listed among Roger Ebert’s first book of Great Movies: The Apartment, Double Indemnity, Some Like it Hot and Sunset Blvd. A large part of the reason I think Wilder will always be the greatest filmmaker of all time, no matter how many great talents have come since, is that I can’t think of a single filmmaker who could make four masterpieces that are entirely different genres: Some Like It Hot is an out and out screwball comedy, Double Indemnity one of the greatest film noirs of all time; The Apartment is a comedy of manners and Sunset Blvd is a combination of tragedy and satire of Hollywood. None of the titans of cinema  -Coppola, Scorsese or Spielberg – have only occasionally been able to move among genres as well as Wilder did with ease and even the masters of this era – Christopher Nolan –  does not have the deep ability for dialogue that Wilder does. Aaron Sorkin is Wilder’s equal when it comes to writing but he will never be capable of the feats that Wilder was when it comes to directing, no matter how many films he makes.

And while those four movies are masterpieces Wilder made twice as many films that are classics by any definition. The Lost Weekend the first film for which he won Oscars is one of the darkest portrayals of alcoholism in the history of medium and even its (barely) happy ending doesn’t hide that it’s one of the bleakest films during the 1940s. Witness for The Prosecution was Agatha Christie’s favorite adaption of one of her own works and while many filmmakers and television writers have done superb versions over the years Wilder may have been the only one where the mystery mattered far less than the character development. (I will get to that specific film in a later entry.) Ace in The Hole was a film so cynical for its time that not only was it not screened after its release but it wasn’t released on DVD until 2008 where it’s now clear just how far ahead of the curve Wilder was when it came to the idea of the media circus. Stalag 17 was no doubt the inspiration for Hogan’s Heroes but watching it you see the darkness to it that makes it clear how insane the adaptation of it was even a decade later.

All of this demonstrates Wilder’s potential as a director. He didn’t start directing until 1942. Before that he had been credited with nearly two dozen films which he had written in is home country of Austria before he emigrated to America in 1937 with the rise of the Nazis becoming quickly apparent. (That his mother was left behind and disappeared was a burden he never recovered from to his dying day.) Much of his early career as a screenwriter – indeed, many of the movies he made throughout his entire career – dealt with either subtly or directly the influence of the Nazis on Europe. The first film he received an Oscar nomination for screenwriting (shared with his then writing partner Charles Brackett) was released in 1939 just before the Second World War began. This is clear the prologue in which it is stated: “This picture takes place in Paris in those wonderful days when a siren was a brunette and not an alarm – and if a Frenchman turned out the light is was not on account of an air raid.”  It’s very telling that in the movie that officially became Wilder’s arrival on Hollywood he and Brackett decided to distract the viewing public about the threat of fascism by telling a movie about how ridiculous he finds communism -  and considering the membership status of so many of his new colleagues, that might have been a more deliberate poke in the ribs.

Ninotchka was directed by Ernest Lubitsch one of the greatest comic directors from the 1930s and 1940s known for ‘the Lubitsch Touch’ a term that every cinema fan knows of but can’t adequately put into words what it means for anyone who doesn’t know. What it seems to be in Ninotchka is his wondrous ability to take what was already turning out to be the greatest clash of ideologies of the 20^th century – capitalism versus communism – and make a delightful comedy about it while subtly acknowledging all of the dark moments of it throughout:

 

This can be seen in so many of the lines that Greta Garbo in the title role delivers throughout the movie. One of them has to be one of the darkest lines ever delivered in the history of comedies, particularly because it comes right at the time it was most prominent in everyone’s minds:

 

“How are things in Moscow?”

Ninotchka: Very good. The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.

Who could possibly mention the purges of Stalin’s as a joke and just keep moving? Well, the same director who made To Be Or Not To Be and dealt with Nazis discussing a horrible actor: “What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland.”

Another line said by a Russian official to an unseen caller:

“Comrade Kasabian? No I am sorry. He hasn’t been with us for six months. He was called back to Russia and was investigated. You can get further details from his widow.”

None of the other exchanges have this level of darkness but Ninotchka delivers them with a straight face. Consider one of the more famous comic lines in the film by Leon:

“I love Russians! Comrade, I’ve been fascinated by your five-year plan for the last fifteen years.

Ninotchka replies: “Your type will soon be extinct.”

