Holiday Classics: The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch Run Time: 99 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 1940
Starring: Frank Morgan, James Stewart, Joseph Schildkraut, Margaret Sullavan, Sara Haden
Country: United States
Language: English
Presented as part of the 2023 edition of Holiday Classics.
About the film:
By night Alfred and Klara are pen pals who have never met but who are deeply devoted to each other. By day, Alfred and Klara are co-workers who, just as deeply, dislike each other. Academy Award winner Jimmy Stewart stars with Margaret Sullivan as Alfred and Klara in this classic romance directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch. This day/night – hate/love relationship cannot continue … but will it be loving or loathing when Alfred and Klara discover the identities of their cherished pen pals?
Based on the 1937 Hungarian play “Parfumerie” by Miklós László that later inspired writer-director Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail (1998). In 1999, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
About the filmmaker:
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born American film director, producer, writer, and actor. The pointed and patented “Lubitsch Touch”, his signature style of romantic comedy, was widely recognized by audiences and adored by critics. Some of Lubitsch’s best known works were Trouble in Paradise (1932), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), and Heaven Can Wait (1943). In 1946, he received an Honorary Academy Award for his distinguished contributions to the art of the motion picture. In 1958, renowned director Billy Wilder established the Ernst-Lubitsch-Prize, a German Comedy prize, in his friend’s honor.
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