Exclusive“The Shop Around the Corner” (1940): When Love Is Closer Than You Think

Say, do you want to hear something nice? Oh, yes. Oh, my dear friend. My heart was trembling as I walked into the post office. And there you were, lying in box 237. I took you out of your envelope and read you. Read you right there. What is all that? Well, you know how hard it is to meet a young man with any kind of mind these days. Oh, don't I know it. So, I put an ad in the paper. What sort of an ad? Well, it seems a little silly now, but there it is. Modern Girl wishes to correspond on cultural subjects anonymously with intelligent, sympathetic young men. The newspapers are full of ads like this. And you wrote that one? Well, it turned out well. I got a response from a very nice young man, and we've already exchanged four letters. And you don't know anything about who he is or what he does? No, and I don't want to. That's the point of the whole thing. What is all that matters so long as our minds meet? Do you think you'll ever meet him? That wouldn't be very anonymous, would it? Well, you never know. If he saw this ad, he must live somewhere in Budapest. He might be just a few steps away from the post office. After all, you work in the shop around the corner. I'm Rebecca Brannan. I'm Tiffany Brannan. Welcome to Real Thoughts on Cinema. Writing letters is a long-standing form of communication, which today is almost completely non-existent. Absolutely. As a result, what was once a very commonplace form of communication has now taken on the charm and mystique of a lost tradition. In today's world of dating apps and relationships that exist only online, the idea of meeting and falling in love through writing letters alone is a refreshing concept. On the other hand, it's also a somewhat familiar concept, since you could consider this almost the first form of online dating. This story about a pair who meet and fall in love through writing letters was first introduced to American audiences in the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner. The story follows the lives of the employees at a store in Budapest, Montasek and Company. One day, a young woman, Clara Novak, comes to the store looking for a job, which she wins by selling a music box, which the owner, Mr. Montasek, likes very much, but his head sales clerk, Alfred Kralik, does not care for at all. During Clara's first six months at the store, she and Mr. Kralik do not get along well and are constantly at each other's throats. Meanwhile, Mr. Kralik has been anonymously corresponding with a young woman who wants to write letters about sophisticated cultural subjects with a young man. Little does he know, the young woman is actually Clara. This was an MGM production. It was produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It stars James Stewart, Margaret Sullivan and Frank Morgan. The thing that's really interesting about this movie is that although this particular title will probably only be known to real classic film fans, there were many other versions of the same story that were made later. It was remade in 1948, just eight years later, as a musical in the good old summertime with Van Johnson and Judy Garland. And then much later in the 1990s as You've Got Mail. This Meg Ryan comedy updated the setting by making their correspondence be through e-mails instead of letters. And there's actually a nod to the original in the fact that she works at a bookstore called The Shop Around the Corner. But instead of working at the same store, they work at rival stores, yet it's the same idea where there are these rivals, these enemies in real life, but they don't realise they're this secret romance through letters or e-mails. Then, of course, for the musical theatre fans out there, it was adapted into a Broadway musical, She Loves Me, which has been on Broadway three times and has flopped every time. But the musical is still somewhat beloved in spite of that. There are some well-known songs from it. So it didn't begin originally as this movie. It started as a European play, Parfumerie. So Hafizu is about a perfume shop set in Hungary. It was a Hungarian play. And although Ernst Lubitsch was German rather than Hungarian, he drew on his personal European background because he was born in Europe. And the idea of this store where the whole thing takes place or almost all the scenes, but it's really about the store, it was based on Lubitsch's experiences as a young boy working in the family store in Berlin, Lubitsch & Company. That's really interesting. So you could see that's why he was able to make these characters come to life. And it really centres around this character of Frank Morgan, who will be recognised as the wizard from The Wizard of Oz, but this is a very different part for him, a very dramatic, serious part. He still has his funny moments, but you can see what a dramatic actor he was. And I think despite his extremely Irish name, Morgan, he was not Irish, he was German, and although born in the United States, he had that German, Eastern European background. Would you say he's doing a slight accent in this film? He is, he is doing a slight accent. And he highlights that feeling of what this shopkeeper would be like. And Lubitsch said that the idea of the boss of a store or company is really the same all over the world, and that's how this story was relatable. Jimmy Stewart is still, I think, a very well-known name, mostly for being in Frank Capra movies. Of course, It's a Wonderful Life, one of the most beloved Christmas films. And Mr Smith Goes to Washington. And this is, of course, right around the time, the year after Mr Smith, so he was a very established star at this point. Yeah, definitely a rising star at MGM. And I think this role really shows a lot of his range. Yeah, because he has some funny moments, but he's also very dramatic, intense, charming, grumpy. He runs the gamut. Very relatable. Yes, I think it really embodies his image of the everyman, or boy next door. And this character allows him to have that, but also in the way that he's fighting with this girl, so obviously him not being very nice, or sarcastic. But he really is at the heart of the story, like you said, in that he ends up in the middle of the several different plots that are going on. Yes, he does. Of course, they all are working at the