Ninotchka (1939) - Review -Garbo's Oscar Swan Song

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Hey, this is Mad Movie Mark of the Mad Movie Mark movie review. Thank you for joining me as I review the 1939 comedy romance noka.

[00:00:08]>> This whole thing seems very suspicious.

[00:00:11]>> Hey, hold on a second. I promise I'm not trying to do anything suspicious. My only goal for the next like five or six years is to review every movie in this book. The 101 movies you must see before you die. And noka stars Greta Garbo.

[00:00:30]This is the third film for this list that I've done of Greta Garbos. The other two are Camille and Queen Christina. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably the last film I will review of hers from this list. Uh she plays the title character of the Noka. We also have Melvin Douglas who's playing Leon and or Ena Claire who plays Swana. This film is nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards. also best actress for a league, Greta Garbo. This would be the final time that she would be nominated for an Academy Award as she left uh Hollywood abruptly in 1940. She never gave a reason, but uh a lot of people believe there's a few reasons why she might have left Hollywood. She had declining box office sales. The type of movies that people wanted to see were starting to change. And she hated the limelight. She did not like the attention. She did not like Hollywood.

[00:01:25]She basically left to become a recluse for the rest of her life life. Now I think this is a tragedy because all the films I've seen with Greta Garbo are fantastic and they are because she is such a great actress. She has such range, such emotion. She's able to do these 180 arcs like no one else can do.

[00:01:45]Um just a phenomenal actress and I wish I wish there would have been more films with her on this list, but she only did so many. So what can you do? This was Greta Garbo's first full comedy. It's famous for transitioning her on-screen image. She's known primarily for serious and dramatic roles before this. And she had rarely done comedy roles. It is a sharp political satire. It was released just before World War II, and I mean just before. World War II started in 1940. This was released in 1939. So, we are right on the cusp of war. Um, Dinoka cleverly satarizes the contrast between Soviet communism and western capitalism.

[00:02:30]It was directed by Lubich. It is a prime example of the Lubet's touch, a style known for elegance, subtle humor, and suggestive storytelling. This movie was co-written by Billy Wilder, and it's a landmark romantic comedy. It blends romance, politics, and satire in a way that influenced later romantic comedies.

[00:02:49]I think this film is great. Like I said, Greta Garbo's acting is phenomenal. I also think that Melvin Douglas has great chemistry with her. They play off each other very well. You could really believe that these two could actually be in a relationship in real life. They just have that much chemistry with each other. There's also three like sort of side characters, but also sort of main characters in this film named Manov, Iron Manov, Balinoff, and Kaplaski. I'm pronouncing those all wrong. I apologize. This is exactly why I couldn't get through Crime and Punishment because I can't read Russian names, but that's basically what their names are. Now, when this movie opens up, we have jewels that are confiscated from the aristocracy during the Russian uh revolution. These three gentlemen uh Manov, Baljingh, and Kaplaskki are attempting to sell these jewels. Now they obviously think that they have a right to them. Now they're uh but the former grand duchess Swana who uh these are her family jewels. She's alerted through different channels that her jewels are found. They were lost for a very long time and they're now trying to be sold by these three men. So she ends up hiring uh Leon to help her retrieve these jewels for her. Now, he believes that the jewels were stolen illegally by the Soviet government. And he what he does at first is he gets these three men into a restaurant and he gets them sloppy drunk and he has them sign this piece of paper that says that everything's copacetic and they're going to return the jewels or whatever. Now, obviously, I don't know how they do things in Paris, but in United States, if they sign something like this, it wouldn't be legal because they're under duress.

[00:04:39]They're drunk. They don't understand the contract. Russia hears what's going on.

[00:04:43]They are not happy with how these three gentlemen are handling this jewels sale.

[00:04:48]So, they hire a special envoy um named Ninoka to help win the lawsuit. And at first, she's rigid. She is methodical.

[00:04:59]She is stern.

