Rating: 
Summary: Classic Jimmy Stewart
Review: "The Shop Around the Corner" is the first of three films based on the same story line. (The others are "In the Good Old Summertime," starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson, and "You've Got Mail," starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.) This original version is, by far, the best of the three. While the acting abilities of James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan are legendary, it's the supporting cast that truly carries this film. Frank Morgan (perhaps best known for his role as the Wizard of OZ) is marvelous as Mr. Matuschek, the shop owner. Sara Hayden, Felix Bressart, and Joseph Schildkraut round out the principle supporting cast and all turn in wonderful performances. If you're a fan of James Stewart or Margaret Sullivan you must see this film. If you love romantic comedies, this is one of the best. And if you just want to see a thoroughly enjoyable movie, watch this one and you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Jimmy Steward. Tom Hanks. Kind of interchangable
Review: aren't they? One could play the life story of the other. This one is Jimmy Steward circa 1940, The Shop Around the Corner. It launched a whole bunch of remakes.
Two lonely people fall in love as pen-pals in pre-war Budapest. Unbeknownest they also work together in the same shop & have developed a healthy dislike for each other. Of course the complications & subplots take off from there as in any romantic comedy. This is one of the best. Eventually it all straightens out, boy gets girl etc. It is a bit dated & amusing as part of the cast has a Hungarian accent & some don't. It is still the best, the original & a classic.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderfully crafted romantic comedy
Review: Ernst Lubitsch's gentle comedy weaves together seamlessly and beautifully a handful of narrative strands, chiefly the shakey romantic development of stars Stewart and Sullavan's unusual relationship.
The story is believably told and engagingly acted by a cast that also includes Frank Morgan alongside the two perfectly matched leads. Script is witty, and the design of the production is quite charming. German-born Lubitsch, one of many great directors to leave Germany in the 1920s and '30s to pursue a career in Hollywood, brings the Eastern European setting to life convincingly. A fine film and a classic.
Rating:
Summary: The original, much-remade lonelyhearts romance
Review: The Shop Around the Corner has been remade and imitated so many times, from the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks comedy "You've Got Mail" to the musical "She Loves Me." But none of the remakes surpasses the charm of the original gem by director Ernest Lubitsch. The story is simple enough: two penpals fall in love, but neither of them are aware that during the daytime they are workplace enemies. In this case, work is Mr. Matuschek's (Frank Morgan) shop, and unbenknownst penpals Klara (Margaret Sullivan) and Kralik (James Stewart) are sullen sales clerks both vying for a promotion. Kralik is Klara's manager, and they dislike each other intensely.
The movie benefts from good casting. As the penpals, Stewart and Sullivan have great chemistry. (The chemistry wasn't just onscreen -- Stewart reportedly carried a torch for Sullivan for many years.) They also have a distinct lack of Hollywood glamor that makes the story more charming and believable. Margaret Sullivan is pretty in a wholesome, girl-next-door way. She doesnt have the zany energy of the screwball comediennes like Carole Lombard but unlike Meg Ryan, Sullivan doesn't strain for cuteness. Part of the movie's charm is that at work, Klara and Kralik ARE quite insufferable.
The movie also has a memorable supporting cast: Morgan as Matuschek, Felix Bressart as the insufferable Pirovitch, William Tracy as Pepi. The whole story takes place around Christmastime, so it's a good movie to get as a holiday present.
Rating:
Summary: A gentle, humane and worldly-wise comedy.
Review: Ernst Lubitsch, Hollywood's greatest master of sophisticated comedy, made a number of classics--Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be--but The Shop Around the Corner is probably his most beloved film, and with good reason. For one thing, it's still the best-known of the four screen collaborations between the great James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, a delicate and endearing actress now known more for her brief, troubled life than for her performances. For another, Samson Raphaelson's script--based on a Hungarian stage comedy--provides lots of hearty laughs while remaining well-entrenched in a deep understanding of human nature. The characters are comic, but they never seem less than totally real. The story of Alfred (Stewart) and Klara (Sullavan), bickering shop assistants who don't realize they're each other's beloved pen pals, was remade a few years ago as "You've Got Mail" and turned into a musical, "She Loves Me;" but it also is mirrored in the tales of any number of sparring sitcom couples (Sam and Diane, David and Maddie, Dr. Joel and Maggie). The supporting roles are equally potent comic archetypes: Matuschek (Frank Morgan, the Wizard himself), the blustery, suspicious but essentially decent shop owner; the grandiloquent, treacherous Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut), Uriah Heep recast as a gigolo; Pepi (William Tracy), the brash, overambitious delivery boy; and Pirovich (Felix Bressart), the good-hearted average guy who wants nothing more than to stay out of trouble, but will stand up for his friends when he has to. This ensemble of actors is as sharp and accomplished as any who ever performed before a camera. The Shop Around the Corner is a lovely, humane and worldly-wise romantic comedy that will live as long as the cinema.