store, but they're very much the background characters, and then the main ones, in addition to his romance with Klana. Troublesome romance. He's also very important in the subplot about Mr Matischeck. Yeah, because they keep calling him his oldest employee. He actually is one of the younger people who works at the store, but he's his longest-standing employee. He's worked there for nine years, so probably since he was a teenager. And then we have Margaret Sullivan as his leading lady. A less-remembered actress from the Golden Era, but a good friend of his, because she and Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, who was his best friend and her husband at one point, all sort of came from the same acting school, so they were good friends. She was noted for being rather temperamental and moody on the set, but he got along well with her because they were good friends, so they recounted working on this film as one of their best experiences, and they made multiple films together, but this is definitely the best-remembered. This film is probably best known around the holidays. It's often played on Turner Classic Movies around Christmas because it ends at Christmas, so you could consider it a Christmas film, but it goes over the course of six months, so it begins in the summer. Besides Frank Morgan, you'll recognize many of these background actors as people you'll see in other MGM films. If you're at all familiar with MGM movies of the era, even more than the stars, you get to know background characters, and that's true of every studio in Hollywood. Under the studio system, there really are those stock people, which you'll always see. Ernst Lubitsch was one of those people who was quite a big name in his day, but again, not as well-known because his career didn't last as long because he died in the 1940s, so his career was sort of cut short prematurely. He certainly doesn't have the notoriety of Cecil B. DeMille. Yeah, even though he didn't necessarily work that much longer than the 50s or 60s, but there isn't just that one Lubitsch picture that's insanely famous. There aren't nearly as many pop culture references to him that are famous. I know at the time in Hollywood, they referred to the Lubitsch touch. Yes, they did, and that was mainly referring to a kind of clever subtlety, and in the earlier days of Hollywood, such as the pre-code era, he would use that to be suggestive rather than just out-and-out vulgar. In this film, you see less of that because it's kind of an unusual picture for Lubitsch. It's a bit more on the sentimental side. Every time I'm surprised, that's right, Ernst Lubitsch made this movie. But you see the drama and the depth, and there are some mature themes in this film that might be surprising, particularly if you know the other versions, because the shop owner isn't as important in The Good Old Summertime. He's a much more strictly comical character, whereas here, there is a very dramatic subplot as Matochek realizes that his wife is being unfaithful to him, so then he has this suspicion that it's one of the men who works in his store, and even attempted suicide. So with the themes of adultery and attempted suicide, those are both very mature topics, yet this is right here in 1940, which was at the peak of what's considered the really clean, family-friendly era of Hollywood, times when they were making movies like the Andy Hardy films and The Wizard of Oz and the Shirley Temple movies. Yes. From 1934 to 1954, of course, Hollywood was under the Motion Picture Production Code, enforced by the Production Code Administration, headed by Joseph Breen, who retired in 1954. And I think this film, among so many, is a great example of how films could have those mature themes and topics without being obscene, without being too blatant about them. Yes. And I think it really can kind of disprove thoughts people might have, like everything was just so light during this era. And particularly, it's interesting that this was made at MGM, because MGM was noted for making the lighter films, just because Louis B. Mayer, the head of that studio, always liked a happy ending, which this film has, of course. But the kind of darker, grittier pictures were often attributed more to Warner Brothers, many of those. But MGM often did the brighter films, the Technicolor musicals, and I think this one is sort of a more thoughtful, a deeper piece. Lubitsch usually worked for Paramount. He didn't usually work with MGM. But he was one of those directors who would sort of be given carte blanche on whatever he wanted to do. Something that wasn't nearly as common in Hollywood then than it is, say, now, when the director is, like, it's his film. And the fact that he produced as well as directed the shows, he really had a lot of sway over what happened. I think one reason why it's a more mature subject matter and a little darker was that Irving Thalberg began the process of making this movie. He was really the co-mogul of the studio during the earlier 30s. His untimely death in 1936 left Louis V. Mayer as the main boss of the studio. And I think it was at that point that MGM really began to be steered more toward lighter pictures. I think that's true. You still see some more dramatic, serious pictures, of course. But there's definitely a quality to the 30s, particularly. So the movies that Thalberg wanted to do, which Mayer often completed, sometimes in a different direction, tend to be more dramatic, more European. I feel like this is sort of very much at the tail end of the MGM 30s era film, obviously 1940. It's not just, like, New Year's in 1939, suddenly everything changed. But there is a style definitely to 30s films and a style to 40s films, and I think this one is still more in the old style, even the clothes. And times did change in the 1930s going into the 40s because the Great Depression was still going on. But then as World War II had begun in England by 1939, that affected commerce, culture. People were aware of that feeling. Would you say this film almost seems like it's set a couple of years earlier? I was reading about that, but most people believe that it would have been realistic for the war really to not have been causing problems in Budapest yet. It's not so much that. The way they talk a lot about how hard it is to be without a job. I know the Depression