The Shop Around The Corner – Ernst Lubitsch’s 1940 Christmas Classic
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in a Timeless Romantic Comedy
A film by Ernst Lubitsch
This is a classic timeless James Stewart film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and is the original to the 1998’s remake of You’ve Got Mail.
Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) is exchanging messages with an unknown girl who he believes to be a kindred spirit that shares his aspirations towards the intellectual and poetic view of the world. Little does he know, however, that the recipient of his messages is Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan), his colleague at the shop with whom he is perpetually bickering with.
So they clash in person but fall in love via anonymous letters in this charming classic set at Christmastime. Under Lubitsch’s expert direction, the film becomes both an intimate love story and a heartwarming comedy.
Hidden beneath the veil of characteristically 1940s Hollywood movie banter is a story about people not just as they were then, or as they are now, but as they have always been.
Ernst Lubitsch loved people, and he loved the concept of love. It comes through in every film of his, but this may very well be his most personalized expression of it. By returning to a simple European shop around the corner, Lubitsch was finally able to express on film what was most important to him in life: Friendship, work, and love.
It was shot on a Los Angeles studio lot.
Cinematography: William H. Daniels
Publication date: January 12, 1940
Usage: Public Domain
Genre: Christmas, Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Released: 12 January 1940 (USA)