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Blu-ray Review The Shop Around The Corner Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Josh Steinberg
- Start date
davidmatychuk
Senior HTF Member
Beautiful review, Josh. I'm really looking forward to picking up my copy today, along with five other new Warner Archive Blu-Rays I've ordered that have arrived all at once. Ever since "The Shop Around The Corner" came out on DVD, it's been on regular Christmas rotation at the Matychuk home, not just because every time they say "Matuschek" our ears perk up like Asta's, but it certainly adds to our fun.
Scott Merryfield
Senior HTF Member
Thanks for the review, Josh. My copy arrived in time for us to watch it just before Christmas. It looked terrific. Such a wonderful film.
davidmatychuk
Senior HTF Member
I just watched the wonderful Blu-Ray. What a fantastic thing it is to be able to watch such a movie as this with such a quality and at this price it is such a bargain. I may be expressing myself like a character from "The Shop Around The Corner" for some time. Just call me Matuschek, for now.
Carlo_M
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Oct 31, 1997
- Messages
- 13,392
I actually had never seen this movie before but it was recommended to me this holiday by one of the streaming services I subscribe to (HBO?). Thoroughly enjoyed it...my first thought was "hey a much better version of You've Got Mail" lol. And it was nice to see Jimmy going after an age appropriate woman (through no fault of his own, I'm sure, Hollywood loves to pair older men with younger women).
Just got my copy from Amazon and can't wait to see it's PQ. It looked very good on streaming, so I can imagine it will look better on disc.
Just got my copy from Amazon and can't wait to see it's PQ. It looked very good on streaming, so I can imagine it will look better on disc.
Nelson Au
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- 19,164
I just got this disc too! I knew of it from the Tom Hanks film and I’ve not seen either film! So I look forward to finding a good time to watch it.
My disc came today, and I watched it tonight. I was captivated by the video quality. Looked like it was shot yesterday. I love this movie so much, and I am so happy to have it looking so beautiful now.
- Joined
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- Josh Steinberg
I’m extremely happy with the quality of this and Warner Archive’s other two recent holiday releases, It Happened On Fifth Avenue and Holiday Affair. They didn’t have original negative for any of them, and I really had to go from my 55” TV to my 106” projection screen to begin to notice. The audio tracks were all significant upgrades from the DVDs. They actually added bonuses for the BDs, which isn’t something they always do. And despite (understandable) mailing delays resulting in the discs not arriving until after Christmas, I quickly lost myself in the films and felt the Yuletide cheer. I don’t think I’ve ever had reason to give out three 5/5 ratings in a row and this time it was an easy call. These discs will get played every December in my house, but they’re too good to wait until then to get.
davidmatychuk
Senior HTF Member
I'll happily second that. Last week, when I picked up a stack of 6 Warner Archive Blu-Rays (The Shop Around The Corner, Holiday Affair, It Happened On 5th Avenue, Mister Roberts, The Curse Of Frankenstein, and Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume Two) and Gremlins 4K from my local retailer, Videomatica, I quipped to B.J. that I was getting more Warner Blu-Rays than there were Warner Brothers. I know, ouch, but Christmas II has that effect on me.
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Mine arrived from Amazon today after BB cancelled my early December order. I didn't order it from Amazon until Thursday night at about 9:00 p.m. and got it today less than 72 hours later which is kind of a miracle considering how my discs have been arriving the last month or so.
Yes, I didn't order until Amazon dropped the price to what I'm accustomed to paying for WA discs from them. WHen they did, I ordered immediately, and it came THE NEXT DAY! I waited six weeks for The Pirate after I ordered it! The mail right now (as well as availability of WA discs from Amazon) is completely unpredictable!
benbess
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Josh writes in his excellent review:
"The film’s balance of romance, comedy and vulnerability would seem an impossible balancing act, yet is one that Lubitsch handles with ease. While the audience is in on the joke, the characters are never played for fools, and the comedy never comes at the expense of the believability of the romance.....There are turns for the dramatic, particularly involving a subplot where Mr. Matuschek has reason to believe his wife is running around with one of his employees, but the heaviest moments neither weigh the picture down nor do they feel like non sequiturs. Everything lands perfectly. Undiminished by the passage of time, The Shop Around The Corner remains in the top class of film romances."
I agree completely. I first watched The Shop Around The Corner several ago and was entranced by it, but the poor picture quality was distracting throughout. The scratches, dust, and sometimes slightly blurry picture, almost as if it were being seen underwater, diminished the experience. I felt it was a small but great movie, but was afraid that no one beyond film buffs would ever be able to enjoy it much because of its deterioration. But as usual Warner Archive has brought this film back, even though the original negative is lost. The element that survives was made from the negative, however, and so what we are seeing is pretty much exactly what audiences saw at opening night at Radio City Music Hall in January of 1940.
