The Shop Around the Corner

By night, Alfred and Klara are secret pen pals who have never met, but who are deeply devoted to each other. By day, Alfred and Klara are bickering co-workers at the Budapest Gift Shop who, just as deeply, dislike each other. Their day/night, love/hate relationship cannot continue, but will it be love or loathing when Alfred and Klara finally discover that they’re really each other’s cherished confidant? In the third of their four luminous screen pairings, James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan star in this charming valentine to love wrapped in the ribbon of director Ernst Lubitsch’s trademark touch – wit instead of buffoonery, sentiment instead of sentimentality, affection instead of attitude. As enchanting today as it was yesterday, The Shop Around the Corner will cheerfully reward your patronage. (Dir. by Ernst Lubitsch, 1940, USA, 99 mins., Not Rated)