TechnoFILE is copyright and a registered trademark © ® of
Pandemonium Productions.
All rights reserved.
E-mail us Here!
The Shop Around the Corner

The Shop Around the Corner on DVD

This film has to be one of the most charming and romantic films ever made, and is a great film to watch with the one you love.

James Stewart stars as Alfred Kralik, the head salesman in a small Budapest shop during a more innocent age. He’s the strong and silent type, but he wants to be in love and has been corresponding secretly with a pen pal with whom he’s been getting very serious - though they’ve never met in the flesh.

It’s nearly Christmas, and the store’s getting ready for the holiday season rush. This leads to them hire an extra salesperson, Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) - against Kralik’s better judgment. He almost runs the store, and owner Mr. Matuschek (Frank Morgan) thinks of him almost as a son - at the movie’s outset anyway.

Klara and Alfred really don’t get along and take pains to let each other know it. It isn’t one of those “sexual tension” situations, but a clear case of mutual disdain. Or so it appears.

Meanwhile, Mr. Matuschek starts going weird and treating Kralik like dirt, causing the situation in the shop to become even more strained.

And Alfred finally screws up the courage to meet this girl of his dreams...

This is a wonderful movie, and today’s screenwriters can learn a lot from it. As it says in the blurb on the back of the box it’s “Wrapped in the ribbon of director Ernst Lubitsch’s trademark touch: wit instead of buffoonery, sentiment instead of sentimentality, affection instead of attitude.” We have a cast of characters who are all real people with real foibles, situations that are believable and never strain our credulity, performances from giants of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” and a master director’s touch.

For what more could anyone ask?

Stewart and Sullavan are great as the couple who hate each other’s guts face to face, unaware that they’re both really in love with each other thanks to their written relationship. Frank Morgan is wonderful as their boss, and the rest of the gang is perfectly cast and delivers wonderful performances.

It’s too bad it’s difficult to get many of today’s younger generation to watch black and white movies, because The Shop Around the Corner beats the dickens out of most of today’s comedies. It was remade in 1989, as “You’ve Got Mail,” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan - though this reviewer hasn’t seen the newer version and so can’t comment on whether or not it holds a candle to this classic. He’s willing to bet that it doesn’t, however.

This is a very good DVD, too, though owners of 16x9 TV’s will have to stretch and/or zoom the 4x3 picture (presented in its original “full screen” 4x3 aspect ratio) to make it fit their rectangular screens. This causes a certain loss of resolution, but despite that the black and white picture is still sharp and bright; it’s even better when you watch it on a 4x3 TV.

Audio is Dolby Digital mono and, as is usual with older movies, is unremarkable.

Extras include what’s basically a monster trailer. It’s called “A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound,” and while it gives some interesting technical perspective on how they marry the picture and the sound onto a single piece of film, it’s mostly previews for upcoming films. You also get “A Great Story is Worth Retelling,” a text-based essay on the film and its remakes, as well as theatrical trailers.


The Shop Around the Corner, from Warner Home Video
99 min. “full screen” (4x3 aspect ratio), not 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital mono
Starring James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan
Written by Samson Raphaelson
Produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch

 

Tell us at TechnoFile what YOU think

Google
 
Web www.technofile.com
 

Home

Audio/Video

Automotive

Blu-rays

Computers

Gadgets

Games

Letters

Miscellaneous

Search

Welcome

Support TechnoFile
via Paypal

TechnoFILE's E-letter
We're pleased to offer
our FREE private,
subscription-based
private E-mail service.
It's the "no brainer"
way to keep informed.

Our Privacy Policy

Updated May 13, 2006