Lovely, heart-warming Christmastime classic, with a strong cast, appealing leads, and good seasonal, festive atmosphere. A gift shop in Budapest is the setting for this romantic melodrama featuring Jimmy Stewart as a sales clerk and Margaret Sullavan as a new hire under his tutelage, with the excellent Frank Morgan ("The Wizard of Oz") as the boss/owner. Stewart and Sullavan often butt heads in constant argument, not realizing that they are each other's anonymous "letter friends" (maybe pen pals is particularly more apt), while Morgan is worried about his wife's possible infidelity. Morgan believes his wife's lover is Stewart, since he has been to Morgan's home and met her. But it is actually the chatty, unflappable Joseph Schildkraut, who knows how brownnose and butter folks up, quite clever and manipulative. Unbeknownst to Morgan, Schildkraut has been getting the wife to funnel him cash, quite the Casanova. While the film spends almost all of its time at the shop, a decision director Lubitsch made to appeal to the middle class, its cast make the most of the intimate setting. Stewart, with his soft cadence and careful tone, "fights" with Sullavan but he's more reactionary when she draws some ire for confrontational jabs at his critique of her work and finds him frustrating for back and forth discussions, sometimes heated, in regards to sales and approach to customers, not to mention, stocking the shelves and such. I think it is more flirting than anything else; I think she can be a bit harsh, sometimes, but a lot of it stems from the long hours together and differences in opinion in the shop. The film gets particularly cute when Stewart discovers that Sullavan is the one he's been writing to and receiving letters from, trying to calm the stormy tides of their rocky relationship so he can potentially prepare her for the grand revelation at the end. Morgan is a delight at the shop owner who grows increasingly irritable and grouchy because of his wife's spending habits, eventually learning of her affair, even trying to end his own life. The gut-wrenching release of Stewart by Morgan is handled in an alarmingly professional, quiet, and melancholic manner...Stewart reading the release letter to his co-workers is especially depressing. It was as if a father and son were parting, considering that Stewart apprenticed under Morgan. The café scene where Stewart "interrupts" Sullvan's supposed meeting with her "dream date", as she does everything she can to shoo him away, including some harsh comments about him, expertly sets up the conclusion when Sullavan learns all. Stewart trying to describe her letter partner in a way that isn't particularly flattering is an amusing bit of sleight of hand that doesn't halt her from the dinner date, forcing him to come clean. Morgan out of a hospital, staying to recover from emotional distress after nearly shooting himself (William Tracy, as the "errand boy", certainly knows how to earn his stripes and eventually gain real entrance into the shop as a clerk when Stewart is promoted to Manager), returning to the shop to find quite a Christmas busy evening, is a pleasant hug for the viewer as he eventually sees life improving, even inviting a lonely kid working as the new errand boy for a Christmas supper. As a holiday film, "The Shop Around the Corner" fits the Christmas season quite well, even if many might grumble a bit about the commercialism of the setting. What I liked about Stewart was how he seems to have thick skin when some of Sullavan's cutting comments might ruffle more thin-skinned types...he is also only aggressive or lifts his voice to the very man that wronged his father figure. Despite Sullavan's meanness, from time to time, she still remains quite charming which should be noted. She is just looking for love, truly star-crossed by her fellow writer's gift for poetic style, and her desire to be a good saleswoman sort of brings out her assertive tit for tat opposite Stewart, who could be demanding. Felix Bressart, as Stewart's confidante, always tending to his family crises, is that employee at the store always loyal, there when you need him, offering friendly advice, and mindful of the importance to keep his job. When Stewart faces the dilemma of a job lost at such a time of the year, it is Bressart right there with him afterward.
Review of The Shop Around the Corner