It's sometimes a challenge to get my wife to watch a movie, because she usually just doesn't care for anything that's sad, scary, or even too dramatic. But after I got the blu-ray I didn't open it hoping that there might be an opportunity, and last night as she was starting to feel ill from her Pfizer booster (I got mine a couple of months ago), we watched this together and she really liked it.
It had been so long since I'd seen it I'd mostly forgotten the poignant subplot with Frank Morgan's character, which is written and performed wonderfully. I feel like this role, although very different, is equal to his performance in The Wizard of Oz.
I've been listening to an audiobook biography of James Stewart, and it reveals that he and his co-star Margaret Sullavan were friends for a very long time, which is also referenced in the imdb trivia for The Shop Around the Corner....
"Even though Margaret Sullavan was infamous for her quick temper and disdainful attitude towards Hollywood, James Stewart counted working with her as one of the great joys of his professional career. And because he knew her personally, he was more equipped than most of the cast and crew members to deal with her frequent and volatile emotional outbursts.
Soon after wrapping principal photography, Ernst Lubitsch talked to the New York Sun in January 1940. "It's not a big picture, just a quiet little story that seemed to have some charm. It didn't cost very much, for such a cast, under $500,000. It was made in twenty-eight days."
To make sure his film was stripped of the glamour usually associated with him, Ernst Lubitsch went to such lengths as ordering that a dress Margaret Sullavan had purchased off the rack for $1.98 be left in the sun to bleach and altered to fit poorly.
In the Book "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise", Ernst Lubitsch called this film "the best picture I ever made in my life."
Ernst Lubitsch delayed the start of the movie until both James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan were available. In the meantime, he filmed Ninotchka (1939).
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan had known each other a long time before making this film. Both were in a summer stock company called the University Players. It was there that Stewart realized his potential as an actor, so he followed Sullavan and fellow player Henry Fonda to New York to begin an acting career in earnest.
Even James Stewart could get flustered working with Margaret Sullavan. One day it took him forty-eight takes to get a scene right. Stewart said: ....I will roll my trousers up to my knees.' For some reason I couldn't say it. She was furious. She said, 'This is absolutely ridiculous.' There I was standing with my trousers rolled up to my knees, very conscious of my skinny legs, and I said, 'I don't want to act today; get a fellow with decent legs and just show them.' Margaret said, 'Then I absolutely refuse to do the picture.' So we did more takes."
According to the Book "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise", 'The Shop Around the Corner' is the most meaningful tribute possible to the owner and employees of the long vanished Berlin clothing firm of S. Lubitsch.
While directing this movie, Ernst Lubitsch drew upon his extensive experiences working in his father's Berlin shop as a young lad. At the film's January 25, 1940 premiere at Radio City Music Hall, Lubitsch remarked, "I have known just such a little shop....The feeling between the boss and those who work for him is pretty much the same the world over, it seems to me. Everyone is afraid of losing his job and everyone knows how little human worries can affect his job. If the boss has a touch of dyspepsia, better be careful not to step on his toes; when things have gone well with him, the whole staff reflects his good humor.
According to Bright Lights Film Journal website, When Kralik mentions "You read Zola's Madame Bovary," Klara immediately corrects him: "Madame Bovary is not by Zola," she snipes. The joke here is that though Klara knows who wrote Madame Bovary, she doesn't understand that she herself is living exclusively in Emma Bovary's world of impossible ideals.
James Stewart was at the top of Ernst Lubitsch's list to play the simple Alfred Kralik because the actor was "the antithesis of the old-time matinee idol; he holds his public by his very lack of a handsome face or suave manner."
Although all the signage is in Hungarian, as it should be, the sign advertising the big markdown on the cigarette boxes is in English, as it was deemed important that the audience be able to read it.
In You've Got Mail (1998), which is based on this film, Meg Ryan's character owns a bookstore named The Shop Around The Corner.
www.imdb.com
"The film’s balance of romance, comedy and vulnerability would seem an impossible balancing act, yet is one that Lubitsch handles with ease. While the audience is in on the joke, the characters are never played for fools, and the comedy never comes at the expense of the believability of the romance.....There are turns for the dramatic, particularly involving a subplot where Mr. Matuschek has reason to believe his wife is running around with one of his employees, but the heaviest moments neither weigh the picture down nor do they feel like non sequiturs. Everything lands perfectly. Undiminished by the passage of time, The Shop Around The Corner remains in the top class of film romances."
