MOVIE · 1940

The Shop Around the Corner

ComedyDramaRomance99 min

In a Budapest gift shop during the holiday season, Alfred and Klara spend their workdays sparring, unaware that the anonymous letters they treasure are being sent to each other. James Stewart is Alfred, a clerk whose polite, hopeful life on paper looks nothing like his tense days behind the counter, while Margaret Sullavan's Klara meets him with equal force at work and in her correspondence. Frank Morgan adds another layer of pressure as the shop's temperamental owner. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, the film keeps its focus on cramped shop routines, bruised egos, and a romance taking shape through the mail.