The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

The Shop Around the Corner
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Samson Raphaelson based on a play by Miklós Lázló
1940/USA
Metro-Goldwn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Warner Home Video DVD

[box]Alfred Kralik: There might be a lot we don’t know about each other. You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth.

Klara Novak (Miss Novak): Well I really wouldn’t care to scratch your surface, Mr. Kralik, because I know exactly what I’d find. Instead of a heart, a hand-bag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter… which doesn’t work.  [/box]

I sold most of my DVD collection a while back but I kept this one because I like to pull it out every Christmas.  It is my idea of the perfect Golden Age romantic comedy and brings a tear to my eye and a smile to my face every single time.  Its omission from The List is one of the most mind-boggling lapses by the editors of The Book.

The setting is a leather goods store in Budapest before the war.  Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) is its chief salesman and the protegee of irrascible owner Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan).  The employees all do their best to stay out of the way of the basically kindly boss’s temper.  One summer day, Klara Novak comes into the shop to look for work.  Matuschek hires her, basically to prove a point to Kralik with whom he has been arguing.  We soon find out that Kralik has been trying to expand his cultural horizons through correspondence with a lady pen-pal he found through a newspaper ad.

Segue to Christmastime, six months later.  Kralik and Novak have apparently been arguing the entire time.  Kralik has fallen in love with his pen-pal and has arranged to meet her. Novak now has a boyfriend and suspects he will soon pop the question.  In the meantime, relations between Kralik and Matuschek have reached rock-bottom.  Surprises await everyone concerned.  With chameleon actor Joseph Schildkraut as a fawning dandy of a salesman and Felix Bressart as a married salesman who will put up with anything to keep his job.

This one has some of the wittiest dialogue ever and is loaded with the Lubitsch touch.  All the acting is superb.  Frank Morgan gives his best performance ever for my money.  To be fair to the editors of The Book, the Academy also did not recognize a priceless gem when they saw one.

The story has been remade often but never equaled — as the movies In the Good Old Summertime and You’ve Got Mail  and as the Broadway musical She Loves Me.

Trailer

Comparison – same scene from You’ve Got Mail and The Shop Around the Corner