NINOTCHKA: Blu-ray (MGM 1939) Warner Home Video
“Don’t pronounce it – see it!” championed
MGM publicity for Ernst Lubitch’s Ninotchka
(1939). Whereas, the trailer for Garbo’s first sound picture, Anna Christie’s (1931) had triumphantly
declared ‘Garbo talks!’ Ninotchka’s preview trumpeted, ‘Garbo laughs!’ Exactly how much of the
public hysteria that dogged Garbo’s fame was undiluted MGM banana oil is open
for discussion. Without question, there had been much idiotic frenzy
surrounding this Swedish import almost from the moment she stepped off the
boat; long before the studio and its cameras took hold of her reincarnation as
this deified mystery woman, but of whom MGM studio head, L.B. Mayer had
initially and rather sternly scoffed, “Americans
don’t like their women fat…and get your teeth fixed!”
Garbo today is
a largely forgotten relic like the sphinx with which her famous façade was
compared back in 1929. Interestingly, her pictures always did better in the
foreign markets than at home. MGM’s first attempt at fabricating a public
persona for the ‘awkward peasant girl’
posed her with the studio’s mascot/trademark, Leo the Lion; also, with members
of UCLA’s male varsity track and field team. Yet, under Clarence Brown’s
direction, the Garbo inscrutability began to form; emerging as full-on erotica
in Flesh and the Devil (1929). Alas,
it was the talkies that made – and ultimately broke – Garbo. Initially, Mayer
had had his misgivings about Garbo’s voice; would it record? Would audiences
buy into her thick and lazy Swedish accent? Would the pall of European
sophistication be too much for America’s trendier audiences to bear? Mayer and
Garbo had nothing to fear.
For a brief
decade she reigned supreme as Metro’s highest paid leading lady, as famous for
her reclusive behaviors off set as for a single line of dialogue first uttered
in the all-star, Grand Hotel (1932); “I vant to be alone!” For the record,
in life Garbo never harbored such sentiments, although she frequently expressed
an interest to distance herself from the destructive ardor of the American
press, who scrutinized her every move as though it were of life-altering
consequence to the world. In 1936, Garbo threatened to run away from her
stardom. But she found no solace elsewhere on the planet; a young girl throwing
herself in front of her chauffeur-driven car, shouting ‘I love you!’ and a Louisiana farmer leaving her his entire fortune
in his will. MGM coaxed their reluctant zeitgeist back into the limelight,
seemingly the only place where she could be happy – or, at least, be herself.
And the camera adored Garbo as it has few stars then or now; reading her mixed
signals and multi-layered glances given, occasionally directly into its
absorbing lens.
Yet, for all
this hype and for some time prior to 1939, American audiences had begun to cool
to Garbo; the fascination with the initial cycle of European exoticism having
run its course; Garbo’s austere and penetratingly aloof heroines never lending
themselves to being pawed or plucked by male counterparts as submissive love
interests. As such, by 1939 Americans were ready for a new Garbo – one who
could make them laugh as well as cry. And Metro gave them exactly this in
Lubtisch’s lighter-than-air confection. Ninotchka
is the tale of a Russian commissar, sent by her government to collect a
trio of Communist cohorts lulled by the pleasures of Paris. On this sojourn she
meets Leon; an aristocrat playboy who finds her irresistible and absurd. He
introduces her to all the superfluous luxuries no amount of indoctrinating
Marxism can expunge as mere ‘crass’ capitalism.
To this
featherweight story, Lubtisch brought his inimitable brand of European
sophistication, seemingly out of fashion since the early 1930’s, though
miraculously resurrected herein – perhaps, because unlike his other films, Ninotchka never takes much of anything
too seriously. Here is a comedy that
sparkles like a very rare vintage of champagne, the bubbles tickling the funny
bone instead of the nose and leaving one utterly beguiled. Why Garbo had never
made another comedy prior to Ninotchka
remained something of a mystery. Why she never would again, an even greater one
indeed. Garbo is luminous as Special Envoy Nina Ivanovna ‘Ninotchka’ Yakushova;
the Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch screenplay embroiling her
stoic Soviet in all sorts of amusing ‘fish out of water’ vignettes. The ‘cute
meet’ between Ninotchka and Count Leon d'Algout (Melvyn Douglas) is a prime
example of the accomplished wry wit the writers have managed to infuse
throughout the story; Ninotchka employing Leon to help her spread open a map of
the city, inquiring how long it takes a suicidal man to land after leaping from
the Eiffel Tower, then positively crushing any and all of his more playful
romantic advances by ordering him to “Suppress
it!” Taking Ninotchka’s finger into
his own, she abruptly inquires, “Why do
you need my finger?” to which he teasingly replies, “It’s impolite to point with your own!” In just a few brief lines
of dialogue we understand two perspectives implicitly; this hardline party
patriot and the slippery sophisticate, destined to capture her heart. The
movie’s devilishly sexy interplay is an exercise in extremes; Ninotchka’s
inevitable sacrificing of the communist principles beaten into her brain since
childhood, a rather optimistic dénouement to the world-weary anxieties that
most living outside of Russia after the assassination of Tsar Nicholas could
definitely relate to and appreciate.
