Ninotchka
Screening on Film
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
With Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire.
US, 1939, 35mm, black & white, 110 min.
Print source: HFA
With Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire.
US, 1939, 35mm, black & white, 110 min.
Print source: HFA
A poignant comedy of sexual and political tensions, Ninotchka teamed Lubitsch with up-and-coming screenwriter Billy Wilder behind the camera and Greta Garbo in front, with MGM’s big selling point being the indoctrination of the famously sultry star into the realm of farce. Garbo plays the joyless Comrade “Ninotchka” Yakushova, a walking parody of Soviet rigidity dispatched to swinging Paris to facilitate a jewelry sale. There, she meets her comic and romantic foil, the suave, pleasure-seeking Count Leon (Melvyn Douglas). While the film’s central dialectic of communism and capitalism manifests itself initially as broad satire in which Ninotchka is steadily educated on the spiritual benefits of loosening up (a thread that results in the greatest laughing fit in film history), Lubitsch gradually unveils richer shades in the scenario. The freethinking glamour of prewar Paris is shown to also be home to various displays of vanity and callousness, while a third act relocation to Ninotchka’s motherland illuminates the solidarity and companionship blossoming within gloomy Moscow flats. And as the film’s perspective expands, the humor darkens, touching on such extra-diegetic horrors as executions for civil disobedience, censorship and even the fast-encroaching stench of Nazism.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Trouble in Paradise
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1932
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Ninotchka
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1939
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Shoe Palace Pinkus / Meyer From Berlin
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff RapsisScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Madame DuBarry
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1919
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
That Uncertain Feeling
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1941
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Love Parade
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1929
Screening on FilmRecently Restored
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Doll
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Kohlhiesel's Daughters
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1920
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff RapsisScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Lady Windermere's Fan
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1925
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on FilmRecently Restored
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
If I Had a Million
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, et al, 1932
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Broken Lullaby AKA The Man I Killed
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1932
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Design For Living
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1933
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
One Hour With You
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1932
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
So This is Paris
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1926
Live Musical AccompanimentScreening on FilmRecently Restored
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
When I Was Dead / The Pride of the Firm
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Carmen AKA Gypsy Blood
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1918
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Heaven Can Wait
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1943
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Smiling Lieutenant
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1931
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Monte Carlo
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1930
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Eyes of the Mummy
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1938
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Eternal Love
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1929
Screening on FilmRecently Restored
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Three Women
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1924
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Anna Boleyn
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1920
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff RapsisScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Shop Around the Corner
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1940
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Sumurun
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1919
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on FilmRecently Restored
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
To Be or Not To Be
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1942
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Oyster Princess
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1919
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Merry Widow
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1934
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Wildcat AKA The Mountain Cat
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1921
Live Musical Accompaniment by Andrew SimpsonScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1928
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Ninotchka
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1939
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Cluny Brown
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1946
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Angel
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1937
Screening on Film
Read more
That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Cluny Brown
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1946
Screening on Film
