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No. 36: Ninotchka

Falling out of love with the grand promise of Marxism

by
Marc Tracy
December 07, 2011

1939, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. Ninotchka isn’t a black so much as a bitter comedy: It could only have been made by people who had fallen out of love with the grand promise of Marxism, and, in 1939—the year Stalin signed his pact with Hitler—we know who those people were. Among its greatest joys is the devious glee with which three Russian aristocrats are made into bumbling stock characters straight from the Yiddish stage. Everybody remembers Lubitsch directed; few remember that Wilder co-wrote.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.