The Shop Around the Corner [VHS]

The Shop Around the Corner [VHS]
by Ernst Lubitsch

The Shop Around the Corner [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Frank Morgan, James Stewart, Joseph Schildkraut, Margaret Sullavan, Sara Haden
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 97 minutes
Release Date: 2000-01-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Studio: Warner Home Video

VHS Movie Reviews of The Shop Around the Corner [VHS]

Movie Review: A beautiful love story set around Christmas time
Summary: 5 Stars

There is long list of movies to watch around Christmas time. Everyone knows true classics such as; it's a wonderful life, Scrooge, Christmas carol, Miracle on 34th street, and many others. There are some movies not usually mentioned but must be called a Christmas classics, and this particular movie definitely makes that list. This is a beautiful love story set around Christmas time starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan.

Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and Klara Novak (Margaret Sullivan) offer brilliant performances as two pen-pals who are in love but don't know that they are pen pals, in spite of the fact the two work in the same gift shop. The setting is simply great and very family oriented. This movie is set in Yuletide spirit with bells ringing, Christmas carols in the background, Christmas wreaths decorating the walls, homes, shops and buildings, and streets and neighborhoods covered with fresh snow. This movie was superbly directed by Ernst Lubitsch who made other classics such as; Angel (starring Marlene Dietrich), Ninotchka, and Heaven can wait (1943 version). Frank Morgan as Hugo Matuschek, the store owner has provided a splendid supporting role as store owner and very sensitive manager who respects the opinion of his employees and run the place a like a well knit family. Other workers include, the snippy errand boy, Pepi Katona (William Tracy), the caring and mild-mannered clerk, Pirovitch (Felix Bresssart), philandering Ferencz Vadas (Joseph Schildrakraut), and clerks Ilona (Sara Haden) and Flora.

Hugo Matuschek learns that his wife is having an affair and through a detective agency finds out that a store worker is the culprit. Thinking that Alfred is the guilty man he fires him. Later, when Hugo Matuschek learns that his wife is actually having an affair with Vadas, he despairs and tries to end his life, but is saved by Pepi Katona. Finally Alfred is re-hired as a store manager who fires Vadas, and rallies the store employees to make the biggest sale on Christmas Eve. Hugo Matuschek returns to a happy reunion and at last, the feuding Alfred and Klara become friends and she confides her love for him and he finally reveals himself as her secret lover. There is a fair amount of "Frank Capra dynamics" in the movie, at times it is very touching and the spirit of Christmas as envisioned by Charles Dickens flows through the mind and hearts of store workers, especially Alfred and Klara.

1. It's a Wonderful Life (60th Anniversary Edition)
2. Scrooge
3. A Christmas Carol (Ultimate Collector's Edition)(B/W & Color)
4. Miracle on 34th Street (Special Edition)
5. Angel (1937) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ]
6. Ninotchka

Movie Review: If you want to see what romantic comedies used to be...
Summary: 5 Stars

Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan), desperate for work, wheedles her way into a sales clerk job at Matuschek & Company, a small Budapest department store run by the quick-tempered, blustery Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan, in probably his best-known role next to the Wizard in THE WIZARD OF OZ). She quickly makes something of an enemy of the head clerk, Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) - but at the same time, both are falling in love with anonymous pen-pals, and it won't take a genius to figure out how this will resolve, especially as the film moves from autumn to Christmas, and sales and personal pressures grow for everyone. The contrast between the poetic inner lives of these two young and struggling people, and their hard and sarcastic exteriors reflects a whole array of personalities that are really not what they seem - obsequeious clerk Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut) turns out to be playing his own game; Matuschek's snap-tempered exterior belies an inner warmth, and the never-get-involved Pirovitch (Felix Bressart) turns out to be loyal and brave in a pinch.

The first of three Hollywood films based on Mikl?s L?szl?'s play "Parfumerie", and far and away the best (IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME (1949), a color musical with Judy Garland, Van Johnson and Buster Keaton, and YOU'VE GOT MAIL (1998) with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are the remakes). This is classic old-school Hollywood filmmaking with a snappy, sparkling scr?pt, assured and elegant but never ostentatious direction, and flawlessly turned performances by everyone from Sullavan and Stewart to the wonderful array of character actors, with Bressart and William Tracy as fast-climbing errand-boy turned clerk Pepi deserving special mention. The overall feeling is one of inner warmth and humanity struggling to break through in a fast-paced, commercial and on-the-edge-of-poverty lower middle class society. Everybody's in it for themselves - but only because they cannot see another way; the poetry and beauty of Tolstoy, or Zola, or a fine meal or champagne and someone to share it with are always struggling to seep through the hardened cynicism. There is also, along with the sense that many are hiding their best selves, the understanding that just as many people - sometimes the same people - are hiding their worst, and Mr. Matuschek's inner fears over his (never seen) wife, and the mistakes he makes over them, are the strongest evidence.

If there's a flaw to the film, it might be that Stewart - despite being second-billed to Sullavan - ends up dominating the film in the second half a little too much, not through any fault of his own really but because he learns his epistolary love's identity first, and plays around with her in a somewhat underhanded (some might say cruel) way - but the film tries to equate the hardness of Stewart and Sullavan, and it doesn't entirely come off to me. Maybe that's my inner feminist working, I don't know. Still it's a minimal flaw in one of the finest of all Hollywood romantic comedies, the best film probably in the sadly short career of Margaret Sullavan. An every-year holiday favorite for me only a step or two behind IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, though it should be said that the "Christmas" theme of the film isn't really all that significant a part of its joy.

Movie Review: CLASSIC
Summary: 5 Stars

[[ASIN:B0001DMVVC Family Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection]
The remakes of this movie. In the good o summer time, And you
got mail are ok. In "The Shop Around The Corner" first the movie is set in
Budapest. Which is brillant, it shows that people are basicly the same all over the world.
The theme that runs troughout all three films is the reason the guy and gal
are penpals is they are in real life , pety, jugdemental and mean.
A almost scary true comment on this world we live in.

Movie Review: Shop Around the Corner Review
Summary: 5 Stars

Classic Jimmy Stewart. Not a real Christmas movie but a male/female conflict on their feelings for each other. Must see.

Movie Review: ....
Summary: 4 Stars

After a long search of not being able to find this film anywhere in retail stores, I decided to search here. My mom and I really enjoyed this movie. The movie was a great price and the delivery was fast.

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Summary of The Shop Around the Corner [VHS]

One of the most charming and romantic films around, this 1940 comic romance finds James Stewart (Vertigo, It's A Wonderful Life) working in a small shop in Budapest and longing for a girl to call his own. His coworker, Margaret Sullavan, feels the same, and soon they are both corresponding and falling in love with their respective pen pals. What they don't realize is that they are writing to and falling in love with each other, but the problem is that they can't stand each other in person. The beguiling nature of the mistaken identity formula that influenced countless films is done to perfection here, and the wry combativeness and delightful banter between the two leads makes this a very special film. --Robert Lane

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