Ninotchka has been making a hit with audiences since she hit the screen in 1939. A fascinating, yet little known, "second life" of the film was played out during the Italian Elections of 1947-48. The U.S. was most anxious that the Communists not be elected and pulled out all the stops to prevent it. One was to approach MGM and request prints of Ninotchka - to be shown widely to working class audiences in Italy. Since no 16mm prints of the film yet existed, MGM Labs did "print downs" from the original nitrate negative. The resulting prints are astonishingly beautiful (I have one) and they estimate five million Italians viewed it and other propaganda films each week before the elections - in spite of the efforts of the Communists to prevent its showing. One pro-Communist worker said afterward "What licked us was Ninotchka!" (See "Killing Hope" by William Blum). To paraphrase Carl Denham in King Kong, once again "Beauty Killed The Beast!"
Review of Ninotchka
