Leon quotes from Ninotchka (1939)

Swana

It's really a wretched morning, wretched. I can't get myself right. I wanted to look mellow and I look brittle. My face doesn't compose well - it's all highlights. How can I dim myself down, Leon? Suggest something. Oh, I'm so bored with this face. I wish I had someone else's face. Who's face would you have if you had your choice? Oh well, I guess one gets the face one deserves.

There's one marvelous advantage to your conversation, Swana. However many questions you ask, you never expect an answer.

Ninotchka

How long must we wait here?

Well, uh, until the policeman blows his whistle again.

Ninotchka

At what intervals does he whistle?

What?

Ninotchka

How many minutes between the first and second whistle?

You know that's very funny. I never thought of that before.

Ninotchka

You've never been caught in a similar situation?

Yes, I have, now that I've come to think about it. It's staggering. Good heavens. If I add it all up, I must have spent years waiting for signals. Imagine, an important part of my life wasted between whistles.

Ninotchka

In other words, you don't know.

No.

Ninotchka

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Ninotchka

Correct me if I'm wrong. We are facing north, aren't we?

Facing north? Well now, I'd have to commit myself without my compass. Pardon me, are you an explorer?

Ninotchka

No, I am looking for the Eiffel Tower.

Good heavens, is that thing lost again? Oh, are you interested in a view?

Ninotchka

I'm interested in the Eiffel Tower from a technical standpoint.

Technical? No, no, I'm afraid I couldn't be of much help from that angle. You see, a Parisian only goes to the Tower in moments of despair to jump off.

Ninotchka

How long does it take a man to land?

Now isn't that too bad. The last time I jumped, I forgot to time it. Let me see now, the Eiffel Tower - ah, your finger please?

Ninotchka

Why do you need my finger?

It's bad manners to point with your own. There, the Eiffel Tower.

Ninotchka

And where are we?

Where are we? Let me see. Where are we? Ah, here we are. There you are, and here am I. Feel it?

Ninotchka

I am interested only in the shortest distance between these two points. Must you flirt?

Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural.

Ninotchka

Suppress it!

I'll try.

Ninotchka

For my own information, would you call your approach toward me typical of the local morale?

Mademoiselle, it is that approach which has made Paris what it is.

Ninotchka

You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?

Well, nothing's happened recently to shake my self-confidence.

Ninotchka

I have heard of the arrogant male in capitalistic society. It is having a superior earning power that makes you that way.

A Russian! I love Russians! Comrade. I've been fascinated by your Five-Year Plan for the last fifteen years.

Ninotchka

Your type will soon be extinct.

I'm glad I saw it before becoming extinct.

Ninotchka

Now don't misunderstand me. I do not hold your frivolity against you. As basic material, you may not be bad. But you are the unfortunate product of a doomed culture. I feel very sorry for you.

Ah, but you must admit that this doomed old civilization sparkles. Look at it. It glitters!

It's such a pleasant little place. It has all the comforts. Easy to reach - near the subway, bus, and streetcar.

Ninotchka

Does it mean you want me to go there?

Oh, now please, please, don't misunderstand me.

Ninotchka

Then you don't want me to go there?

No, no, no, no! No, no, I didn't say that either. Naturally, nothing would please me more.

Ninotchka

Then why don't we go? You might be an interesting subject of study.

I'll do my best.

I'm thirty-five years old, just over six feet tall, and weigh 182 pounds stripped.

Ninotchka

What is your profession?

My profession? Mmmm, keeping my body fit, keeping my mind alert, and keeping the landlord appeased. That's a full time job.

Ninotchka

And what do you do for mankind?

For mankind? Yes, uh, not so much for mankind. But for womankind, my record isn't quite so bleak.

Ninotchka

You are something we do not have in Russia.

Thank you.

Ninotchka

That's why I believe in the future of my country.

Yes. I'm beginning to believe in it myself since I met you. I still don't quite know what it's all about. Confuses me, frightens me. It fascinates me. Ninotchka, you like me just a little bit?

Ninotchka

Your general appearance is not distasteful.

Thank you.

Ninotchka

The whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea is excellent.

Your cornea is terrific. Ninotchka, tell me, you're so expert on things: can it be that I'm falling in love with you?

Ninotchka

Why must you bring in wrong values? Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological - or, shall we say, chemical - process. A lot of nonsense is talked and written about it.

Oh I see. What do you use instead?

Ninotchka

I acknowledge the existence of a natural impulse common to all.