Perhaps the clearest definition of the Lubitsch touch is that he uses the dialogue of Wilder and Brackett in a way that he was superb at: none of the characters know they’re in a comedy. This may seem like an elementary distinction but its worth remembering film was only a decade out from the era of silent pictures where it was almost all ways clear what kind of movie you were watching within thirty seconds. Comedy itself was still being divided between movies made by comedy teams (The Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy) or low budget pictures. Many directors were already finding their feet in this genre – Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges, for example but few were willing to go as far as Lubitsch was.

The plot to Ninotchka is somewhat more substantial then, say, My Man Godfrey or His Girl Friday because Wilder and Brackett did not believe in making their movies simply excuses for gags. This was their first unquestioned masterpiece as a team (they would win Oscars for Lost Weekend and Sunset Blvd before the partnership ended) and while it is remains a comedy you can see the dark edges throughout. The film involves three Russian attaches (we can’t help but thing of them as the Three Bears in a literal sense) who are on a diplomatic visit to sell the jewels of a former Russian princess. They are passing by a luxury hotel and each in term goes through the revolving door. They have a hotel to go to but none of them like it. Iranoff, played by that wonderful actor Sig Ruman implores Kopalski:

How can you want to stay at a place when where you turn on the hot water and cold water comes out? And when you turn on the cold water, nothing comes out at all.

The threat of Siberia is momentarily problematic but they overcome it. Their mission is significant as the man who comes to purchase their jewel makes clear. The Russians are in desperate need of money and they are basically selling the country off to get it. But interference comes when a waiter at the hotel they are staying at recognizes the jewels and reports to the Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire)

Swana is relatively speaking one of the lucky ones; most of her family and friends have no doubt been executed. But in keeping with screwball comedies she’s the (slight) villain of the piece even though she’s technically on the right side of this. However it’s very hard to stay on her side when the two women face off and I have to say, this may be the one time we are on the side of Ninotchka’s cause:

 

Swana: Isn’t it amazing? One gets the wrong impression of the new Russia. It must be charming. I assume this is what the factory workers wear at their dances.

Ninotchka: Exactly! You see, it would have been very embarrassing for people of my sort to wear local gowns in the old Russia. The lashes of the Cossacks across our backs were not very becoming. And you know how vain women are.

Swana: Yes. You’re quite right about the Cossacks. We made a great mistake when we let them use their whips. They had such reliable guns.

 

You kind of want Swana to end up on the chopping block for more than the fact she’s the romantic obstacle between the love story.

Count D’Algout or as he prefers to be knowns Leon is played by Melvyn Douglas one of the greatest character actors in the history of Hollywood.  Most of his best work was done when he passed middle age: he won two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Hud in 1963; Being There in 1979). There’s an argument that Douglas’s performance is the weak link in the entire film and that’s possible but I’m not sure another contemporary actor could have done the job any better. I read in Wilder’s biography that Cary Grant was under consideration but I don’t think that would have helped. Even at that point in his career Grant was always known as a great leading man and an authentic charmer. I’ve seen the majority of his best work and I’ve never seen a performance where he didn’t seem authentic. D’Algout, by contrast, is basically a gigolo in all but name: he’s essentially leeching off Swana in order to make his living and its clear he loves her money as much as he loves her.  Everything about Leon for the first half of the film is a complete act; it’s only when he meets Ninotchka that he becomes his true self. Woman chase after Cary Grant; Leon ends up chasing after Ninotchka.

Leon’s involvement becomes part of the film when he becomes the principal road block to the sale of the jewels. He does so in the grand capitalist tradition of getting the representatives drunk so that they can’t concentrate on the way he’s manipulating them. At a certain point it’s clear how much of that charm is a bluff. When one of the representatives is afraid of going to Siberia, he dismissively says: “I’ll send you a muff.” This may be the darkest line Leon says in the entire film; the fact that the three Russians then proceed to embrace him saying: “Comrade, why are you so good to us?” and begin to embrace and kiss him basically covers that.

That telegram ends up with Ninotchka being dispatched to handle the negotiations. She is made of far sterner stuff then the three of them are and among the funniest scenes in the film (honestly every seen with her is hysterical) comes from her arrival in Paris. Consider when the porter comes to carry her bags:

Ninotchka: Why should you carry other people’s bags?

Porter: Well, that’s my business, Madame.

Ninotchka: That’s no business. That’s social injustice.

Porter: That depends on the tip.

Or when she learns the cost of the room is 2000 francs a day.

Ninotchka: Do you know how much a cow costs…2000 Francs. If I stay here a week, it will cost the Russian people seven cows. Who am I to cost the Russian people seven cows?