[00:05:01]She's very focused. She's laser focused on winning this uh for Russia and doing what needs to be done. uh to kind of contrast the difference between Soviet communism and western capitalism. When she first gets to Paris, she's given this big luxurious room. It's huge. It has all the amenities that you could ever want. And her first reaction is like, "How many people do I have to share this room with?" Cuz we'll learn later that her room in Russia, she shares it with two other people. So, it's ridiculous for her to think that she would get this entire room to herself. Now the three men, manov, Baljinoff, and Kaplaskki, they all tell her that this is her room. She asks how much the room is per night. And when they tell her, she basically says, "That's like seven cows in Russia. I feel like I'm taking away seven cows from the people of Russia." Like I this doesn't settle well with me. Uh which to me is immediately hilarious. It's immediately funny. Um so she's all business. For some reason, she wants to the dimensions of the Eiffel Tower and how many steps there are. And she's asking for all these like blueprints and all these plans and all these things. Um these laws about the different ownerships of the jewels and all this stuff. And uh she's just she knows what she needs. She knows what she wants and she's going after it. Now, while she's trying to find the Eiffel Tower and trying to get her way to the Eiffel Tower, she runs into Lyon. Obviously, at first, she doesn't know that this is the person that she's supposed to be going toe-to-toe with legally, the person that's going to be um challenging her for these jewels and these diamonds. Uh so, she meets him and she asks him for directions to the Eiffel Tower. He's immediately enamored by her. Uh he loves like her rigidity. He loves the fact that she's unlike any other person he's ever met in his life. He loves the fact that she's Russian uh when he finds out that she's Russian. And he basically falls head over heels for this woman. He is totally in love. You can just see it in his eyes, in his face. The acting of Melvin Douglas in this film is amazing.

[00:07:15]He looks enamored. He looks like he's just met the love of his life for the first time. Um and it's absolutely fantastic. Now, he ends up inviting She ends up saying like, "Aren't you going to like invite me back to your house?"

[00:07:26]Which he's surprised about because he thought that this was going to be a lot more work. He thought he was going to have to uh do more to convince this woman that uh she should go back to his h to his place. So, they ended up going back to his place and they have a very lovely time. Uh, and she ends up finding out that he is the person that uh that she is supposed to be going toe-to-toe with. He finds out that she's that person. She finds out that he's that person. Now, she wants to kind of cut this off right away because this is supposed to be all business. She can't be sleeping with the enemy essentially.

[00:08:03]But he doesn't seem like he really cares at all about this jewel thing. He's like, "Ah, let's just forget there's jewels. Let's just focus on our relationship. Let's focus on who we are as a couple. This jewel thing will settle itself out. Whoever wins will win. Doesn't matter. To the victor goes the spoils. Whatever. Who cares about that? Someone will get the jewels and then that's them. Let's focus on our relationship. Like I'm in love with you.

[00:08:27]I want to be with you. Um but she's very much against it at first. She does not want to uh to focus on the jewels or focus on this relationship. Eventually though, uh he meets her at a restaurant by chance and he starts telling her all these like dad jokes, these jokes that he uh thinks are hilarious. I mean, they they are pretty funny. They they are uh I thought they were funny. I love dad jokes, though. Um she doesn't think they're very funny, though. She just says they're silly. They're silly jokes.

[00:08:57]That's how she describes it. Uh but later on, he gets so upset by this. He gets so mad that she does not like his jokes. and he's just fuming cuz he's like, "How could how could no one like my jokes? I'm hilarious." Um uh but later on she'll just be sitting at this meeting where they're her and her Russian team are trying to discuss strategy and stuff and she'll just start busting out laughing cuz she's remembering these jokes that he told and she's finally getting them and she finally thinks that they're funny. And this is where you kind of see the crack in her armor, I would say, where she starts falling in love. She starts trying to like get out of her rigidity and dress like she wants to go out on the town, like she wants to have a good time. She starts letting her hair down a little bit. Um, her and Leon end up going to dinner and then they end up spending the night together and while they're like dancing and having fun, uh, they go home and they're both kind of drunk and they get into the safe that these jewels are being held in just for now until this this lawsuit is over. Um, and they get in the safe and she puts on the crown and she ends up falling asleep with the crown. He ends up falling asleep in the room next door. Uh they don't like do anything because they're both drunk. He kind of just leaves. And the next day she wakes up and um Swana, who is the one who is supposed to have the legal, she thinks she has the legal right to these jewels and everything, uh shows up at her door and basically says that she has a proposition that she wants to float by um float by Ninochka that I'll give you all the jewels. You can win this case. All I ask is that you leave because she is also in love with Lyon and she doesn't want Noska and Lyon to be together. So, you'll get everything you want. You just have to go back to Russia and agree to never see Lyon again. Now, at first, she doesn't want to do this, but then she realized she doesn't have the crown on her head anymore and her jewels are gone. Now, Swana uh has been able to have people kind of um um kind of look into what these what Leon and her are doing. They figured out what the combination was to this safe.

[00:11:15]They took all the jewels and she says, "I have the jewels now. Uh so, if you want them back and you want all this to work out for you, all you got to do is get on that trip, that plane to Russia."

[00:11:25]So, she ends up doing it. Uh she I I mean, she may be in love. She is very much in love with Leon, but she also loves her country and she wants to do what's right by her country. She basically came to do a job to get these jewels back and that's she has a chance now to do it without going to trial. So, she ends up doing it. Leon finds out through um Swana the next day about what happened. He's supposed to be going to dinner later on with Nenotka, but that's obviously not going to happen. and and then not ends up going back to Russia.