Rating:
Summary: Honest & Heartfelt
Review: Here's a movie with charm in spades, and a beguiling premise. A man and a woman begin a correspondence, and through this correspondence they fall in love, while in real life despising each other. And what two better to do this sort of thing than Jimmy Stewart (Alfred Kralik) and Margaret Sullavan (Klara Novak). The setting is an odd goods shop in Budapest, staffed by a superb supporting cast, each tossing into the storyline their own minor dramas. Mr Matuschek with his bothersome home life, Mr Pirovitch who serves as Alfred's confidante, Mr Vadas who holds a clandestine affair, Miss Novodny and her gentleman friend ~ who is he? ~ that presents her with lavish gifts, Pepi with his heart of gold, and my favorite, the mousish Flora who devotes her life to her mother, and whom you just know is dreaming of a romance of her own. It is said that Stewart and Sullavan held a deep personal respect for each other off screen, and this makes for a genuine on-screen chemistry between them. This chemistry is of the intellectual variety, and ~ to this viewer at least ~ their sparring conversations and confrontations are greatly more interesting and engaging than any purely physical romance could ever be. Sullavan is terrific, wavering between what she reads in books and thinks she ought to believe, and what her heart is prompting her to feel. Stewart is marvellously put out by all of this, sniffy and sulky, yet finds himself drawn to the prickly Klara despite himself. Everyone is impeccable in their roles, the wit and the banter sparkles. Here's a film that shall grow on you, that shall take you in completely, and will demand repeat viewings ~ and possibly the use of a tissue or two. Intelligent and heartwarming, and infused with a kind of a quiet magic, 'The Shop Around the Corner' ought melt any heart, save the most unmeltable. A romantic masterpiece. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, who also did 'Eternal Love', 'Ninotchka', and the original 'Heaven Can Wait'.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: 1940's THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER has been remade twice; in 1949 with Judy Garland and Van Johnson in the musical adaptation IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME, and again in the late `90s in the internet-based YOU'VE GOT MAIL with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. They can remake it another dozen times. It's hard to believe any will ever better this gem from director Ernst Lubitsch.
Jimmy Stewart stars as Alfred Kralik, chief clerk at Matuschek's, a gift shop in Budapest. Margaret Sullavan is Klara Novak, a feisty new hire. Klara and Kralik seem to have only one thing in common - a vocal dislike for each other. Of course they share one other thing - they are anonymous pen pals who have fallen in love with each other through the mail.
THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER is based on the play `Parfumerie' by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo, and its pedigree as a product for the stage shows. Almost all action takes place within the shop. It is visually static enough to assume that this probably would have made a successful radio production. That said, Lubitsch comes across with one beautiful shot that would have been impossible to duplicate on radio or in a theater. Shot from the inner side of the post office boxes we see #38 being opened and a gloved hand feeling around the empty interior. The hand is removed and Margaret Sullavan's disappointed face appears, framed by the open box.
Lubitsch also has fun with the wonderful character actor Felix Bressart, who plays the wise and timid clerk Pirovitch. The thunderous and intimidating owner of the shop, Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan - the wizard in THE WIZARD OF OZ), turns to Kralik a few times in the first half of the movie and begs his honest opinion on this or that. Terrified that his opinion may be asked next, Pirovitch makes like a mouse caught out of the cabinet and Lubitsch catches him scurrying off-screen time and again. This business sets us up for a later scene when Pirovitch confronts Matuschek and gives an unsolicited opinion in defense of his out-of-favor friend Kralik. It's an ennobling moment, one of many in this fine movie.
Stewart and Sullavan are convincing as a couple unknowingly throwing barbs at the object of their tenderest affections. They are average enough looking to make the whole thing plausible - a couple of glamour pusses, say Cary Grant and Rita Hayworth, would have thrown the whole thing off. The story needs a boy and a girl-next-door type.
The dvd's extras include cast and crew biographies, a trailer, "A Great Story is Worth Retelling" (background story of the making of THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER in written text) and the short subject "A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound," which doesn't have much to do with the movie it's bundled with but is delightful nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: Nearly perfect
Review: "The Shop Around The Corner" was the first film I watched by the master director Ernst Lubitsch, and despite all of the rave reviews, I was not disappointed. A beautifully crafted film, more complex than "You've Got Mail". In addition to the romance between Klara Novak (Sullavan) and Alfred Kralik (Stewart), the problems of the shop owner Matuschek (Morgan) add depth to the movie and make it more touching. If you like this film, also see Lubitsch's "Trouble In Paradise", considered by many to be the best example of the Lubitsch touch. Picture quality is excellent, but not flawless. There are some film artifacts throughout, but they do not distract from the timelessness of this movie.
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