The Shop Around the Corner is adapted from the Hungarian play by Nikolaus (Miklos) Laszlo. Budapest gift-shop clerk Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and newly hired shopgirl Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) hate each other almost at first sight. Kralik would prefer the company of the woman with whom he is corresponding by mail but has never met. Novak likewise carries a torch for her male pen pal, whom she also has never laid eyes on. It doesn't take a PhD degree to figure out that Kralik and Novak
have been writing letters to each other. The film's many subplots are carried by Frank Morgan as the kindhearted shopkeeper and by Joseph Schildkraut as a backstabbing employee whose comeuppance is sure to result in spontaneous applause from the audience. Directed with comic delicacy by Ernst Lubitsch, this was later remade in 1949 as In the Good Old Summertime, and in 1998 as You've Got Mail. It was also musicalized as the 1963 Broadway production She Loves Me. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
As the plot has as many complications as characters, much of the fun comes in watching Scripter Samson Raphaelson neatly tangle and untangle them without tying himself in a hard knot.
Although picture carries the indelible stamp of Ernst Lubitsch at his best in generating humor and human interest from what might appear to be unimportant situations, it carries further to impress via the outstanding characterizations by Margaret Sullavan
...a pretty kettle of bubbling brew it makes under Mr. Lubitsch's deft and tender management and with a genial company to play it gently, well this side of farce and well that side of utter seriousness.
My favorite Christmas film, this deliciously delicate, multi-nuanced romantic comedy is one of Lubitsch's very best films, flawlessly acted by Jimmy Stewart at his peak, the sublime Margaret Sullavan, and the rest of the large ensemble.
One of the all-time great romantic films stars Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as two slightly antagonistic clerks working in the same store who do not realize they have been corresponding with one another and are in love.
Who but Lubitsch could have pulled off such a winning romantic comedy that dares to include, but is not marred by, such tragic undercurrents… adultery, attempted suicide?
Film 21 is a 1940 black and white film that is a most excellent film, what's amazing is the subjects it touched on in 1940. First we have a couple who meets by mail you know old fashion letter writing, The very young Jimmy Stewart answers a personal add in the newspaper. He works for Hugo Matuschek
(Frank Morgan).
and while there hires a new sales girl little does he know its his pen pal. During the movie Mr. Morgan's wife is cheating on him with one of the employees of the shop, humm which one, found this to be a surprising subject for the forties. All this around Christmas. Also note that Frank Morgan was the gate keeper in the Wizard of OZ , this was also the movie You Got Mail with Tom Hanks was based on. This movie gets no less then 4 1/2 stars
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