Ninotchka (1939) was the long-awaited, classic romantic comedy, with a clever and witty script and the magnificent presence of actress Greta Garbo in her first official American comedy (in her next-to-last film). The charming film about clashing ideologies (Soviet communism vs. capitalism) begins with Garbo portrayed at first as a humorless, cold, curt, deadpan, and seriously-austere Russian envoy (in a parody of her own stiff onscreen image), who soon melts and is transformed and softened by Parisian love (and a persuasive playboy Count) into a frivolous, romantic figure and converted Communist.
The charming, sparkling screenplay that satirizes the Communist political system with sexual humor was written by Billy Wilder (before he became a director), Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, based on a screen story by Melchior Lengyel. They returned to a slightly similar theme two years later in their screenplay for Ball of Fire (1941). Other spin-offs of the Ninotchka theme include MGM's Comrade X (1940) with Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr (in the Soviet Union), and The Iron Petticoat (1956) with Katharine Hepburn and Bob Hope (in London). The storyline also became the foundation for the Broadway (Cole Porter) stage musical Silk Stockings - that was later filmed by director Rouben Mamoulian in a 1957 film version with Cyd Charisse in Garbo's role opposite Fred Astaire.

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards (with no wins in the year of the victorious Gone With the Wind), including Best Picture, Best Actress (Greta Garbo with her fourth and last unsuccessful nomination), Best Original Story (Melchior Lengyel), and Best Screenplay (co-writer Billy Wilder's first of a career 21 nominations). Director Ernst Lubitsch wasn't even nominated!

MGM's film promotions and publicity used the slogan: "Garbo Laughs!" capitalizing on the legendary Garbo mystique and persona and promising to humanize it. She succumbs to laughter in the film when her co-star falls clumsily from a cafe chair after a joke he has told fails to produce a response. [This was shades of an earlier campaign for her talkie debut in Anna Christie (1930) - "Garbo Talks!"] Additional ads proclaimed: "Don't pronounce it - see it!"

Masterfully produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, known for sophisticated, witty, and stylish comedies, this film was major star Greta Garbo's 26th film (and only Lubitsch film), and considered to be her last great film. Few of the easily-recognizable, elegant "Lubitsch touches" are obvious throughout the film, although the film gracefully and elegantly presents the romantic love affair between the two lead characters. [Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo had previously appeared in only one other film, As You Desire Me (1932), and they also starred together in Two-Faced Woman (1941), Garbo's last film when she quit the industry at age 36.]

The film is also noted for being one of the earliest political spoofs of Stalin's Communist Russia (with its absolute control, power of censorship, and drab life of deprivation for average citizens), especially remarkable because the film was released during war in Europe (a month after Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland). The Russian emissaries in the film are portrayed as comedic, stereotypical caricatures who actually take a liking to the capitalistic system. When the film was released, it was banned in the Soviet Union and its satellites. Lubitsch would go on to make an even more biting wartime comedy a few years later, To Be or Not to Be (1942), with Carole Lombard and Jack Benny.