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1939 romantic comedy starring Greta Garbo
Ninotchka

Ninotchka is a 1939 American film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, based on a screen story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka is Greta Garbo's first full comedy and her penultimate film. It is one of the first American movies which, under the cover of a satirical, light romance, depicted the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin as being rigid and gray, in this instance comparing it with the free and sunny Parisian society of pre-war years.

Cast and Crew

Melvyn DouglasCount Leon d'Algout
Greta GarboNinotchka (Nina Ivanovna Yakushova)

Video Products

Ninotchka, 5 Jan 1999

Articles

Freedom's Flicks: The 20 Best Libertarian Movies of all Time, Nov 1999
The Orange County Register picks movies for "freedom lovers"
14. Ninotchka (1939, tie). 'Garbo speaks' ran the ads touting the former star of silent films. She does so in one of the funniest anti-communist movies ever made. Similar story remade as 'Silk Stockings' (1957) with Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and delightful dancing. [FreedomCircle editor's note: the tagline for Ninotchka was actually 'Garbo laughs!']

Reviews

Ninotchka (1939)
    by Jon Osborne, Miss Liberty's Guide to Film and Video, 2001
For the most part, this film mocks the disastrous consequences of socialism, including mass poverty, censorship, and perpetual fear of the state. ... this delightful romantic comedy is listed in almost every reckoning of the greatest films, reflecting both its terrifically witty script and a wonderful performance by Greta Garbo ...

The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ninotchka" as of 7 Sep 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.