1939 – Greta Garbo
Ninotchka
So I’ll start this off by mentioning something I noticed about this film, or at least its advertising campaign. Garbo laughs. That’s what they went with to bring people into the theaters. I guess everyone was so impressed with her performance in Grand Hotel that it was Garbo’s signature attitude. And in Ninotchka, there was an entire scene dedicated to making her laugh. But look at her body of work before this film. There were plenty of smiles and laughs in her many films. Ok, now that that’s out of the way…
Garbo gave yet another great performance. But really, as much as I enjoyed seeing her on the screen again, I have to look at her performance objectively. She was good, but the way the part was written, it was a little heavy handed. True, Garbo did a good job, but if you put a different actress into the roll, I doubt there would have been much different in their performances. The script was pretty specific on how Ninotchka needed to behave. It was a plot point. And in truth, the scene where she laughs felt forced. Yes, something funny happened, but she, and everyone else in the scene, seemed to be laughing way too hard, and it was obvious that they were acting. It didn’t feel like natural laughter.
But the rest of the time, she was just fine. She did very well in the romantic scenes. I liked how she started out as purely professional, stoic, and abrupt. But Garbo took her time opening up. It was gradual, which was perfectly realistic. And it was important, too, because by the end, I believed that she had fallen in love with her man. Her on-screen chemistry with Melvyn Douglas felt like a breath of clean air, very alluring.
But there was one scene in particular in which Garbo’s exceptional talent as an actor was wonderful to watch. It was the scene in which she became drunk on champagne. Acting believably drunk while not being too over-the-top about it is not an easy thing to do, and Garbo pulled it off in such a way as to almost make me feel like my own head was spinning from the alcohol. Overall, she did a fine job and I completely agree with her nomination.