Ninotchka
Part of the BAMcinématek series Hungarians in Hollywood
Thu, Oct 8 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
With Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Bela Lugosi
(1939) 110min
"From the moment she steps off a train in her commissar's costume, Garbo's exqusitive gravity of expression and the metronomic delivery of her lines are as profoundly hilarious as anything in the history of talking pictures." —Andrew Sarris.
Intended to soften the iconic Swedish actress’ icy persona, Lubitsch’s breezy romantic comedy finds Garbo playing a humorless Soviet envoy in Paris, where she discovers a new-found lust for life. The film also features “[Hungarian actor] Bela Lugosi’s most likeable and relaxed performance” (AllMovie Guide).
Channel 4 Film on Ninotchka
"While Garbo is perhaps still best remembered for her romances, and literary and historic melodramas, her loss to cinema is perhaps most acute in that this gem, which promised so much, turned out to be her penultimate film." More