The Shop Around the Corner
by Ernst Lubitsch
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Frank Morgan, James Stewart, Joseph Schildkraut, Margaret Sullavan, Sara HadenDirector: Ernst Lubitsch
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: William H. Daniels
Producer: Ernst Lubitsch
Editor: Gene Ruggiero
Writer: Ben Hecht
Writer: Mikl?s L?szl?
Writer: Samson Raphaelson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-10-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Shop Around the Corner
Movie Review: If you want to see what romantic comedies used to be...
Summary: 5 Stars
Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan), desperate for work, wheedles her way into a sales clerk job at Matuschek & Company, a small Budapest department store run by the quick-tempered, blustery Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan, in probably his best-known role next to the Wizard in THE WIZARD OF OZ). She quickly makes something of an enemy of the head clerk, Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) - but at the same time, both are falling in love with anonymous pen-pals, and it won't take a genius to figure out how this will resolve, especially as the film moves from autumn to Christmas, and sales and personal pressures grow for everyone. The contrast between the poetic inner lives of these two young and struggling people, and their hard and sarcastic exteriors reflects a whole array of personalities that are really not what they seem - obsequeious clerk Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut) turns out to be playing his own game; Matuschek's snap-tempered exterior belies an inner warmth, and the never-get-involved Pirovitch (Felix Bressart) turns out to be loyal and brave in a pinch.
The first of three Hollywood films based on Mikl?s L?szl?'s play "Parfumerie", and far and away the best (IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME (1949), a color musical with Judy Garland, Van Johnson and Buster Keaton, and YOU'VE GOT MAIL (1998) with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are the remakes). This is classic old-school Hollywood filmmaking with a snappy, sparkling scr?pt, assured and elegant but never ostentatious direction, and flawlessly turned performances by everyone from Sullavan and Stewart to the wonderful array of character actors, with Bressart and William Tracy as fast-climbing errand-boy turned clerk Pepi deserving special mention. The overall feeling is one of inner warmth and humanity struggling to break through in a fast-paced, commercial and on-the-edge-of-poverty lower middle class society. Everybody's in it for themselves - but only because they cannot see another way; the poetry and beauty of Tolstoy, or Zola, or a fine meal or champagne and someone to share it with are always struggling to seep through the hardened cynicism. There is also, along with the sense that many are hiding their best selves, the understanding that just as many people - sometimes the same people - are hiding their worst, and Mr. Matuschek's inner fears over his (never seen) wife, and the mistakes he makes over them, are the strongest evidence.
If there's a flaw to the film, it might be that Stewart - despite being second-billed to Sullavan - ends up dominating the film in the second half a little too much, not through any fault of his own really but because he learns his epistolary love's identity first, and plays around with her in a somewhat underhanded (some might say cruel) way - but the film tries to equate the hardness of Stewart and Sullavan, and it doesn't entirely come off to me. Maybe that's my inner feminist working, I don't know. Still it's a minimal flaw in one of the finest of all Hollywood romantic comedies, the best film probably in the sadly short career of Margaret Sullavan. An every-year holiday favorite for me only a step or two behind IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, though it should be said that the "Christmas" theme of the film isn't really all that significant a part of its joy.
Summary of The Shop Around the Corner
TWO SALES CLERKS IN A BUDAPEST SHOP DISLIKE EACH OTHER, BUT INADVERTENTLY FALL IN LOVE WHILE CORRESPONDING AS PSEUDONYMOUSPEN PALS.One of the most charming and romantic films around, this 1940 comic romance finds James Stewart (Vertigo, It's A Wonderful Life) working in a small shop in Budapest and longing for a girl to call his own. His coworker, Margaret Sullavan, feels the same, and soon they are both corresponding and falling in love with their respective pen pals. What they don't realize is that they are writing to and falling in love with each other, but the problem is that they can't stand each other in person. The beguiling nature of the mistaken identity formula that influenced countless films is done to perfection here, and the wry combativeness and delightful banter between the two leads makes this a very special film. --Robert Lane
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