Ninotchka

NINOTCHKA demands that the viewer fall in love with Greta Garbo. I did not, and the film never rose above the level of amusing diversion because of it.

Here's the setup: Ninotchka's a mid-level Soviet apparatchik sent to Paris to complete the sale of a set of royal jewels. But hey, it's Paris. Who can't fall in love in, and with, Paris? Will Ninotchka loosen up and live a little? Will she accomplish her mission? Will capitalism defeat the tyranny of communism? Aw, hell - you know the answers to all those questions, so the only real question is whether you want to go along for the ride.

Problem is, Ninotchka is distant, brittle, and unwise. While watching her adventure, we get the sense that the actress playing her is smarter than she is, is perhaps smarter than us, and is merely shovelling it out for mass consumption. There is no spell, there is no magic, and there's barely even Paris.

What a drag.

Trouble in Paradise

TROUBLE IN PARADISE, an Ernst Lubitsch film from 1932, is ostensibly about two thieves and a mark. But it's really about class - about style, and cool, and knowing just the thing to say and just when to say it. I know this because it gives the magnificent Edward Everett Horton a brilliant role as the least cool guy in the room. When you cast Horton, you're casting the kind of class that makes real class look like the halls of Olympus.

And who walks the Olympian corridors? Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins as the thieves, and Kay Francis as the mark. And they're so witty, so smooth, so self-aware, that you can't help but love them, can't help but want to be like them, feel sad that your time with them is over when the film draws to a close. They're funny, but in a knowing smile kind of way. They're thoughtful, but they know where the exits are. In short, they're wonderfully idealized aspirational figures, and following them through the grace and eye of Lubitsch, we're happy to be in their company.

Yes, there's a story. And turnabouts, and great dialogue, and all of that. But TROUBLE IN PARADISE is really about intangibles, and it delivers them with gusto. This is an enormously pleasurable film.

To Be or Not to Be

I knew who Ernst Lubitsch, Carole Lombard, and Jack Benny were before I saw TO BE OR NOT TO BE. I knew that Lubitsch was a German Jew who fled to Hollywood during the rise of Hitler. I knew that Carole Lombard was a screen queen of the Golden Age. I knew that Jack Benny had a popular television show and made a running gag of his stinginess. I didn't know that Lubitsch had the talent to actually pull off a screwball comedy about the Warsaw Occupation. I didn't know that Lombard, in addition to being staggeringly beautiful, had perfect comic timing. And I didn't know that Jack Benny mixed detachment and warmth that kept me laughing both at and with him.

As previously mentioned, TO BE OR NOT TO BE labors under the burden of being set in the Nazy occupation of Warsaw. At the time of the film's release (1942), this was serious business, yet the full scope of the horrors of the occupation had yet to come to light. From our current vantage point, it's hard to associate the Warsaw Occupation with anything other than those horrors, but it's worth it to try and adopt the mindset of an America at war. At that time, it was common to paint our enemies as buffoons, and we were more than happy to engage with a troup of plucky resisters. Once we do adopt that mindset, we're in for a great time at the movies. Lubitsch takes jealousy, vanity, bravery, and fear; and he mixes them into high comedy combined with dramatic tension and a bit of cheerleading for the Allies.

He couldn't do it without Lombard, who comes off as smart, funny, and the greatest wearer of white silk dresses in Western history. She's the pivot about which the enterprise turns, and there isn't a moment she's onscreen that we don't invest in her. Benny's a great counterpart, a little older, a little vainer, and very jealous of his wife (as well he should be, with young Polish Air Force officer Robert Stack sniffing about), and the two play off one another with the aplomb of old pros.

So, while I admit that TO BE OR NOT TO BE made me a little uncomfortable at times (Col. Earhardt as a buffoon? That monster?), it stands as an excellent comedy and deserves its status as a classic of the screwball genre.

And now I know who these people really are.