The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
The Shop Around the Corner has essentially been remade with You’ve Got Mail. Before then, many of its elements were recycled in other films. Nonetheless, it's stood the test of time. This is the kind of movie that makes you wonder why it took you so long to get to it. Why did you settle for the imitators when these characters and this love story were there the whole time?
In Budapest, a leathergoods shop owned by Mr. Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan) is its own little world. Among the staff is his oldest and most trusted employee, Alfred Kralik (James Stewart), and the newest hire, Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan). They bicker constantly, unaware they are each others’ anonymous pen pals. As the Christmas season approaches, the staff is busy finding new ways to sell the merchandise while Matuschek becomes increasingly uncertain of his wife's fidelity.
You can probably predict where much of this plot will go. Kralik and Novak can't stand each other when face-to-face. There’s no way they could be a pair… or is there? You figure Matuschek’s suspicions will create turmoil in the shop, that one of them will realize their secret pen pal is actually their co-worker, that the act of keeping a tight lip will create all sorts of shenanigans. You’re right. It doesn’t matter. The characters are so charming you don’t mind having seen other films copy this one’s success. Jimmy Stewart (best known around the holidays for It’s a Wonderful Life), displays endless charisma in his sorta nervous but push-him-to-the-edge-and-then-you’ll-see way. Novak is just as likeable thanks to her intelligence. There is a deception in the film that gets forgiven once everything is revealed but you understand why. There isn’t any malice in the two’s relationship even before they realize they’re meant for each other, and the ruse gets perpetuated for romantic reasons rather than stupid ones.
Helping keep your interest is the writing and side characters. A lot is going on with Matuschek, the precocious delivery boy Pepi (William Tracy), Kralik’s confidante Pirovitch (Felix Bressart), his rival at the shop Ferencz (Joseph Schildkraut), the seemingly useless products everyone is trying to sell, and more. All of these provide a multitude of funny moments - as if the romance weren't enough. The letters are just a thin slice of the film’s plot. Thanks to all of these qualities and the dynamic between Stewart and Sullivan you don’t care that you know where the picture is headed. They’re so good together it’d be a betrayal, an outrage if they wind up in each other's arms.
I was taken aback by The Shop Around the Corner initially. There are certain types of stories you image have always been there. Until you see the original, you'd never imagine there might’ve been a first. Often, it also proves to be the best, as is the case here. (TV version, December 8, 2018)