I agree completely. I first watched The Shop Around The Corner several ago and was entranced by it, but the poor picture quality was distracting throughout. The scratches, dust, and sometimes slightly blurry picture, almost as if it were being seen underwater, diminished the experience. I felt it was a small but great movie, but was afraid that no one beyond film buffs would ever be able to enjoy it much because of its deterioration. But as usual Warner Archive has brought this film back, even though the original negative is lost. The element that survives was made from the negative, however, and so what we are seeing is pretty much exactly what audiences saw at opening night at Radio City Music Hall in January of 1940.
It's sometimes a challenge to get my wife to watch a movie, because she usually just doesn't care for anything that's sad, scary, or even too dramatic. But after I got the blu-ray I didn't open it hoping that there might be an opportunity, and last night as she was starting to feel ill from her Pfizer booster (I got mine a couple of months ago), we watched this together and she really liked it.
It had been so long since I'd seen it I'd mostly forgotten the poignant subplot with Frank Morgan's character, which is written and performed wonderfully. I feel like this role, although very different, is equal to his performance in The Wizard of Oz.
I've been listening to an audiobook biography of James Stewart, and it reveals that he and his co-star Margaret Sullavan were friends for a very long time, which is also referenced in the imdb trivia for The Shop Around the Corner....
"Even though Margaret Sullavan was infamous for her quick temper and disdainful attitude towards Hollywood, James Stewart counted working with her as one of the great joys of his professional career. And because he knew her personally, he was more equipped than most of the cast and crew members to deal with her frequent and volatile emotional outbursts.
Soon after wrapping principal photography, Ernst Lubitsch talked to the New York Sun in January 1940. "It's not a big picture, just a quiet little story that seemed to have some charm. It didn't cost very much, for such a cast, under $500,000. It was made in twenty-eight days."
To make sure his film was stripped of the glamour usually associated with him, Ernst Lubitsch went to such lengths as ordering that a dress Margaret Sullavan had purchased off the rack for $1.98 be left in the sun to bleach and altered to fit poorly.
In the Book "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise", Ernst Lubitsch called this film "the best picture I ever made in my life."
Ernst Lubitsch delayed the start of the movie until both James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan were available. In the meantime, he filmed Ninotchka (1939).
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan had known each other a long time before making this film. Both were in a summer stock company called the University Players. It was there that Stewart realized his potential as an actor, so he followed Sullavan and fellow player Henry Fonda to New York to begin an acting career in earnest.
Even James Stewart could get flustered working with Margaret Sullavan. One day it took him forty-eight takes to get a scene right. Stewart said: ....I will roll my trousers up to my knees.' For some reason I couldn't say it. She was furious. She said, 'This is absolutely ridiculous.' There I was standing with my trousers rolled up to my knees, very conscious of my skinny legs, and I said, 'I don't want to act today; get a fellow with decent legs and just show them.' Margaret said, 'Then I absolutely refuse to do the picture.' So we did more takes."
According to the Book "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise", 'The Shop Around the Corner' is the most meaningful tribute possible to the owner and employees of the long vanished Berlin clothing firm of S. Lubitsch.
While directing this movie, Ernst Lubitsch drew upon his extensive experiences working in his father's Berlin shop as a young lad. At the film's January 25, 1940 premiere at Radio City Music Hall, Lubitsch remarked, "I have known just such a little shop....The feeling between the boss and those who work for him is pretty much the same the world over, it seems to me. Everyone is afraid of losing his job and everyone knows how little human worries can affect his job. If the boss has a touch of dyspepsia, better be careful not to step on his toes; when things have gone well with him, the whole staff reflects his good humor.
According to Bright Lights Film Journal website, When Kralik mentions "You read Zola's Madame Bovary," Klara immediately corrects him: "Madame Bovary is not by Zola," she snipes. The joke here is that though Klara knows who wrote Madame Bovary, she doesn't understand that she herself is living exclusively in Emma Bovary's world of impossible ideals.
James Stewart was at the top of Ernst Lubitsch's list to play the simple Alfred Kralik because the actor was "the antithesis of the old-time matinee idol; he holds his public by his very lack of a handsome face or suave manner."
Although all the signage is in Hungarian, as it should be, the sign advertising the big markdown on the cigarette boxes is in English, as it was deemed important that the audience be able to read it.
In You've Got Mail (1998), which is based on this film, Meg Ryan's character owns a bookstore named The Shop Around The Corner.
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) - Trivia - IMDb
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) - Trivia on IMDb: Cameos, Mistakes, Spoilers and more...
www.imdb.com
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- Joined
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- Josh Steinberg
Thank you for the kind words!
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