Thrice Told Tales: Christmas Edition (The Shop Around the Corner)

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

An annual watch for me is Miracle on 34th Street, a truly wonderful flick which includes these lines from Alfred, the janitor: “Yeah, there’s a lot of bad ‘isms’ floatin’ around this world, but one of the worst is commercialism. Make a buck, make a buck.”

Alfred brings up a continuing theme in many of the best Christmas films – the danger of commercialism.

The greatest TV Christmas special is A Charlie Brown Christmas, in which Linus recites from Luke 2 in order to explain the real meaning of Christmas. His sister Lucy, though, argues, “We all know that Christmas is a commercial racket. It’s run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know.”

The second-best TV Christmas special is How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which is all about how Christmas still goes on even if all the presents and special foods are gone.

All of these perennial Christmas favorites leave viewers with the impression that it’s not just commercialism but capitalism that somehow displeases Santa Claus.

I’m fine with all this; I’m firmly on team “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Still, I would like to point out that there is a classic Christmas film starring Jimmy Stewart that actually celebrates capitalism: The Shop Around the Corner.

This 1940 romantic comedy was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, from a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur based on the 1937 Hungarian play, Parfumerie. It tells the story of two employees working at a leather goods shop in Budapest who hate each other at work but unknowingly are falling in love through their anonymous correspondence.

Jimmy Stewart plays Alfred Kralik, the clerk who battles Margaret Sullivan’s Klara Novak at the store and woos her via the postal service. As usual, Stewart is so charming that even when he is being a bit of a jerk, the viewer can’t help but like him. Frank Morgan (yes, the Wizard of Oz himself) plays Mr. Matuschek, their boss and the owner of Matuschek and Company, the store where they all work. Matuschek suspects Kralik is having an affair with his wife – which (spoiler!) isn’t true, but this leads to surprisingly dark plot complications.

Since the center of the story, which takes place during the Christmas season, is the romance, quibblers may bring up the old Die Hard question: “Just because it takes place during Christmastime, is it automatically a Christmas film?” The secondary theme of the film, though, is certainly Christmas-related. It’s a celebration of Christmas commercialism.

As Mr. Matuschek goes through a very dark time, Kralik knows what will make all the difference to him. “The best Christmas present we could give Mr. Matuschek is an empty store and a full cash register.” Kralik is operating on the idea that sales success isn’t just good for the boss, but it’s good for the employees as well – Christmas bonuses for all. Christmas is good for the economy. Many businesses count on the uptick in sales in November and December, and a number of Christmas businesses (for example, Christmas tree farms) make the vast majority of their year’s income in the run-up to the holiday. That puts food on people’s tables, and that’s a good thing.

All those purchases were good for those who received the gifts that customers were buying. At one point, Kralik says, “If I had such a wallet, I would be the happiest man on Earth.” In this film, material as well as spiritual things provide Christmas joy. James 1:7 says, “Every good gift and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights.” (Including Christmas lights, I’d add.) What gifts could be more perfect than a wallet for Kralik or a Red Ryder BB Gun for Ralphie?

Even more important to Kralik than sales or wallets is his relationship to his “Dear Friend” in postbox #327. Alfred and Klara both think they have found the ideal mate through their letters. Alfred used the writings of others, quoting Shakespeare and Victor Hugo (non-Hungarian poets), raising Klara’s expectations quite high. She thinks he’s probably a wealthy man of leisure. I don’t want to spoil things for those who watch Hallmark movies for the twists and turns in the plot, but things do go well for our young lovers.

But things didn’t go so well for this film at the box office when it was released. Nevertheless, its reputation grew over the years...so much so that it was brought back to the screen again. This is fortunate for Thrice Told Tales.

If you’ve never seen this film, I’d urge you to seek it out. It might become a part of your Yuletide rotation.

In the Good Old Summertime (1949)

One might look at the title and think, “This isn’t a Christmas film.” But don’t worry! The story doesn’t happen just during the summertime, but throughout the year. And thankfully for us, it’s a remake of Shop Around the Corner turned into a musical.

One of the other major changes from the earlier film is the location. Instead of Budapest, it's set in Chicago. (Neither film has much of a feel for their respective cities; both feel like they were made on Hollywood sound stages, which they were.) Instead of a contemporary setting, it’s set at the turn of the century (19th - 20th). There is quite an effort to evoke nostalgia for the time and place, and one gets the feeling they were trying to evoke the appeal of Meet Me in St. Louis — I don’t think they were successful in this regard, even with Judy Garland in the lead role. (Originally June Allyson was cast in that role, with Frank Sinatra in the role played by Van Johnson.)

