This weekend I saw The Shop Around The Corner for the 6th or 7th time. It’s one of those movies I could see every year and not get tired of it. [more on this topic to come...] Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan play lovers with a hidden romance complicated because they’ve never met, cultivating their love via correspondence.The story itself is an evergreen. The script, written by one of director Ernst Lubitsch’s favorite writers, Samson Rafaelson, who adapted it from a stage play. The movie was remade twice, first as a musical, In The Good Old Summertime, starring Judy Garland and Van Heflin, and as You’ve Got Mail. You’ve Got Mail stars Tom Hanks, who was thought by some to be the natural heir to Jimmy Stewart’s various roles as the Everyman put into unusual situations.(Castaway, for example, reminds me a lot of The Spirit Of St. Louis, in which Mr. Stewart as Charles Lindbergh, talks to a fly trapped inside the cockpit of his plane. In Castaway, Mr. Hanks converses with a basketball in an effort to keep his sanity.
What makes The Shop Around The Corner so special to me is the themes. Ernst Lubitsch, mentor to Billy Wilder (in my opinion, the greatest American director to ever draw a breath), employs two of his (and later Mr. Wilder’s) favorite themes, mistaken identity and occluded romance. Alfred Kralick (Mr. Stewart) and Klara Novak (Ms. Sullavan) “meet” when Alfred peruses the classifieds looking for a better job and accidentally discovers Klara’s personal ad.By coincidence, Klara comes into Matuschek’s, the store where Alfred is working. Alfred and Klara have a classic meet-cute when the two meet and disagree about nearly everything (without knowing they are writing to each other).
As the story continues, further complications come from parallel construction in which mistaken identity and an occluded romance are again the themes. Mr. Matuschek, played by Frank Morgan, who is best known as the eponymous Wizard of Oz, mistakenly believes that Alfred, his most trusted employee, is conducting a clandestine affair with Mr. Matuschek. The confusion leads him to fire Alfred and contemplate suicide.
Once the confusion over Alfred is resolved, Mr. Matusche rehires him and promotes him to manager, leading to further complications between Alfred and Klara.
At the end of the movie, the most of the tension between Alfred and Klara was resolved as they had unraveled their many misunderstandings, leaving only the most overwhelming misunderstanding in place. When Alfred finally unmasks himself, Klara finds herself both speechless and relieved.
Great storytelling reveals itself through painstaking care for every detail. The Shop Around The Corner is one of the few movies I can watch without ever being jolted by a careless mistake or convenient omission. If you haven’t seen it recently, I suggest you revisit it. I think you’ll enjoy it as you would a visit from an old and dear friend.
[Yes, I realize that all of the preceding is a spoiler. However, I believe if you haven’t seen this picture already, you might not deserve any special consideration from me. This is a pander-free zone.]
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