LEON: A Russian! I love Russians! Comrade… I have been fascinated by your Five- Year Plan for the past fifteen years!
NINOTCHKA: Your type will soon be extinct.
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NINOTCHKA: I have heard of the arrogant male in capitalistic society. It is having a superior earning power that makes you like that. LEON: A Russian! I love Russians! Comrade… I have been fascinated by your Five- Year Plan for the past fifteen years! NINOTCHKA: Your type will soon be extinct. |
About The Cover
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| The Cast | |||
| Ninotchka | GRETA GARBO | ||
| Leon | MELVYN DOUGLAS | ||
| Swana | INA CLAIRE | ||
| Razinin | BELA LUGOSI | ||
| Iranoff | SIG RUMANN | ||
| Buljanoff | FELIX BRESSART | ||
| Kopalski | ALEXANDER GRANACH | ||
| Rakonin | GREGORY GAYE | ||
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Synopsis of the film
The film opens with a 4 second clip of the Place de la Concorde in Paris followed by a superimposed paragraph of text to establish the film's genre: playful romance.
This is followed by a studio-simulated lobby of a luxury hotel in Paris. Three poorly dressed Russians enter and just as quickly leave the hotel through its revolving door as they are overawed by the Capitalist opulence on display.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 IT WAS NOT ON ACCOUNT OF AN AIR RAID!
The Soviet Union is in desperate need of hard currency with which to pay for imports of foodstuffs. Having confiscated the jewelry collection of an emigrated aristocrat, the Grand Duchess Swana, three Russian officials (Iranoff, Buljanoff, and Kopalski) representing the "Russian Board of Trade" have been sent to Paris to sell them. Swana, living luxuriously in the Russian exile community in Paris, becomes aware that "her" jewels are in Paris through an informer (Count Rakonin) working at the hotel as a waiter.
Swana's attorney advises her there's little she can do since France has granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. However, her love interest, Count D'Algout (Leon), an international playboy, comes up with a plan. His plan is to obtain a court injunction prohibiting the sale or removal from France of the jewels and thus to tie up their disposal in the courts indefinitely. With this legal leverage he expects to be able to extract a portion of the selling price for Swana and himself.
Word of the legal problem reaches Moscow and an official there (Razinin) advises the trio telegraphically that their authority is suspended and that a special envoy will arrive in Paris by train that same day to deal with the problem.
The special envoy is Comrade Nina Ivanovna Yakushova (Ninotchka), a hard-bitten Bolshevik, cool, efficient, and with an objective, scientific curiosity about her surroundings. She is completely unemotional, the antithesis of the Hollywood model of womanhood.
Upon her arrival she immediately takes control of the situation, giving directions, and marshalling resources. One evening, in her spare time, she decides to visit the Eiffel Tower to gain a personal impression of its technical characteristics. Standing in front of the hotel with a street map in hand she is approached by Leon. The two are unaware that they are on opposite sides of the legal struggle over the jewels. They visit the Eiffel Tower together and afterward Leon takes Ninotchka to his apartment.
In this interaction with Leon, Ninotchka is transformed into Hollywood's definition of a proper woman: head over heels in love, silly, and obsessed with her appearance and imitating the lifestyle of wealth.
After a drinking spree, she and Leon return to her hotel suite. Leon, knowing that the jewels are in a large safe in the suite, convinces Ninotchka to open the safe and to wear some of the jewels. In her drunkeness Ninotchka leaves the safe unlocked and falls asleep. During the night jewels are stolen by an agent of Swana's.
Swana, realizing she is losing Leon to Ninotchka, appears in Ninotchka's suite and offers to return the jewels if Ninotchka will return to Moscow immediately without notifying Leon. She accepts the offer.
Leon, who has also undergone a personality transformation, now leaves no stone unturned to be reunited with his beloved Ninotchka.
His attempt to enter the Soviet Union as a tourist is rebuffed. In the end he learns that the same trio of officials that bungled the jewel sale have been sent to Constantinople. He goes there and convinces them to defect and open a Russian restaurant. Again Razinin becomes aware of the situation and he orders Ninotchka to go to Constantinople to straighten that one out too. Arriving at her hotel, she finds Leon waiting for her and the ending leaves no doubt that the two will live happily ever after in a Capitalist paradise.
You can read Time Magazine's November 6, 1939 review of Ninotchka by clicking here and the actual script of the movie by clicking here.