After its main
titles, Ninotchka begins with a
beloved ode to the city of light, ‘where
a siren was a brunette’ and ‘when a
Frenchman turned out the lights it was not for the sake of an air raid!’ We
are introduced to three Russian Commissars, Iranov (Sig Ruman), Buljanov (Felix
Bressart), and Kopalsky (Alexander Granach), come to sell the formidable jewels
of the ex-Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire), an exile of the Imperial Russian
aristocracy presently living in Paris, but who is quite unaware her fabulous
assortment of tiaras, necklaces, bracelets and the like have made their way
from her former, now revolutionary-strapped homeland. The Commissars are in
town to meet with the jeweler, Mercier (Edwin Maxwell), who has promised them a
fair price for these glittery relics of old Russia. Alas, one of the hotel’s
waiters, Rakonin (Gregory Gaye) has deduced the contents of the Commissars’
briefcase and hurried to forewarn Leon and Swana of their arrival. Leon
concocts a devious plan to delay the sale of the jewels with an injunction. In
the meantime, he easily persuades Iranov, Buljanov and Kopalsky to trade in
their drab Soviet garb for some flashy Parisian designer clothes. The trio
occupies the ‘Royal Suite’ inside a lavishly appointed hotel and indulges in
the pleasures of Paris – everything from caviar to cigarette girls. Leon sends
a telegram to Moscow, reportedly written on the Commissars’ behalf, altering
their government of the delayed sale. In reply, Moscow sends a real hard-liner,
Ninotchka, to take control of their negotiations.
Ninotchka and
Leon meet on a crowded Paris street corner. She is unimpressed by the gaiety
that surrounds, and even less receptive to his immediate advances. She orders
Leon to take her to the Eiffel Tower, studying its perspective and vistas from
a purely rational engineering standpoint. Leon flirts with her. To his great
surprise, she demands they return to his private apartment. Leon is, of course,
otherwise passionately engaged to the superficial Swana who is tired of her
face and bored with the high life. Nevertheless, she is not about to give Leon
up. Nor is she willing to settle for anything less than the return of her
jewels. Leon pursues Ninotchka, taking her to nightclubs where he gets her
quietly inebriated. More accustom to goat’s milk than champagne, Ninotchka gets
snookered; Leon taking her back to her hotel suite. The next morning Ninotchka
awakens, still wearing last night’s frock, to find Swana hovering over her. The
Duchess explains Leon knew nothing about it, but she has managed to bribe
someone at the hotel into gaining access to her room and to the safe where the
jewels were kept. Swana makes a promise to Ninotchka – a swap, actually: the
jewels for Leon.
Reluctantly,
Ninotchka agrees. After all, her mission has been fulfilled. She will be hailed
a heroine in Moscow. Alas, once home, Ninotchka cannot shake the memories of
Paris from her mind, telling her devoted roommate, Anna (Tamara Shayne) of its’
excitement, color and sparkle, and making a present to Anna of the gown she
once wore to dance with Leon the night she first realized she was desperately
falling in love with him. Iranov,
Buljanov and Kopalsky arrive for a visit, grateful Ninotchka’s glowing report
on their ‘behaviors’ abroad has spared them exile to Siberia. The foursome
spends the evening reminiscing about their adventures. Time passes. Leon tries
to get a visa to visit Russia. He is repeatedly denied. Then, in the dead of
winter, Commissar Razinin (Bela Lugosi) summons Ninotchka to his office to
inform her of an anonymous tip off from Constantinople, suggesting Iranov,
Buljanov and Kopalsky, who were sent abroad on another trade mission, have
badly undermined the Bolshevik Revolution with their considerable carousing
inside every nightclub in Turkey. Razinin orders Nintchka to go to
Constantinople and retrieve her wayward comrades, almost certain to be exiled
to Siberia upon their return. Very reluctantly, she agrees; discovering Iranov,
Buljanov and Kopalsky resplendently decked out and awaiting her arrival with
bouquets of flowers. Ninotchka is shocked to learn they have no intension of
returning with her to Soviet Russia, having begun new lives as restauranteurs.
Better still, Ninotchka discovers the whole anonymous tip off was a ruse
deliberately designed to get her out of Moscow. Leon is waiting in the wings.
He proposes marriage and Ninotchka willingly accepts.
