Gene S. Ruggiero was an American film editor. Originally a golf caddy at an exclusive New York country club, Ruggiero was fired from his job and later went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he was assigned the job of editing. He was initially unhappy with his job and would often skip working to play golf, demoted to assistant editor due to this.

Ninotchka is a 1939 American romantic comedy film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, based on a story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka marked the first comedy role for Garbo, and her penultimate film; she received her third and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1990, Ninotchka was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2011, Time also included the film on the magazine's list of "All-Time 100 Movies".