Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Year: 1939
I've read about the classic romantic comedy Ninotchka long before I finally caught it on TCM at 3 in the morning a few years back. The press surrounding the movie was mostly about film legend Greta Garbo finally laughing onscreen. Garbo was cool as ice. She always played this woman who was distant and unattainable, even in her silent films. When she finally spoke (in the 1930 movie Anna Christie), people heard a voice that matched her looks and she became a bigger star. Directed by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch, Ninotchka broke Garbo's icy demeanor, when halfway through the movie, she laughs. And laughs and laughs. More than the film's stars and their fantastic acting, I remember this movie fondly for its sparkling and witty script. Here is a scene wherein Garbo's stern Russian agent Nina Ivanovna Yakushova (aka Ninotchka) is being wooed by the very confident playboy Count Leon d'Algout, played by Melvyn Douglas:
INTERIOR, LIVING ROOM -- LEON'S APARTMENT Leon enters the room. Closes the door. Ninotchka is examining the room.
LEON
Well, may I offer you a drink, or how about something to eat?
NINOTCHKA
Thank you. I've had all the calories necessary for today.
Leon feels a little uncertain as to how to approach this creature.
NINOTCHKA
What do we do now?
LEON
We take off our hat and coat. (he takes her things) We sit down -- we make ourselves comfortable. We adjust ourselves to the prospect of a most enjoyable evening. We look at each other. We smile.
(Ninotchka doesn't respond)
Well... we don't smile. How about some music?
NINOTCHKA
Is that customary?
LEON
It helps. It has ever since King David wooed Bathsheba with the harp. As I am not so fortunate as to have my harp at hand, I shall turn on the radio.
NINOTCHKA (the observer)
I should say this room is eighteen by twenty-five.
LEON
Not too big and not too small. What I'd call the typical room of an average man. Or shall we say a little above average. Now if there are any special aspects you wish to study I have nothing to conceal. Just look around. That's my desk. Those are my books, and here am I. Where shall we begin?
NINOTCHKA
I will start with you.
LEON
That's great. I'm thirty-five years old. Just over six feet tall. I weigh a hundred and eighty-two pounds stripped.
NINOTCHKA
And what is your profession?
LEON
Keeping my body fit, keeping my mind alert, keeping my landlord appeased. That's a full-time job.
NINOTCHKA
And what do you do for mankind?
LEON
For mankind not a thing -- for womankind the record is not quite so bleak.
NINOTCHKA
You are something we do not have in Russia.
LEON
Thank you. Thank you.
NINOTCHKA
That is why I believe in the future of my country.
LEON
I begin to believe in it myself since I've met you. I still don't know what to make of it. It confuses me, it frightens me a little, but it fascinates me, Ninotchka.
NINOTCHKA
You pronounce it incorrectly. Ni-notchka.
LEON
Ni-notchka.
NINOTCHKA
That is correct.
LEON
Ninotchka, do you like me just a little bit?
NINOTCHKA
Your general appearance is not distasteful.
LEON
Thank you.
NINOTCHKA
Look at me. The whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea is excellent.
LEON
Your cornea is terrific. Tell me -- you're so expert on things -- can it be that I'm falling in love with you?
NINOTCHKA
You are bringing in wrong values. Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological, or shall we say chemical, process. A lot of nonsense is talked and written about it.
LEON
Oh, I see. What do you use instead?
NINOTCHKA
I acknowledge the existence of a natural impulse common to all.
LEON
What can I possibly do to encourage such an impulse in you?
NINOTCHKA
You don't have to do a thing. Chemically we are already quite sympathetic.
LEON (bewildered, and yet completely intrigued)
You're the most improbable creature I've ever met in my life, Ninotchka, Ninotchka...
NINOTCHKA
You repeat yourself.
LEON
I'd like to say it a thousand times.
NINOTCHKA
Don't do it, please.
LEON
I'm at a loss, Ninotchka. You must forgive me if I appear a little old-fashioned. After all, I'm just a poor bourgeois.
NINOTCHKA
It's never too late to change. I used to belong to the petty bourgeoisie myself. My father and mother wanted me to stay and work on the farm, but I preferred the bayonet.
LEON (bewildered)
The bayonet? Did you really?
NINOTCHKA
I was wounded before Warsaw.
LEON
Wounded? How?
NINOTCHKA
I was a sergeant in the Third Cavalry Brigade. Would you like to see my wound?
LEON (dumfounded)
I'd love to. (she pulls the blouse off her shoulder and shows him her scar)Tsk, tsk, tsk.
NINOTCHKA
A Polish lancer. I was sixteen.
LEON
Poor Ninotchka. Poor, poor Ninotchka.
NINOTCHKA (readjusting her blouse)
Don't pity me. Pity the Polish lancer. After all, I'm alive.
More and more puzzled and fascinated, Leon sits down close to her.
LEON
What kind of a girl are you, anyway?
NINOTCHKA
Just what you see. A tiny cog in the great wheel of evolution.
LEON
You're the most adorable cog I ever saw in my life. Ninotchka, Cogitska, let me confess something. Never did I dream I could feel like this toward a sergeant.
A clock strikes.
LEON
Do you hear that?
NINOTCHKA
It's twelve o'clock.
LEON
It's midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half. Look at the clock. One hand has met the other hand. They kiss. Isn't that wonderful?
NINOTCHKA
That's the way a clock works. There's nothing wonderful about it. You merely feel you must put yourself in a romantic mood to add to your exhilaration.
LEON
I can't possibly think of a better reason.
NINOTCHKA
It's false sentimentality.
LEON (trying desperately to make her mood more romantic)
You analyze everything out of existence. You analyze me out of existence. I won't let you. Love is not so simple. Ninotchka, Ninotchka, why do doves bill and coo? Why do snails, coldest of all creatures, circle interminably around each other? Why do moths fly hundreds of miles to find their mates? Why do flowers open their petals? Oh, Ninotchka, Ninotchka, surely you feel some slight symptom of the divine passion... a general warmth in the palms of your hands... a strange heaviness in your limbs... a burning of the lips that is not thirst but a thousand times more tantalizing, more exalting, than thirst? He pauses, waiting for the results of his speech.
NINOTCHKA
You are very talkative.
That is too much for Leon. He takes her into his arms and kisses her.
LEON
Was that talkative?
NINOTCHKA
No, that was restful. Again.
Leon kisses her again.
NINOTCHKA
Thank you.
LEON
Oh, my barbaric Ninotchka. My impossible, unromantic, statistical...
The telephone rings.
LEON (continuing)
Glorious, analytical...
NINOTCHKA
The telephone is ringing.
LEON
Oh, let it ring.
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