Then she sends for the cigarette girl (a 1930s thing) and three cigarette girls who are now ‘friends’ of the delegation show up. Ninotchka knows exactly what’s happening and says: “Comrades you must have been smoking a lot.”

Greta Garbo had her misgivings about appearing in a comedy and was particularly nervous about the scene where she has to appear drunk. She thought it was vulgar. If anything Ninotchka demonstrates what clearly would have been the next phase of her career had she not long after decided to quit the business altogether not long after. As I mentioned Ninotchka has no idea she’s in a comedy which makes Garbo’s perfect deadpan delivery, already world famous since she’d entered the talkies, absolutely perfect for this entire film. I don’t know if the term ‘android’ has yet been coined in 1939 but it’s impossible not to watch Garbo’s work in the entire first half of the movie and not wonder if the Soviet Union has successfully completed one.

Because the moment Ninotchka and Leon meet Leon’s clearly fascinated by her because this is a woman completely immune to his charm. Their meeting on the Eiffel Tower is hysterical from beginning to end as well as their first romantic encounter. The scene where Leon is trying to seduce her and Ninotchka responds to him by saying: “Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological or, shall we say, chemical process” is hysterical. Leon knows he’s making progress when she tells him: “Chemically, we’re already quite sympathetic.” And after he gives one of the most purple descriptions of love, Garbo responds deadpan: “You are very talkative.”

Then they kiss for the first time.

Leon: Was that talkative?

Ninotchka: No that was restful. Again.

(after the next kiss)

Ninotchka: Thank you.

Naturally it takes a while for Ninotchka to be won around to the idea of capitalism but strangely enough nature does so.

“I always felt a little hurt when our swallows deserted us in the winter for capitalistic countries. Now I know why. We have the high ideals. But they have the climate.”

Wilder calls back to that joke when Ninotchka returns to Russia and sees the swallows return. She wonders if it’s from Paris and she is assured so:

“You can see it in his whole attitude. He just picked up a crumb of our black bread, shook his head, and dropped it.”

That a movie this miraculous was made right on the brink of the outbreak of World War II is remarkable. There’s only one direct reference to what’s about to come. The three Russians are looking for their representatives and see a man who has Russian appearance. He walks up to a woman and they exchange a ‘Sieg Heil’. You can see their quiet disgust. (I suspect that it might have been a reference from Lubitsch in particular though Wilder could have put it in as well.) And the film goes out of its way not to think very highly of either communism, capitalism or the aristocracy finding all of them thoroughly ridiculous when viewed from the outside and inside.

It is highly unlikely that, even had this film been released in a year that wasn’t one of the greatest for films in history, Ninotchka would have done well at the Oscars. (The film was nominated for Best Picture, Actress, Original Story and Original Screenplay). It is possible that had the movie been released either in 1938 or 1940, Greta Garbo would have finally won the Academy Award she never received in her life. She received the Best Actress prize from the National Board of Review that year and finished in second place for the New York Film Critics. One could easily see her emerging victorious the following year over Ginger Rogers for the melodrama Kitty Foyle. In any case she was basically done with movies she made just one more film and then retired from acting forever.

But Wilder would spend the rest of his career poking hard at the values of both fascism and communism. The last two films he did before he became a director Arise, My Love and Hold Back The Dawn both dealt with the fallout Of America’s impending involvement in World War II. His second film as a director Five Graves to Cairo dealt with a British waiter trying to assassination Edwin Rommel right as the North African Campaign was going on. A Foreign Affair dealt with Germany in the aftermath of World War II and we all know about Stalag 17.

But he always knew Communism and Nazism were two sides of the same coin and he kept quietly reminded us how well one would throw over the other. In his minor classic One, Two, Three James Cagney plays the manager of the West Berlin Coca Cola plant and has to deal with a Communist falling in love with his bosses daughter. One of his critical aides is a man named Schlemmer who every time he accepts an order clicks his heels together. “Just out of curiosity, what did you doing the war?” he needles him. “I was underground. Subway. I didn’t even know there was a war going on.”  And he always remember the long history and how it never changes. At one point he’s asked where the Grand Hotel Potemkin is. He’s told it used to be the Great Hotel Goring and before that the Great Hotel Bismarck.

Wilder was a cynic but he was also a romantic. One of the last lines of the film has Leon saying: “Don’t take things so seriously. Nothing’s worth it really.” That line might as well have served as the credo for both Wilder’s film and how he handled his entire career and his life. That’s why he was named the greatest screenwriter of all time. He didn’t take any part of it seriously, even in his most serious films.