The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

kbroer
Dec 13, 2024
2 min read

James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Available to stream on Prime Video

Our next Christmas movie is a classic story that has been remade several times, but as Leonard Maltin says, this original version is "the ultimate in sheer charm." Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are magical together as bickering fellow employees in a Budapest shop in this quiet little gem of a story of shop workers who are unknowingly pen pals.

Why we love it: Director Ernst Lubitsch and his well-known "Lubitsch touch" turn a simple story into something very special. Of course Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are fantastic together, but the whole ensemble of actors is wonderful, including Frank Morgan who had just appeared as the wizard in The Wizard of Oz the year before. It's a delightful, charming film.

Fun Facts:

The film is based on a 1937 Hungarian play called Parfumerie. It was later made into the movie musical In the Good Old Summertime (1949) with Judy Garland and Van Johnson and then again as You've Got Mail (1998) with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. The scene where the girl is waiting in a café for her pen pal is almost identical in both movies. As a nod to the original film, in You've Got Mail, Kathleen's bookstore is called "The Shop Around the Corner."
Frank Morgan as Mr. Matuschek in "The Shop Around the Corner"
The 8-minute video below examines the similarities in the café scene but the different ways the directors chose to film it.
Ernst Lubitsch specifically wanted Stewart and Sullavan for this film - they were both committed to other projects so Lubitsch waited for them and made Ninotchka (1939) in the meantime. Lubitsch considered it one of his best films. Stewart and Sullavan were old friends and this was the third of four films they made together.