The MoFo Top 100 of the Forties: The Countdown

Synopsis: Two employees at a small Budapest gift shop can't stand being in each others presences...They bicker and argue all the time. What they don't realize is that they have fallen in love with each other, anonymously...when each secretly sends a 'lonely hearts letter' to the newspapers personal ads and the other answers it.

Review: The Shop Around the Corner is a world unto itself. Ernst Lubitsch brings out the small moments that make up life. His focus is on the characters idiosyncrasies and by that we then experience their world.

The majority of the film takes place inside the shop, this gives us an intimate feel. Inside the shop, the lives of the sales people unfold for us. Their simple, yet telling actions allows us to connect to them in a personal way. Lubitsch understands people, this film is a showcase for his talents.

James Stewart is arguably one of the greatest actors of all time. His strength is in how he can 'play it small'. He can bring a dramatic moment to life by doing the opposite of what most actors do. At the end of his dialogue he often will lower his voice and trails it off to almost a whisper. This brings out his humanity, and he seems real to us. Here his character is perfectly tuned for the story.

Margaret Sullavan has top billing, with her name before Stewart's in the title sequence. Which seems odd as she wasn't as big of a star as Stewart at the time. Margaret didn't make very many movies and this is her most well known performance. It's a good one too. I liked her in this and she fits the character to a tee. Another producer might have went with a platinum blonde, glamor queen for more eye appeal and ticket sells, Lubitsch chose wisely with his leading lady.

Lubitsch is one of the great directors and The Shop Around the Corner is one of his great films.

Shadow of a Doubt

My 18th Hitchcock. Got to admit i was really looking forward to Rope so i went into this a bit disappointed, thankfully it didn't hurt my viewing though. For the record i'll be referring to Joseph Cotten as Charlie and Teresa Wright as his niece, so annoying they had the same name haha. Even though this is among his most praised films i really didn't have the slightest clue what it was about.

Loved the story. There was something just brilliant about watching a nice, wholesome all american family harbouring a complete psychopath while being completely unaware. Even further than that they all adored him. Right from the first time Charlie spoke this film took a very sinister tone, more than is usual for Hitch even. It really was due to the fantastic performance from Joseph Cotten, during the moments with his family he seemed sincerely pleasant but he did such a great job of quickly turning sinister. One of the best things about the film was the mystery surrounding Charlie; it was obvious that he had done something wrong but exactly what that was was kept for so long, i mean even during the scene where the detective tells his niece that he might be a criminal that's all he says. The reveal was fantastic and made the rest of the film so suspenseful. His relationship with his niece was so creepy, and i mean from when he first meets her at the train station: she turns around to speak to the rest of the family and he gives her this unnerving glare. Their relationship was pretty genius actually; using the obsessive, curious niece as the source of tension through her snooping around was a great idea and it really paid off. Who knew him hiding a page of a paper could be so suspenseful. I'm actually not sure if i'd call Teresa Wrights performance great, there was something off about it but i thought her character was great so it didn't really matter.

This had some good humour too. Particularly from Emma who i really loved. Such a nice slightly naive woman. Loved the part where she is talking to the detectives who are pretending they are from a survey. At this point i really don't know what to say about the way Hitchs films looks. They never cease to amaze me and this was no different. Loved the camerawork here, right from the start with that scene where he is being followed that looked incredible i knew this would be great visually.

Anyway no point in rambling on. All else i'll say is that the ending is one of my favourites from Hitchcock, it's seriously morbid. Great film.

The Shop Around The Corner -

+

This was my first Lubitsch and i thought it was pretty great. The comedy was pretty light, a bit silly at times but i think there was just enough of it that mixed with the drama it becomes a very entertaining and surprisingly touching film. That whole long scene when he is leaving the store after resigning/being fired had such a dreary tone that it had much more of an impact than it probably should've, really well done. The only scene that was a bit underwhelming for me was actually the ending, it wasn't bad i think it was just a case of high expectations for them finally getting together because i thought everything else was handled so well that it was just a bit underwhelming. Still that was following the really sweet between Matuschek and the new shop boy.

Stewart seemed alot more subdued than usual here. It was interesting how separate both his professional and personal self was to each other; during work he was a bit of a serious hardass while in his conversations about his correspondence he showed a much more vulnerable, lonely side it was a great way of making him sympathetic while still keeping the main conflict believable. Such a great, subtle performance from Stewart: maybe my favourite from him so far. Loved Margaret Sullavan too, i'm not familiar with her i'm not even sure if i've heard of her before. Again i think her character and performance were balanced just right between Stewarts adversary at work as well as just a driven woman trying to get by and do as well at her job as possible. She did seem a bit overly harsh and snippy at him during the restaraunt scene, he had just lost his job that day and he really wasn't being anything other than nice to her. Still her actions kind of even out because Kralik was being deceptive since he knew he was the person she was waiting on, and her attitude was at least partially caused by nervousness from waiting on this mystery man. Solid performance by Frank Morgan. I think one of the most intriguing things about the story was his reasons for Stewart falling out of favour with him, i pretty much figured it was him suspecting Kralik of having an affair with his wife; he was great in these scenes especially the one were he let Kralik go at the start he seemed pretty eccentric and silly but once this started and he began to give Kralik the cold shoulder you can sense the frosty atmosphere in their scenes together and that this was something genuinely hurting him personally. The rest of the cast were good too, the only one i wasn't crazy about was Pepi who came across a bit too cartoonish, he wasn't in it much though so it isn't that much of a problem.

Great film. Great introduction to Lubitsch, i'm planning on watching all of his 40s films over the next month or so since there's only another six.