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The Shop Around the Corner
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The Shop Around the Corner (1940) is a romantic comedy film, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.[1] It appears to have been inspired by Parfumerie (1937), a Hungarian play written by Miklós László.[2] This film was ranked #28 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions. In 1999, The Shop Around the Corner was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in Shop Around the Corner.
Set in and around a Budapest store, co-workers Klara (Margaret Sullavan) and Alfred (James Stewart) hold an intense dislike for each other, while maintaining a secret letter-writing relationship, neither realizing whom their pen-pal is. They fall in love via their correspondence, while being antipathic and peevish towards one another in real life. A major subplot concerns the apparent infidelity of the store owner's wife, and its spillover effect upon the various working relationships in the shop.[1]
Reviews
David Thomson wrote of it:citation needed
- The Shop Around the Corner... is among the greatest of films... This is a love story about a couple too much in love with love to fall tidily into each other's arms. Though it all works out finally, a mystery is left, plus the fear of how easily good people can miss their chances. Beautifully written (by Lubitsch's favorite writer, Samson Raphaelson), Shop Around the Corner is a treasury of hopes and anxieties based in the desperate faces of Stewart and Sullavan. It is a comedy so good it frightens us for them. The cafe conversation may be the best meeting in American film. The shot of Sullavan's gloved hand, and then her ruined face, searching an empty mail box for a letter is one of the most fragile moments in film. For an instant, the ravishing Sullavan looks old and ill, touched by loss.
Cast
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in Shop Around the Corner.
Remakes
The film spawned a 1949 musical remake, In the Good Old Summertime and a 1998 remake, You've Got Mail. The Broadway musical, She Loves Me, was also inspired by the film.[1]
The British show Are You Being Served was based on the comedy[3]
Notes
- ^ a b c "The Shop Around the Corner", All-TIME 100 best Films, 2005.
- ^ Seay, Parfumerie, 2004.
- ^ "PBS Behind the Sceen" page 271
References
External links
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