How many Hollywood films have been set entirely in a contemporary Hungary with a cast of Hungarian characters, even if most of them are played by American actors? The answer, I suspect, is "precious few", but there is at least one- "The Shop Around the Corner". It was based upon a play by the Hungarian author Miklós László, here credited under the German form of his name "Nicholaus Laszlo". For some reason the film-makers opted to keep the original setting, but the fact that the film was made in 1940, after war had broken out in Europe, meant that it would have been impossible to shoot it in Hungary. Even in peacetime, financial considerations would probably have ruled out such a move, so it had to be shot on a studio set that was meant to represent Budapest but could equally well have stood in for Berlin or Birmingham, Boston or Baltimore. When the film was remade as "You've Got Mail" in 1998, the action was relocated to New York.
Laszlo was Jewish, and had recently (and wisely) left Hungary for the United States, fearful of the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe. The story, however, looks back to more peaceful times. The action takes place in a leather goods shop in Budapest and revolves around two employees, Alfred Kralik and Klara Novak. Both are members of a pen-pal club and have, without realising it, been writing to one another anonymously. The joke is that at work they dislike one another, and make little attempt to conceal their dislike, whereas both are rapturously enthusiastic about their unknown pen-friends whom they see as sensitive, romantic souls. This being a romantic comedy, it just has to end with Alfred and Klara eventually realising the truth and falling in love in the real world. (In "You've Got Mail" the unknowing lovers correspond by email rather than snail-mail, which even in 1998 was starting to look a bit old hat).
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan were close friends, and although they were not romantically involved somebody in Hollywood obviously thought that they made a lovely couple, because they were teamed together on four occasions in as many years. (The others were "Next Time We Live", "The Shopworn Angel" and "The Mortal Storm"). Here Stewart is his normal affable self as Alfred, a friendly, hard-working and competent salesman. He is frequently referred to by his boss as "my oldest employee", which presumably means "longest-serving", as several of his colleagues are obviously older in terms of age.
Although the film was made more than eighty years ago it clearly still has its admirers. It has a rating of 8.0 on this site, and 68 out of 196 reviewers have given it a perfect 10. It has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry and is listed in "Time" magazine's All-Time 100 Movies. It has never, however, been a favourite of mine. Unlike the staff of "Time" magazine, I could easily think of at least 100 movies (make that 1,000) which I prefer to this one.
One weakness is the treatment of the owner of the shop, Hugo Matuschek, played by Frank Morgan. He starts off as a pompous, overbearing and generally rather unpleasant employer, but by the end has undergone a complete change of personality, becoming everyone's best friend. The catalyst is his discovery that his wife Emma, who never actually appears on screen, is having an affair with one of his employees, Alfred's colleague Ferencz Vadas, and his subsequent unsuccessful suicide attempts. I found this development both hard to accept and tasteless, a very discordant note in what is otherwise a light-hearted rom-com,.
The main problem, however, is with Sullavan's Klara. I don't think that the fault lies with Sullavan herself, who was doubtless playing the character in the way demanded by the script and probably also by director Ernst Lubitsch. But it cannot be denied that Klara comes out as a very unlikeable young woman, rude and sharp-tongued and enough to test even Alfred's affability to the limit. Her eventual explanation is that she was playing "hard to get", having recently read a book about a French actress who used this tactic to succeed in her sex life, but that doesn't really make her any more sympathetic. She comes across as more impossible to get. Stewart does enough to earn the film an above-average mark, with some good support from Joseph Schildkraut as the reptilian womaniser Vadas and William Tracy as Pepi, the young delivery boy who develops delusions of grandeur when he is promoted to clerk. The film would, however, have been better if Klara had been made more likeable. 6/10.
Laszlo was Jewish, and had recently (and wisely) left Hungary for the United States, fearful of the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe. The story, however, looks back to more peaceful times. The action takes place in a leather goods shop in Budapest and revolves around two employees, Alfred Kralik and Klara Novak. Both are members of a pen-pal club and have, without realising it, been writing to one another anonymously. The joke is that at work they dislike one another, and make little attempt to conceal their dislike, whereas both are rapturously enthusiastic about their unknown pen-friends whom they see as sensitive, romantic souls. This being a romantic comedy, it just has to end with Alfred and Klara eventually realising the truth and falling in love in the real world. (In "You've Got Mail" the unknowing lovers correspond by email rather than snail-mail, which even in 1998 was starting to look a bit old hat).
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan were close friends, and although they were not romantically involved somebody in Hollywood obviously thought that they made a lovely couple, because they were teamed together on four occasions in as many years. (The others were "Next Time We Live", "The Shopworn Angel" and "The Mortal Storm"). Here Stewart is his normal affable self as Alfred, a friendly, hard-working and competent salesman. He is frequently referred to by his boss as "my oldest employee", which presumably means "longest-serving", as several of his colleagues are obviously older in terms of age.
Although the film was made more than eighty years ago it clearly still has its admirers. It has a rating of 8.0 on this site, and 68 out of 196 reviewers have given it a perfect 10. It has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry and is listed in "Time" magazine's All-Time 100 Movies. It has never, however, been a favourite of mine. Unlike the staff of "Time" magazine, I could easily think of at least 100 movies (make that 1,000) which I prefer to this one.
One weakness is the treatment of the owner of the shop, Hugo Matuschek, played by Frank Morgan. He starts off as a pompous, overbearing and generally rather unpleasant employer, but by the end has undergone a complete change of personality, becoming everyone's best friend. The catalyst is his discovery that his wife Emma, who never actually appears on screen, is having an affair with one of his employees, Alfred's colleague Ferencz Vadas, and his subsequent unsuccessful suicide attempts. I found this development both hard to accept and tasteless, a very discordant note in what is otherwise a light-hearted rom-com,.
The main problem, however, is with Sullavan's Klara. I don't think that the fault lies with Sullavan herself, who was doubtless playing the character in the way demanded by the script and probably also by director Ernst Lubitsch. But it cannot be denied that Klara comes out as a very unlikeable young woman, rude and sharp-tongued and enough to test even Alfred's affability to the limit. Her eventual explanation is that she was playing "hard to get", having recently read a book about a French actress who used this tactic to succeed in her sex life, but that doesn't really make her any more sympathetic. She comes across as more impossible to get. Stewart does enough to earn the film an above-average mark, with some good support from Joseph Schildkraut as the reptilian womaniser Vadas and William Tracy as Pepi, the young delivery boy who develops delusions of grandeur when he is promoted to clerk. The film would, however, have been better if Klara had been made more likeable. 6/10.