What can I possibly do to encourage such an impulse in you?

Ninotchka

You don't have to do a thing. Chemically, we're already quite sympathetic.

You're the most incredible creature I've ever met. Ninotchka. Ninotchka.

Ninotchka

You repeat yourself.

Yes, I'd like to say it a thousand times. You must forgive me when I seem a little old-fashioned. After all, I'm just a poor bourgeois.

Ninotchka

It's never too late to change. I used to belong to the petite bourgeoisie myself.

Ninotchka

My father and mother wanted me to stay and work on the farm, but I preferred the bayonet.

The bayonet? Did you really?

Ninotchka

I was wounded before Warsaw.

Wounded? How?

Ninotchka

I was a sergeant in the Third Cavalry Brigade. Would you like to see my wound?

I'd love to.

What kind of a girl are you anyway?

Ninotchka

Just what you see. A tiny cog in the great wheel of evolution.

You're the most adorable cog I've ever seen. Ninotchka, let me confess something. Never did I dream I could feel like this toward a sergeant.

Do you hear that?

Ninotchka

It's twelve o'clock.

It's midnight. Look at the clock. One hand has met the other hand. They kiss. Isn't that wonderful?

Ninotchka

That's the way a clock works. What's wonderful about it?

Ninotchka, it's midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half.

Ninotchka

You merely feel you must put yourself in a romantic mood to add to your exhilaration.

I can't possibly think of any better reason.

Ninotchka

That's false sentimentality.

Oh, you analyze everything out of existence. You'd analyze me out of existence but I won't let you. Love isn't so simple, Ninotchka. Ninotchka, why do doves bill and coo? Why do snails, the coldest of all creatures, circle interminably around each other? Why do moths fly hundreds of miles to find their mates? Why do flowers slowly open their petals? Oh, Ninotchka, Ninotchka, surely you feel some slight symptom of the divine passion? A general warmth in the palms of your hands, a strange heaviness in your limbs, a burning of the lips that isn't thirst but something a thousand times more tantalizing, more exulting, than thirst?

Ninotchka

You are very talkative. [He kisses her]

Was that talkative?

Ninotchka

No, that was restful. Again. [After being encouraged, Leon kisses her again] Thank you.

Oh, my barbaric Ninotchka. My impossible, unromantic, statistical - [She takes charge and kisses him back] Again.

Ninotchka

I must go.

Or should I say Special Envoy Yakushova?

Ninotchka

Let's forget we ever met.

No, no, no, I have a much better suggestion. Let's forget the telephone ever rang. I never heard that you're Yakushova. You're Ninotchka. My Ninotchka.

Ninotchka

I was sent here by my country to fight you.

All right, fight me. Fight me as much as you want, only fight me tomorrow morning. There's nothing sweeter than sharing a secret with an enemy.

Ninotchka

You represent white Russia and I represent Red Russia.

No, tonight, let's not represent anybody but ourselves.

Ninotchka

It's out of the question. If you wish to approach me...

You know I want to.

Ninotchka

Then do it through my lawyer.

But Ninotchka, you can't walk out like this. I'm crazy about you. I thought I'd made an impression on you. You liked the white of my eye.

Ninotchka

I must go.

Oh no, Ninotchka. I held you in my arms. You kissed me!

Ninotchka

I kissed the Polish lancer too, before he died.

Ninotchka

Bring me something simple. I never think about food.

Madame, if you don't think about food, what do you think about?

Ninotchka

The future of the common people.

That's also a question of food.

You insulted him, you know that? You hurt his feelings. It was just like telling a musician that you don't like music. Why that good old man believes in food just as you believe in Karl Marx. You can't go around hurting people like that, Comrade Yakushova. But you can make it up to him. Do you know how? By eating everything that he brings you with relish, by drinking everything with gusto, by having a good time for the first time in your natural life!

When we first went to my apartment, did I have the slightest idea that you were connected with this deal?

Ninotchka

You know now. And I know now that you are a man who employs business methods which in Russia would be punished by death.

Ohhh, death, death! Always so glum! What about life, Ninotchka? Do Russians never think about life? Of the moment in which we are living? The only moment we ever really have? Oh, Ninotchka, don't take things so seriously. Nothing is worth it, really. Please...relax...I beg you, Sergeant, smile!

Ninotchka

What?

Will you smile?

Ninotchka

Why?

Well, just smile.

Ninotchka

At what?

