Ninotchka (1939) on Netflix
Three Soviet agents come to Paris to sell jewels confiscated from the aristocracy. The exiled Grand Duchess Swana wants them back, so the envoy Ninotchka is sent to take over the sale.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.8/1025,129 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Soviet Board of Trade sends Iranoff, Buljanoff and Kopalski to Paris to sell jewelry confiscated from the Russian aristocracy during the revolution. The pieces once belonged to the Grand Duchess Swana, who lives in exile in the city. Count Alexis Rakonin, a waiter at their hotel, overhears the mission and tells her the jewels are to be sold. Count Léon d'Algout, her paramour, offers to retrieve the jewelry before the sale goes through. He interrupts the agents' meeting with a jeweler and says a petition blocks the sale. Displeased by a telegram sent in their name, Commissar Razinin dispatches the stern envoy Nina Ivanovna Yakushova, known as Ninotchka, to take charge. She and Léon meet on the street, neither knowing who the other is.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Monya Andreas Gossip (uncredited)
- Nino Bellinias Swana's Restaurant Guest (uncredited)
- Wilda Bennettas Swana's Restaurant Guest (uncredited)
- Frederika Brownas Swana's Restaurant Patron (uncredited)
- Emilie Cabanneas Gossip (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ninotchka (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Released in late 1939, shortly after World War II broke out in Europe, Ninotchka was a great success there but was banned in the Soviet Union and its satellite states.
- Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels noted on June 9, 1940 that the German press should see the "excellent American anti-Soviet film Ninotchka," and during Italy's 1948 general election the US State Department urged distributors to show it to counter the Italian Communist Party.
- MGM had scheduled Madame Curie as Greta Garbo's next film, but after the success of Ninotchka it teamed her with Melvyn Douglas again in Two-Faced Woman (1941), which drew the worst reviews of her career and became her final film.
- An MGM attempt to re-release Ninotchka during World War II was suppressed on the grounds that the Soviets were then allies of the West, and the film was released only after the war ended.
- Filipino writer and activist Ninotchka Rosca revealed during a 1966 Philippine congressional hearing that she took her pen name from the film.
