The Shop Around the Corner

Classics time and this is a great one to spend time with. Funny, sweet, political, beautiful acting and casting.

We liked the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks You've Got Mail remake, too, but this is much better. We also liked the British TV comedy several years that was based on this movie, Are You Being Served?

Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy Stewart parry and marry while living out their solitary lives in a Budapest gift store.

Ralph, they don't actually get married, just engaged, assumedly.

Ok, but isn't it clever of me to use parry and marry in a sentence?

Nevermind. I give up. But where's the politics?

The movie takes place in 1938 in Budapest and the Depression is referred to several times while the lifestyle scenes show that people are trying desperately to ignore it. Not much of a statement, but still very interesting to see in 2008.

There are two fascinating coincidental uses of numbers in the film.

When the store owner (a very pleasant re-encounter with an actor who everyone grew up seeing at least once a year) gets out of the hospital after a nervous breakdown he goes to the front window of the shop. There is a close-up shot of the cash register showing the price 51.50 (in Hungarian money). Due to extensive and coincidental Internet research, I discovered that the California code for involuntary commitment for mental illness is numbered 5150.

The other numerical casting is the post office box number that Sullavan's character rents. The scene where her gloved hand reaches into the empty box is extraordinary. The box number, 237, is large and clear (also mentioned several times). It happens to be the same number as the hotel room used in Stanley Kubrick's movie, The Shining. Kubrick's choice of that number was mainly the result of needing a number in the 200's where the digits added up to 12 and of being a number that was not a real room number at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon which served as the backdrop but not the location for the movie.

Just as a quick aside,

Please.

I thought The Shining was an excellent film from many different angles. Scary movies aren't usually my choice but this is well worth it for film fanatics. And for political fanatics since Kubrick wanted to film it partly to draw attention to the genocide of native people.

The DVD of The Shop Around the Corner has a few special features. Unfortunately, no commentary, but there is an interesting short film called the Miracle of Sound, which is an old black and white MGM film that shows how sound was put on film. The opening scene has a very brief shot of a cotton field with a hand reaching out to pick the cotton (cotton was used to make celluloid). The hand, of course, belongs to an African-American and reminded me that I learned early in my teaching career to preview films that I ordered from the school district A-V department. A similar scene, yet much longer, was in a 16mm film of America the Beautiful that I showed to a class of 3rd graders in 1989. Teachable moments sometimes turn into long discussions.

And, of course, Mr. Political Correctness could not miss a chance like this to point out that 1940 Hollywood often billed the leading actress first over the actor (apparently due to chivalry), as in The Shop Around the Corner, while 1998 Hollywood billed Tom Hanks first in You've Got Mail (apparently due to Tom Hanks having greater appeal even over America's sweetheart and greatest fake orgasmic actress, Meg Ryan). Just an interesting note.

Thanks, Ralph. Apparently, you are due for a check-up.