When Greta Garbo Played a Soviet Agent
Today marks the anniversary of Greta Garbo’s death. The 1939 movie Ninotchka gave her a breakout comedy role — but also reflected the grim mood in Hollywood as Europe headed to war.
Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka, 1939. (FilmPublicityArchive / United Archives via Getty Images)
When Greta Garbo’s character Ninotchka returns to the dreary one-room apartment she shares with two other workers, she’s in a deep funk. Moscow, she finds, just doesn’t compare with Paris. She reminisces about various things — and notably, the elegant pair of silk stockings she had to leave behind. “You know how it is today,” warns her roommate Anna darkly. “All you have to do is wear a pair of silk stockings and they suspect you of counterrevolution!”
The Hollywood movie Ninotchka premiered in early November 1939. It was intended as a vehicle for MGM’s major star, Garbo, to act in a high-profile comedy for the first time. Yet as the drama of World War II unfolded across Europe, the high-powered quartet of writers trying to produce something relevant was shaken. A comedy — as ordered by their MGM bosses — was a high bar to surpass amid mindless tragedy. Three of the men, Mitteleuropeans who had emigrated to escape the Hitlerite threat, needed to perform well on Ninotchka. If they failed, they felt they might not be able to make a living — and a return to Europe was impossible.
Garbo’s Vehicle
From the minute Ninotchka — full name Nina Ivanovna Yakushova — marches through the Paris railroad station in her simple Soviet suit and low-heeled shoes, Garbo “owns” the film. Where else but Ninotchka does the leading lady reprimand a porter for taking tips and buying into a “corrupt” capitalist system bent on creating massive social inequality?
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