Comrades, "Ninotchka" was the 1939  comedy-romance that preceded "Comrade X" and proved—albeit temporarily—that audiences would go out to see movies with a farcical Soviet theme.


It shares some of the same actors (Felix Bressart, Sig Ruman) as "Comrade X" and includes Bela Lugosi as a Commissar. Although it's not quite as funny as "Comrade X," some of the best moments in the first third of the film are almost like a string of Dilbert cartoons with Ninotchka's hardcore Soviet pronouncements and observations about decadent Paris. 

You can watch it free online (or even download it) from Archive dot org: 
 

For comrades who don't know: Archive.org is a very good resource for public domain films and a lot of other stuff.

Incidentally, I mentioned in the "Comrade X" post that movies of this sort stopped being made once the U.S. and U.S.S.R. became 'allies." Here's a War Department manual from 1945 that reflects the softened attitude of the U.S. before the Cold War kicked off.

https://archive.org/details/PAM21-30/mode/2up

Colonel Obyezyana wrote: ↑

9/5/2023, 7:02 am

Incidentally, I mentioned in the "Comrade X" post that movies of this sort stopped being made once the U.S. and U.S.S.R. became 'allies." Here's a War Department manual from 1945 that reflects the softened attitude of the U.S. before the Cold War kicked off.

https://archive.org/details/PAM21-30/mode/2up

Wow. I wonder if it was a translation from the German brochures for Nazi soldiers issued for the brief period of the Soviet-Nazi alliance, when the two met in the middle of a divided Poland and held joint military parades, or when German military pilots got their training on Soviet airfields, hiding this fact from other European powers because it violated existing treaties. Just when the above movie was being made.

Red Square wrote: ↑

9/5/2023, 12:27 pm

Colonel Obyezyana wrote: ↑

9/5/2023, 7:02 am

Incidentally, I mentioned in the "Comrade X" post that movies of this sort stopped being made once the U.S. and U.S.S.R. became 'allies." Here's a War Department manual from 1945 that reflects the softened attitude of the U.S. before the Cold War kicked off.

https://archive.org/details/PAM21-30/mode/2up

Wow. I wonder if it was a translation from the German brochures for Nazi soldiers issued for the brief period of the Soviet-Nazi alliance, when the two met in the middle of a divided Poland and held joint military parades, or when German military pilots got their training on Soviet airfields, hiding this fact from other European powers because it violated existing treaties. Just when the above movie was being made.

Personally, I suspect the writers were promoted through the 1950s and 1960s and held top positions in the U.S.S.A. government through the 1970s and 1980s.

Kommissar Uberdave wrote: ↑

9/29/2023, 10:56 pm

Colonel Obyezyana wrote: ↑

9/28/2023, 8:40 pm

Kommissar Uberdave wrote: ↑

9/28/2023, 6:27 pm

Next up, "Ninotchka."

Seems you missed the "Ninochka" post from almost a month ago.

Link:

Ninotchka: A May-Watch-If-You-Want Film for All Comrades

If I were Komrade Chairman Josef Stolen, I could say I did, when I didn't, and smile and wave as I trip up the stairs...

You snooze, you lose.

A late, late side note:

In 1957, "Ninotchka" was re-made as the semi-musical "Silk Stockings," featuring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. It was derived from a stage production based on the older film.

Broadway musical/dance films don't normally light my fires but Fred Astaire's reputation is fully justified in this, his last film performance before his retirement.

Russian is spoken, the Soviet Union is parodied more and better than in "Ninotchka" and Peter Lorre plays one of the three corrupted commissars.

As in the original, Ninotchka mentions, "social justice," a term seldom used outside of communist circles before it became USSA policy under Democrat hegemony in the 21st century. 


"Ninotchka" and "Silk Stockings" are insults to the Soviet Union that debase women workers with vaginas and visually desecrate the memory of V.I. Lenin. It is no less than an orgy of Western decadence and materialism set to music—including so-called Roll and Rock. 

   

Cyd Charisse is the best dancer ever and my favorite dance scene in this movie is People's Cubist on so many levels, starting with the song title, "The Red Blues." The actual dance begins at about the third minute, so skip forward, comrades, if you have no time to watch from the beginning.

Red Square wrote: ↑

3/16/2024, 10:03 pm

Cyd Charisse is the best dancer ever.

Suggestion: have a look at Audrey Hepburn's dancing in "Funny Face" (1957), particularly the "Socialist Bookstore Dance, "The Beatnik Café Dance" and the "Socialist Beatnik's Apartment Dance."

Some of the cinematography in this film is at least 10 years ahead of its time, with multiple-panel framing seldom seen again until the opening titles of "The Billion Dollar Brain" (1967).