Lubitsch: “Ninotchka”

"Ninotchka" was shot in May, June and July in 1939 at MGM, and was released in November of that year. The tagline for its advertising was "Garbo Laughs!" as Garbo's first sound film ("Anna Christie") had been touted as "Garbo Talks!" The westernization of a Soviet commissar wasn't a typical subject for Hollywood in that era. The sceenplay was written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and Walter Reisch, and turned out to be Garbo's second-to-last film.

The musical version of "Ninotchka" was “Silk Stockings.” It had songs by Cole Porter; the Broadway production starred Hildegarde Knef and Don Ameche. The film starred Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire, with Joseph Buloff, Jules Munshin and Peter Lorre as three Soviet commissars. The link below is to Frank Nugent’s review in the November 10, 1939 issue of the New York Times.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=2&res=9801EFD8153EE23ABC4852DFB7678382629EDE&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Lubitsch Recycled

The Dramahound has long been interested in German theatre and film. Recently, I had a freelance gig writing about various subjects that ended months before it was supposed to, so I got stuck with a couple of chunks of prose on a variety of subjects, including Ernst Lubitsch.

Lubitsch's career spanned wide-ranging changes in film. When he began, it was as a high school dropout who was fortunate enough to join the famous Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Around this time, Lubitsch began acting in comedic films, and eventually directed himself. He often played a yokel character, recently moved to a city and unfamiliar with city ways. Out of this broad comedic sense grew Lubitsch's light, erotic touch, which he carried over into some of his lighter silent feature films, like "The Marriage Circle" and "Lady Windemere's Fan." Unlike many German emigres (Bertholt Brecht, Thomas Mann, Reinhardt, etc.), Lubitsch came to Hollywood in the 1920s, where he had an unsuccessful partnership with Mary Pickford that lasted for one film. He went on to direct "Ninotchka," "The Shop Around the Corner," and "The Merry Widow."

By the time of his death in 1947, his films were famous throughout the world, and his distinctive directing style had earned the soubriquet "the Lubitsch touch." Lubitsch's admirers included Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaunt and Billy Wilder.
This site gives a good overview of Lubitsch's life: http://www.lubitsch.com/biography.html