Urge to merge

Silk Stockings

(1957)

Ninotchka may stack the deck in favor of the capitalistic West, but at least in 1939 it could allow some honor to a system with which the West still had a jumbled relationship. By 1957, it's impossible for any credit to be extended to the Cold War enemy--instead of crown jewels whose purchase price was the blood of the workers, the bone of contention here is a Russian composer yearning to breathe free, and Comrade Nina is not allowed to win a single doctrinal point. (Moreover, the romantic lead--granted, here, a far more romantic Fred Astaire--is here not a morally questionable quasi-gigolo but merely a morally questionable movie producer.) At the 90-minute mark, Ninotchka stands on nationalistic principle, and the principle is at least arguably legitimate, but when love later conquers all, the principle isn't even given a pro forma nod.

But hey, it's a Cole Porter musical and a dance flick, and it stands up nicely. Cyd Charisse as Ninotchka actually outshines the nearly-sixty-year-old Astaire, and the most notable dance is her ballet solo to the title instrumental: where Garbo merely spirited away a hideous hat, Charisse locks her door and draws the shade to don an entire Parisian wardrobe, from titular footwear up, in one of the first filmic female masturbatory fantasies I know of.