After I finished The Shop Around the Corner (1940), which I viewed on Amazon Prime, it gave me a few suggestions of other movies like it that I might enjoy.  Among them was You’ve Got Mail (1998).  While watching The Shop Around the Corner, I definitely had the sense that I had seen something like this before, but I could not place it.  Then, when I noticed You’ve Got Mail among the recommendations, I said to myself, of course, that is it.  Indeed, the 1940 picture is listed as a direct inspiration for the 1998 one.  If you are familiar with both, you will agree with this sentiment.  As I have remarked a number of times, Hollywood is a copycat business, and seldom do they attempt anything truly original.  One could say that You’ve Got Mail is The Shop Around the Corner of the computer age, though the modern version embellishes on aspects of the plot.  Either way, I am happy to have seen the original.

Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) is the longest tenured clerk at The Shop Around the Corner in Budapest, Hungary, which is owned by Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan).  Hugo’s name appears on the door in front of which Alfred and the rest of his co-workers gather as they await the arrival of their employer.  Among the various conversation topics is Alfred’s ongoing correspondence with a woman who had put out an advertisement looking for what we might call a pen pal.  In sharing further with his fellow salesman, Pirovitch (Felix Bressart), Alfred tells him that the lady on the other end of the letters is smart and well read, and it is clear that he is smitten.  Alfred is pretty sharp himself, and somebody on whom Hugo relies for clear ideas on the direction of the business.  You see this when Hugo excitedly shows his top employee a cigarette box that plays a Hungarian folk tune upon opening it, but then Alfred dismisses it out of hand for its low quality.  In these early moments of the shop opening, they are visited by Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan).  She is not a customer, but rather a job seeker, and a desperate one.  Unfortunately, she first meets Alfred, who tells her that they do not have any current openings.  When she demands to speak with Hugo, Alfred predicts exactly what his boss will say once she manages to talk to the owner.  Yet, when she proves her value in selling one of the defective tobacco cases to a customer, Hugo agrees to take her onto the staff.  Weeks go by, and Alfred and Klara do not get along, but the letters keep flowing unwittingly between the two.  For whatever reason, they have yet to reveal their identities to one another, but they have agreed to meet.  At the same time, Hugo is beginning to have problems with his wife.  He hires a private investigator to look into potential infidelity on her part, and learns that one of his employees has been making unannounced visits.  Hugo assumes it is Alfred because of the man’s success, and decides to fire him.  This coincidentally happens on the day that he is set to meet his pen pal for the first time, though, again, he still does not know who she is or what she looks like.  With his employment prospects seemingly gone, he decides against going to the rendezvous.  As he leaves the shop, Pirovitch goes with him, and they walk past the café where their date is to take place.  Alfred describes to Pirovitch how he is supposed to recognize her, and Pirovitch reports that “her” is Klara.  Alfred tells Pirovitch, upon recovering from his shock, that he is not going in, but does anyway once his co-worker leaves.  Alfred finds an anxious Klara, who has some nasty words for him despite him being down for recently losing his job.  It is because of his lack of an income, and her hostility, that he remains anonymous.  Meanwhile, back at the shop Hugo receives further information on Mrs. Matuschek’s affair: rather than Alfred as the cuckold, it is the debonair Ferencz Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut), another of Hugo’s salesmen.  Realizing he has made a terrible mistake, Hugo attempts to commit suicide, but is stopped by his errand boy, Pepi Katona (William Tracy).  It is Pepi who sends for Alfred, at Hugo’s request, not only to ask his former clerk for forgiveness, but to offer the position of manager of the store while Hugo recuperates.  Alfred accepts, and one of his first acts in his new position of authority is to carry out Hugo’s orders to fire Ferencz.  He is also solicitous of Klara, telling her by phone that she does not need to come into work right away.  When she eventually does and finds that Alfred is her new boss, she faints.  He visits her at home, and arrives at the same time as a new letter from him.  Thus, he is present to see the restoration of her spirits the missive brings her.  With Christmas coming up, she asks him for advice as to what kind of gift she should get him, though she seems intent on one of those silly cigarette boxes.  He thinks it should be a wallet, and makes a compelling case for one, but is still overruled.  At any rate, she is back in her position in time for the crush of customers that comes on Christmas Eve.  Alfred wants to make it a day of lots of sales so that they can present Hugo with a load of money they take in from the proceeds.  Speaking of Hugo, he manages to make it down from the hospital to check in on his staff, and is on hand to hear the final record-breaking tally.  As for Alfred and Klara, they are set to meet each other once again to finally see their pen pals.  As they are the last two in the shop, she admits that, when they first met, she had been really close to falling in love with him, but then they’re relationship deteriorated.  After making up a meeting with her gentleman letter writer, he finally admits that it had been him the entire time.  The film ends with them kissing.

As has been the case with most of the classic cinema I have seen, I immensely enjoyed The Shop Around the Corner.  I am not sure why they insisted on setting it in Budapest, but, hey, that is where it takes place in the source material, so I will leave off complaining too much.  Besides, there are some great lines that spoke to me as a practicing Catholic.  The main one on which I would like to focus is when Klara is describing her correspondent, again not knowing it is Alfred, and saying flowery things about him.  Namely, she claims that most people only scratch the surface of another human being without truly seeing their heart.  There are non-spiritual ways of showing the veracity of this fact.  A large portion of us are so intent on our own concerns that there is little left in our attention spans to give to another.  Faith encourages us to go deeper.  Jesus, being also God, could see a person’s soul.  This is not entirely possible for us mortals, but we are told to be like Him.  That may seem like an impossible standard because God is God and man is man.  Faith, though, is about the effort.  One thing I recently heard from Bishop Robert Barron in talking about prayer is an emphasis on taking the time.  Like getting to know a person, it takes even more time to get to know God.  You can go back and forth with as many prayers, or letters as in the movie, and still have a way to go.  That is okay, too.  The point is to keep going, in Faith and in life, because the reward is always worth it.

There is another great line in The Shop Around the Corner, though this one is apparently borrowed from Victor Hugo.  It pertains to how true love is to be two, yet one.  It is a nice sentiment, but better applied to God than a relationship with a person.  It is the only mark against what is a thoroughly enjoyable film.