wasn't really something that was happening in Europe as much. Not as much. There wasn't the Dust Bowl, but it was an international problem. It has that sort of Depression-era feel to it. That's more why I say that. I'd say there's a good chance it was set when the play was written, which was a couple of years earlier. So probably more like the late 30s, the 1940s. It was filmed in 1939, but I would agree. And it's interesting to see how, although it was an American picture and all the actors were American, there are a few actors who were born, but they're all American. They're all Hollywood actors, even if a few of them were born in Europe. But the costumes and the set design reflect that European background. For instance, all the signs are written in Hungarian, except for a few strategic moments when it needs to be in English so you can read it. That's an unusual touch. So many movies are set in European countries, but everything is English because we just sort of assume that it would be a foreign language. I feel like that's probably Lubitsch's... That's part of Lubitsch's touch. Yes. Putting in his own experience, his own European background to really give American audiences a different feel so they immediately know this is not your American shop around the corner. True. And in the costumes, you see an interesting blend of the sort of typical 30s fashion you see and some touches that make it distinctly European. My outfit is inspired by one which Clara wears and which is discussed before she wears it, a green blouse with light yellow dots. It's very ruffled and very 30s style, and has a suspender-style skirt with a little alpine hat. My outfit is inspired by the final costume, which is worn by one of the other shop girls, Ilona. It's a simple blouse with buttons up the front and a mid-calf-length skirt. And she wears a little bit of jewelry, a couple of bracelets, and in her first scene, she wears a turban-like hat. Adding to the European feel of the whole film is the use of a well-known Russian song, Ochachonya, which means dark eyes, and anyone will recognize it, of course. And from the opening credits of the film, when you see the lion roaring, you hear a dramatic arrangement of that song. And it's not just an arbitrary use of a popular tune. The musical cigarette box, which plays an important role in Clara's getting her job there, plays Ochachonya, so they discuss that a lot. And it's a clever way of sort of tying that in, but also giving a theme that can be played a few times to spark memories, so that's an interesting element. We touched on the idea that letter writing is both very archaic at this point, and the idea of meeting someone without actually meeting him is actually very relatable to a modern audience. So would you say that that very element is what could make this relatable to modern audiences? I think it is, because, you know, so many young people, especially around our age, will talk about, like, being in the talking stage is now, instead of meeting someone in person like one would usually in the past, that's how people begin romances now. So although it's letters, which is such a charming and now often antiquated form of communication, it's really, you can imagine how they feel, because it's such an intriguing idea that you can tell they're falling in love with this other person, but at the same time, we especially see the feelings of Kralik, which is interesting, because you get the idea before long that she is the girl, but we don't see as much her internal narrative. That's a really good point. In the good old summertime, just to touch on that briefly, she has an aunt, so we see her reading the letters, writing the letters, communicating more. We don't see much of that from her point of view. I was just thinking about that. The last time that we watched it, so you really, if you didn't know the story at all, being an audience member in 1940, it's such a well-known story now, but being an audience member in 1940, you might not know, you might suspect, but you wouldn't be positive until he sees her through the window, or rather, his friend sees her through the window and says, it's Miss Novak. Because we know she has a date, but we don't, she's not as close with any of the other shop girls as he is with one of his friends in the store, so he's, yeah, it begins, so he's telling them about her, he's reading the letters, so we get his point of view, we don't get hers as much. It seems to line up like she has a date, same night, at the same time, you start to suspect it, but it isn't clearly shown to you until the moment he finds out. But I think that it is relatable because of that theme, and it's just, it's kind of an intriguing, it's such a coincidence, but it's interesting how it could happen, and I think that if you've enjoyed any version of the story, whether that's the musical, or You've Got Mail, I highly recommend you watch this version, because I think this is the best version. In the Good Old Summertime is cute, but this is very deep, and there are nuances and some real dramatic story building that I think was lost in all the later versions, drawing on that original play, and it's also just a great example of MGM filmmaking in the pre-World War II days at its finest, seeing some of these great actors, like Frank Morgan and Jimmy Stewart, at the height of their abilities, and this is also the same year that Jimmy Stewart won his Academy Award, not for this film, he won it for the Philadelphia story, but you can see, this is his year as the best actor, and what a great actor he was. This film is available in clear black and white copies on most streaming platforms. You can buy or rent it on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and Fandango. You can also buy it on DVD from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Walmart. World War II created one of the most turbulent periods in American history, and it was sometimes hard to know who was a friend and who was an enemy. Such was the case, particularly with the sticky issue of Russia. While there were many Russian sympathetic films made during the war, since they were our allies, in the post-war McCarthy era, there was an abrupt about-face. Join us next time as we discuss one of the most striking anti-Russia films from this time. Thank you for watching! Goodbye!