At anything. At the whole ridiculous spectacle of life. At people being so serious, taking themselves pompously, exaggerating their own importance. If you can't think of anything else to laugh at, you can laugh at you and me.

Ninotchka

Why?

Because we are an odd couple.

Ninotchka

Then you should go back to your table.

No. No, I can't leave you. I won't. Not yet. Not until I've made you laugh...at least once.

Maybe the trouble isn't with the joke, maybe it's with you. I'll give you one more chance. When I first heard this joke, I laughed myself sick! Here goes. A man comes into a restaurant. He sits down at the table and he says, 'Waiter, bring me a cup of coffee without cream.' Five minutes later, the waiter comes back and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, we have no cream. Can it be without milk?'

Oh you have no sense of humor! None whatsoever. Not a grain of humor in you. There's not a laugh in you. Everybody laughs at it but not you!

What's so funny about this? [he starts laughing]

Ninotchka

I don't look too foolish?

Foolish? If this dress were walking down the boulevard all by itself, I would follow it from one end of Paris to the other, and when I caught up with it, I would say, 'Wait a moment, you charming little dress. I want you to meet Ninotchka...you two were meant for each other.'

I have things to tell you about which I can't shout. Darling...I...oh... [He takes her in his arms and kisses her] You see, I couldn't shout that.

Ninotchka

Oh Leon, Leon, you know the jokes you told me a few days ago? I wake up in the middle of the night and laugh at them. You know that's wrong. They aren't funny, they're silly, they're stupid. And still, I laugh at them...and when I look at Buljanoff and Iranoff and Kopalski I know they are scoundrels and I should hate them - then I realize who made them like that, and instead of sending my report to Moscow I go down and buy a ridiculous hat, and if this keeps on - am I too talkative?

No, no...go on.

Ninotchka

Leon, I want to tell you something which I thought I would never say, which I thought nobody ever should say, because I didn't think it existed...and, Leon...I can't say it...[They kiss again and then embrace]

What a gesture for a Sergeant.

Ninotchka

The closest I ever came to champagne was in a newsreel. The wife of some president was throwing it at a battleship.

It's always good luck to launch something with champagne; a battleship...or an evening.

Ninotchka

It's funny to look back. I was brought up on goat's milk. I had a ration of vodka in the army, and now champagne.

From goats to grapes. That's drinking in the right direction.

Ninotchka

It's good. [She drinks the whole glass down at once] From what I read I thought champagne was a strong drink. It's delicate. Does anyone ever get drunk on this?

Well, there have been cases...but the headache the next morning is worth while - if you drink it with the right toast. [They toast, raising their glasses] To us, Ninotchka!

Swana

The only thing we have in common is our lawsuit and that will be settled next week. I understand everything will be over by Thursday. Am I right?...It's too bad you have so few more days here in Paris. [To Leon] Now Leon, be sure and redouble your efforts so that Madame can take some pleasant memories when she returns to Moscow.

The only thing that will be over on Thursday will be the lawsuit. There will be no Thursday for us, next week or any other week. I won't let it happen. I'll tear it out of the calendar. Is that a good story?

Ninotchka

Let's form our own Party.

Right. 'Lovers of the World Unite!'

Ninotchka

And we won't stretch up our arms...

No! No!

Ninotchka

...and we won't clench our fists...

No! No!

Ninotchka

Our salute will be a kiss.

Yes...a kiss. Salute! [She sinks into his arms and they kiss]

Ninotchka

I am so happy. Oh I'm so happy. No one can be so happy without being punished. I will be punished and I should be punished. Leon, I want to confess.

I know...it's the Russian soul.

Ninotchka

Well, everyone wants to confess and if they don't confess, they make them confess. I am a traitor. When I kissed you, I betrayed a Russian ideal. I should be stood up against the wall.

Would that make you any happier?

Ninotchka

Much happier.

All right.

Ninotchka

Radio. What's radio?

Radio is a little box that you buy on the installment plan and before you tune it in, they tell you there's a new model out.

All right, if you don't stay with me, then I'll have to continue my fight. I'll travel wherever there are Russian commissions. I'll turn them all into Iranoffs, Buljanoffs, and Kopalskis. The world will be crowded with Russian restaurants. I'll depopulate Russia. Comrade, once you saved your country by going back. This time, you can only save it by staying here.

Ninotchka

Well, if it's a choice between my personal interest and the good of my country, how can I waver? No one shall say Ninotchka was a bad Russian.

Darling. [they kiss]