[00:11:59]She ends up going back to that one room where she's sharing with two other people. Now, um Irongh and Kaplaski are there too and they end up having dinner with her. This is also kind of shows you the difference between um Russia and France and the western cultures is that they were struggling to like find these eggs that were they no eggs that they were going to like boil or whatever to make an omelette to fry to make an omelette. They each had to bring an egg. Noska ended up having two eggs and this was like a feast for them.

[00:12:33]Like this is something that is unheard of in Russia. So they end up like staying together and trying to make this omelette. Now, Leon is desperately trying to get to Russia. He's trying to get a visa so he can get to Russia so he can go see her. He goes to this uh to the Russian consulate or whatever it is to get his visa. And they tell him, "No.

[00:12:54]Uh because there's no love in Russia.

[00:12:56]You can't go to Russia for love. Uh it's it's not done. You seem like a spy.

[00:13:01]Something's very weird about you. I'm not going to give you that visa." And every time he tries to get a visa somewhere, apparently it doesn't work.

[00:13:07]So what he does is he he hashes out this plan that we find out later where uh manov Boljinoff and Kaplasi uh end up going somewhere I don't remember where it is uh on some official business and they open up this restaurant that's financed by Lyon and they cause this great stir and this great commotion and they make Russia look really bad while they have this restaurant open to so bad that they send um they send anka back to take care of these three people and she ends up um finding Leon and falling back in love again and they all decide that they're going to defect basically that they're not going back to Russia that they're going to stay and have this fantastic life ink and Leyon and that is basically the movie all wrapped up in a nice little bundle the story to me this is one of the few films I've ever watched in my life where this the whole jewel thing selling the jewels And none of that really matters. It's just it's just a backstory almost. It's almost like it's background music in this in this cuz you need some sort of plot to keep the film going to keep it interesting and it's just kind of there.

[00:14:20]But the movie for me, the real film here is the transition of Noka from this rigid uh stern very serious person to this woman who finds love. She like finds elegance. she finds like actually enjoying being like dainty and letting her hair down and being vulnerable. Um, that transition that Greta Garbo does is the movie to me as well as the relationship between her and Leyon and her relationship between the three uh Russian people who originally are there to sell these jewels. Like that's the entire movie. I don't care about any of this this jewel stuff, whether they sell them or they don't sell them or some one side gets them. I It's not like I was rooting for the Russian side to get the jewels or the um the France side to get the rules, the jewels. I didn't really care about any of that. That that plot didn't even have to end. Like they could have not even gone back to that. I wouldn't have cared. It's the relationship. It's the love story. It's the transition that Greta Garbo does that is this movie. and I think is absolutely phenomenal. She is, like I said, she is such a great actress. Um, that she seamlessly does this on screen over the hour and a half or two hours or whatever this movie is. And it's so believable. The relationship is so believable. The relationship we have she has with these three other Russian gentlemen. Everything is just really well done. Uh, the acting is just so phenomenal. The there's also some really good bits of cinematography in here, too. Uh, the music is really good.

[00:15:55]Everything's great. Direction is fantastic as well. But this is all about the acting. This is all about that transition. This is all about the love story. I think it's all done really well. Um, the chemistry that Leon and Nka have on screen is just amazing. And in the beginning, you could really I I talked about this a little bit earlier when I was talking about the synopsis, but you could really feel and really see on his face and in his gestures and in his movements and what he's doing that Leon is just head over heels at first sight in love with Ninochka. And he's basically going to dedicate the rest of this movie and his entire life to getting her. And I really like the fact that he didn't care about how this case ended. like he didn't care if he won. He didn't care if they got the jewels. Like a little bit of him maybe inside cares about it, but all he cares about is going after this woman that he loves.

[00:16:52]All he cares about is winning her heart.

[00:16:53]She's just so unique to him. She is so different than anything he's ever seen before. He knows that this is going to be the love of his life. He knows that this is going to be the one person and he's laser focused on that. And I think that that is phenomenal. I would have hated if this was all about him trying to trying to win this case and at the same time also trying to win her. That would have just been too much, I think, going on at one time. But the fact that he's laser focused on her, I thought was phenomenal. I just think this movie is really well done. I'm going to give it a nine out of 10. I hope you join me next time when I review a little indie movie, a little film that not a lot of people have heard of, not a lot of people have seen, but I'm sure maybe your grandparents have seen it, maybe you know someone who saw it. It's going to be The Wizard of Oz. Thank you. I hope you have a great day.