Ninotchka is a charismatic romantic comedy. Better still, in
1939 it unequivocally demonstrated the girth of Garbo’s gifts had not yet been
fully tested on the screen. Apart from being the asexual figurehead of an
ersatz European sophistication, perpetually cast in opulent period costume
melodramas that were steadily falling out of favor with American audiences, she
could also play robust comedy and deadpan humor with equal aplomb, grace,
elegance and charm. A colossal hit for MGM, Ninotchka would also prove a disastrous foray into the subsequent ‘de-glamorization’ of this cinematic
sphinx, exploited two years later in George Cukor’s disastrously subpar, Two-Faced Woman (1941); regrettably,
the movie that put a period to Garbo’s career. Rather than face any more bad
reviews, she retired from the fray with all her radiance and mystery intact,
living as a recluse in Manhattan for the rest of her days with only periodic
escapes to her native Sweden. Although Garbo was inundated with offers from
American film companies to make her ‘comeback’, for reasons never entirely
disclosed to her legions of adoring fans, she would never again appear on the
screen.
Since her
time, Garbo’s mysteriousness has been ensconced in movie land folklore; a
unicorn for the ages who seemingly sacrificed her art for the quiet life,
repeatedly denied whenever she dared venture beyond the relative safety of her
gated Manhattan apartment. Ninotchka is
the final jewel in Garbo’s crown; a fitting tribute to her formidable talents as
it remains such an anomaly in her body of work, but also, because it tantalizes
us with glimmers of the possibility of another Garbo the world was never again
to witness outside of the tabloids. Director, Ernest Lubitsch was a master
craftsman of this sort of silky romantic comedy; Garbo, his strongest ally as
she willfully lampoons the grave exterior concocted for her – not only in this
picture – but virtually all the efforts MGM had made to build her up as a
supremely tragic figure of the movies. Lubitsch unapologetically deflates this
premise to riotous effect in Ninotchka.
In retrospect,
Melvin Douglas is a mistake as Nina’s romantic ideal. Although undeniably slick
as the cosmopolitan suitor, Douglas somehow lacks the necessary sex appeal to
pull off the roguishly handsome Leon without at least a few hitches along the
way. He is most engaging when making a fool of himself, as when toppling from a
bench while attempting to profess violent love to his paramour, instead
incurring her rapturous laughter. Douglas also manages a moment of restrained,
almost poetic, sincerity when confronting the superficial and subversively
demonstrative Swana in a scene where he quietly professes his enduring love for
Ninotchka; not yet knowing she has already boarded a plane back to Moscow.
In 1957, MGM
and director, Rouben Mamoulian elected to remake Ninotchka
as Silk Stockings; a beloved
affair co-starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse; also, featuring the exuberant
and deliciously lush and suggestive lyrics of composer, Cole Porter; an affecting
and updated retelling. It is a curious thing when a remake bests the original
but, in hindsight, one ever so slightly craves for the 1939 non-musical
starring Garbo to burst into song and dance too. Barring this absence, Ninotchka is an adroit comedy, sprinkled
with the pixie dust of immeasurable and generally un-quantifiable movie magic.
One cannot imagine the film without Garbo, and yet, the remake is ably
supported by Charisse’s superbly stern and leggy counterpart. And the chemistry
between Astaire and Charisse in the remake, particularly as they elegant wrap
around one another’s supple limbs during their divinely inspired pas deux is a
wonderment to behold. Perhaps, it is a fool’s errand to choose which film is
more enjoyable, for they really are two uniquely organic experiences; each
possessing virtues and merits to study and extol. I’ll play the diplomatist
herein and declare I like them both equally – but for decidedly different
reasons. Either way, marrying Garbo to comedy was a pair ‘fated to be mated’. Ninotchka
is divine.
Garbo's
preferred cinematographer, William H. Daniels also photographed Ninotchka in luminous B&W. Warner Home Video's Blu-ray considerably advances on the old DVD release from 2003; darker contrast
and looking more crisply refined on the whole; occasionally revealing the
artifice of the backlot facades cobbled together with rear projection subbing
in for Paris. Nevertheless, this is how Ninotchka
ought to look on home video; admirably reproducing all of the details in these
elaborate sets and with a natural grain pattern looking very film-like. The movie, which merely looked respectably
solid on DVD, now sparkles with renewed luster. Moderate stabilization has been
applied. Age-related artifacts occasionally glimpsed on the DVD are wholly
absent from the Blu-ray. The image is smoothly satisfying without suggesting
any untoward DNR tinkering.
For the very
first time, I marveled at the sumptuous hotel décor, as example, and was
delighted to see some truly gorgeous fine details in Garbo’s clothing, hair and
makeup. Ninotchka looks very fine
indeed. The DTS mono audio has a relatively low bitrate. However, as much of
the film is dialogue-driven I did not particularly notice any undo shortcomings
outside of the obvious ones inflicted by the source element. As on the DVD, Warner offers us nothing by way
of extras of merit; a pair of short subjects and trailer is all we get. Bottom
line: while I would have preferred Warner go the extra mile for a new audio
commentary or, perhaps, even the inclusion of the extraordinary TCM documentary
they presently own the rights to on Garbo’s life, I cannot poo-poo the results
born of their efforts herein. Ninotchka
on Blu-ray comes highly recommended! P.S. – also available as part of Warner’s 1939: The Golden Year box set and the
preferred mode of purchase, provided you do not already own any of the titles
independently.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
1
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