The setting is no longer a leather goods store, but instead a music store, selling instruments and sheet music. The conflict between the store owner (S. Z. Sakall as Otto Oberkugen) and the chief clerk (Johnson as Andrew Larkin) is different, too. Otto doesn’t suspect Larkin of having an affair with his wife; he is angry with Larkin for borrowing his cherished Stradivarius violin without asking (an underwhelming conflict).

The central romantic conflict is still the same. Garland portrays Veronica Fisher, a fellow clerk with Andrew Larkin. They constantly berate and insult each other while at the same time carrying on an anonymous romantic correspondence with each other.

This might be a subjective thing, but for me, Garland and Johnson’s characters don’t seem right for each other. Larkin plagiarizes poetry in his letters and presents it as his own. Fisher is quite mean to Larkin, even on their first meeting. And there is a beautiful young violinist (Marcia Van Dyke as Louise) who is quite evidently in love with Larkin. She seems a much better match for the character. The only reason Johnson and Garland seem to have for coming together is that they both have top billing.

The celebration of Christmas capitalism isn’t really a part of this film, but they did make an effort to make it a perennial Yuletide classic with the song, “Merry Christmas.”

You don’t remember it?

No one else does either. (Here's the link.) I think they hoped to have another “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with the tune, but no such luck. Really, none of the songs or musical numbers are very memorable.

Cinephiles might appreciate the casting of Buster Keaton as “Hickey,” who was originally supposed to be a “young” friend of Larkin’s. Liza Minnelli also makes her film debut at the end as Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Larkin’s daughter. (Liza Minnelli is, of course, Judy Garland’s daughter.)

Unlike Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Old Summertime was a big hit with audiences and critics upon its release.

You’ve Got Mail (1998)

This late-century remake of the story has quite dramatic changes in the plot. Tom Hanks plays Joe Fox, heir to the Fox Book Store chain. Meg Ryan plays Kathleen Kelly, owner of a small, independent children’s bookstore in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Fox and Kelly’s correspondence isn’t through the U.S. Postal Service but through these newfangled emails.

Fox meets Kelly at her bookstore when on an outing with his 4-year-old stepbrother and 11-year-old aunt. Fox and Kelly quickly strike up a friendship, and it does seem to be love at first sight. (A complication is that both are in long-term relationships, Kelly with a newspaper columnist played by Greg Kennear and Fox with a publisher played by Parker Posey.)

Economics plays a big role in this film. Fox’s family is opening a new mega-discount book store (think Borders) near Kelly’s bookstore, named, as it happens, Shop Around the Corner. When Kelly learns Joe’s identity, their new friendship breaks apart with extreme prejudice, yet their anonymous internet affair continues.

The Shop Around the Corner is unable to survive competition with the discount store and is forced to close just before Christmas (why they wouldn't hold on until after Christmas to offload inventory is baffling), but Fox learns that Kelly is his online love. Both of them dump or are dumped by their earlier romantic partners (with no regret on any side).

Without revealing his identity, Fox pursues a romance with Kelly in the real world. Eventually, he reveals his online persona to her, and love prevails.

It’s fun to watch this film and think about what would have happened with these stores. Fox Books was probably brought down by Amazon.com, like so many other book chains, while perhaps a small independent store specializing in children’s books, like Shop Around the Corner, would be revived as a coffee shop. (BTW, there is a lot of Starbucks product placement in the film.)

This was the third romcom pairing for Hanks and Ryan, after Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993). Like Sleepless, this film was written and directed by Nora Ephron, the auteur of Yuppie Chic. The soundtrack comprises Boomer comfort songs. And all the apartments are furnished by Williams Sonoma and Restoration Hardware. Rudy Giuliani's New York is lovingly shown in all its gentrified glory.

Hanks and Ryan had undeniable chemistry onscreen, and the audience is pulling for them to get together. The screenplay doesn’t cheat on the conflict and tension or on the resolution. (FWIW, we do see some holiday decorations at Fox Books, but Christmas isn’t really featured in the film.)

This film continues to be beloved and quoted by cat ladies to this day.