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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

Secret Santas

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Shop Around the Corner on DVD.

Ernst Lubitsch's masterpiece (remade in 1998 as You've Got Mail) takes place in a Hungarian shop during the Christmas holiday. Times are tough and the workers are intimidated by their stern boss Mr. Matuschek (Frank Morgan). So when Alfred Kralik (Jimmy Stewart) and Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) become secret pen-pals -- unbeknownst to each other -- they must deal with more than a few obstacles to find true love. This might be Lubitsch's gentlest work: sweetness mixed with a genuine sadness. Stewart and Sullavan are wonderful, and Warners' DVD presents them in a beautiful black-and-white transfer.

Starring: James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden, Felix Bressart, William tracy, Inez Courtney, Sarah Edwards, Edwin Maxwell, Charles Halton, Charles Smith
Written by: Samson Raphaelson, Ben Hecht (uncredited), based on a play by Miklos Laszlo
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 99 minutes
Date: December 19, 2002