The Shop Around the Corner
Especially when they are a Lubitsch. As you might remember, I have bought “You’ve Got Mail” recently and have only known very recently that it is based on a play which Lubitsch used for one of his films. “You’ve Got Mail” features many more references to the Lubitsch movie than the play though, and I was delighted to have seen both in direct comparison. It was especially enjoyable because I can’t decide what I would prefer – the pure brilliancy of “The Shop Around the Corner” or the nostalgy of the first romance movie I have ever watched in my life.
This is easily visible in the way the one scene is shown that “You’ve Got Mail” copies nearly directly from the original. The older version features funnier dialogue (“But last week, we’ve had a very sad case with gardenias.”) while the newer had very individualistic characters. I could never imagine another couple besides Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan play these characters while the actors themselves seem to completely disappear in “The Shop Around the Corner”.
There is not much to say or blog about a comedy like “The Shop Around the Corner”, unlike “You’ve Got Mail” which is not only a love comedy, but also touches certain anti-capitalistic traits and shows a lovely portrait of New York. I also don’t think that the ‘love’ between the main characters are deep in any way, and their incapability of showing their love to each other is extremely cute, but ultimately rather superficial. In fact, the greatest feature of “The Shop Around the Corner” is its amazingly witty dialogue, along with Lubitsch’s splendid direction, bringing out the best out of the two protagonists. More than Kralik and Klara, the rest of the cast is pure comedic gold, in my opinion. With Mr. Matuschek being the only somewhat boring figure (what else could he be anyways?), I am a big fan of Pirovitch and especially Pepi. (Mwahahahar!) It is the interaction with their environment that makes Kralik’s and Klara’s love story so hilarious and smile-inducing. (“I feel psychologically mixed up.” XD)
What Lubitsch’s version also never shows is an insight into the letters between Kralik and Klara. While the e-mail exchange is documented in a very sweet, romanic way (perhaps a little too sweet even), we barely see anything from Kralik’s and Klara’s letters. Surely such ‘psychological depth’ would not be interesting within the movie at all, and I think that “You’ve Got Mail” is more than just a modern kitschy attempt at redoing Lubitsch’s movie by showing how a written conversation actually feels like and how it affects the characters.
Ultimately I have no idea why “The Shop Around the Corner” was not very successful as I have found it quite brilliant, even in comparison with “To Be or Not To Be”.
I found the remake’s anti-capitalistic message to be a little bit too simplistic, so I wouldn’t call it added value. I have to admit however, that it was a quite charming interpretation of the theme, I would recommend it without reserve.
And while it also had its fair share of hilarious side characters, nothing compares to the staff of Matuschek & Co., I think they are what makes the original better, this classical witty arrangement of characters and situations.
I don’t think it was simplistic – I doubt it was meant to be anti-capitalistic at all, I would rather see it from the standpoint that the characters in “You’ve got mail” care about their identities and existences, which are destroyed by the changes in a city. It’s more about the individual and certain people’s relationships rather than “big chains are destroying our city”.
The staff of Matschek & Co. is quite a big advantage of the original, it’s true. If I had to decide between both of them, I would most likely tend towards the original for the same reason.