The Story: This is one of the few remaining Premiere Magazine features entitled "Classic Scene"—where they took a slice of a movie, reprinting the dialogue (as it appeared in the movie). And it's a good one: Ninotchka, directed by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch from a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch and starring the almost-mythic Greta Garbo, in a role that is comedic rather than her customary audience-pleasing dramatic turns.
Wilder, in his early days screenwriting in America, tended to look to his European roots for subject matter for his scripts and Ninotchka has a bit of an Old World fairy tale aspect to it, despite its satiric thrusts and its eye towards political realities. The title character is an ice-queen, not so much of temperament but of political ideal, who finds herself in a strange land that she finds corrupt and decadent, pursued by a member of royalty who is equally corrupt and decadent. But Charming...as most fairy-tale royalty is.
One knows the path that this tale is going, but in the hands of very smart writers, an adept director, and an embassy of crackling character actors, it's a movie-confection of the most decadent kind.
The Set-up: Paris has been invaded. But, this time it's by the Russian Board of Trade where three agents are trying to sell jewels seized during the 1917 Revolution. They should have chosen another market, as Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire) in exile in Paris hears of the potential sale and sends her lover, Count Leon d'Algout (Melvyn Douglas) to file a writ laying claim to her court jewels, stopping the sale in mid-negotiation. Moscow sends special envoy Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova (Greta Garbo) to see that the sale goes through. D'Algout, on encountering Ninotchka on the streets of Paris, becomes intrigued with her and they eventually make their way to his decadent apartment.
Действие!
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:Ye..
LEON:
I'm beginning to believe in it myself since
I've met you. I still don't know
what quite what it's about. It confuses me,
LEON:it frightens me,
LEON: 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. Ninotchka, tell me --
you're so expert on things -- can it
be that I'm falling in love with
you?
NINOTCHKA:You are bringing Why must you bring in wrong values?
NINOTCHKA:Love is a romantic designation for a
most ordinary biological, or shall
we say chemical, process.
NINOTCHKA: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.
NINOTCHKA: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.
NINOTCHKA: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)
LEON: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. 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. What's wonderful about it?
LEON: Ninotchka, it's midnight. One half of Paris is
making love to the other half.
NINOTCHKA:You merely
feel you must put yourself in a
romantic mood to add to your
exhilaration.
LEON:
I can't possibly think of any 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.
LEON:Love is
not so simple. Ninotchka, Ninotchka,
why do doves bill and coo?
LEON:Why do
snails, coldest of all creatures,
circle interminably around each other?
Why do moths fly hundreds of miles
to find their mates?
LEON:Why do flowers
open their petals? Oh, Ninotchka,
Ninotchka, surely you feel some slight
symptom of the divine passion...
LEON:a
general warmth in the palms of your
hands... a strange heaviness in your
limbs...
LEON: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,...
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