Beauty in motion picture stars is a matter of time and changing tastes. Fashions in feminine puchritude change as rapidly as styles in millinery. So deciares Ernst Lubitsch, who has directed world-famous screen beauties from Polo Negri to Garbo.
"Lillian Russell, considered the greatest beauty of her day, would quite likely tail to interest' screen audiences of 1939," points out the Continental director. "On the other hand, a woman considered extremely beautiful today provably wouldn't have interested those who adored Miss Russell, Anna Held, or other glamour siers of that period."
Lubitsch, directed Garbo in "Ninotchka," a task he has longed to do for a number of years, says that he has never directed a star he did not consider beautiful at the time he directed her, "When I directed early pictures," he says, "I had reigning Hollywood beauties of the day. Even if they were available today, their types generally probably would not attract now as it did most powerfully then."
The teaming of the celebrated Continental director with Garbo marks a new milestone in the career of both. For Garbo, it means her first excursion into the feld of sophisticated romantic comedy. Scenes with the whimsical "Lubitsch touch," rapier-sharp humour in' lines and situations, and an ultra-modern character, are all Garbo's in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's story of a stern i feminine Soviet Commissar,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.