A Classic Movie Review and Appreciation Site

Dear Friend

2/1/2014

Shop Around the Corner, Margaret Sullavan, Jimmy Stewart

Ochi Chernye

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

It's amazing how thoroughly The Shop Around the Corner draws you in with its quiet, lovely, even pace. Jimmy Stewart plays Alfred Kralik, the head clerk at a little department store in Budapest owned by fussy, temperamental Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan). Kralik has been corresponding with a young lady whose ad he came across in the newspaper. They write about ideas and books, and he is falling in love with her, though they have never met.

One day, Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) comes into the shop looking for a job. Mr. Matuschek wants to stock a cigarette box that plays "Ochi Chernye" whenever it's opened, but Mr. Kralik thinks it's a stupid idea, because who wants to hear that song every time you reach for a cigarette? Klara sizes up the boss right away, and promptly sells the box to a zaftig lady customer, claiming it's a candy box that reminds you not to have too many pieces by playing the tune. She is hired on the spot and thus begins the mutual animosity between her and Kralik.

Of course, it turns out that this same Miss Novak is the woman with whom Mr. Kralik has been corresponding, which we (and Mr. Kralik) discover with the help of some well-placed carnations on the night the pen pals plan to meet for the first time. The reveal and resolution of that situation is deftly handled by director Ernst Lubitsch, master of quiet storytelling.

The film is romantic, sweet (but not cloying), and beautifully acted.* There is a great smarmy, two-faced toady in the picture, played by Joseph Schildkraut, and no one does cautious kindness like Felix Bressart, Kralik's friend and coworker, Mr. Pirovitch. I understood the impulse to remake it, but am sad that it turned out to be You've Got Mail, a film that somehow manages to play more outdated than the original.

If you have never seen the picture, please do, and if you haven't seen it in a while, watch it again.

* With the possible exception of the very annoying William Tracy

0 Comments

Good Night, Nurse

1/24/2014

4 Comments

Spoiler: There's not really a whole lot of smiling in this picture.

Cry 'Havoc' (1943)

You know what's wrong with kids today? They never get a chance to see a picture like this by accident on a Saturday afternoon or on a Late Late Show on a local UHF station. That's how I first saw Cry 'Havoc' , sometime in the mid-1970s, when there were still people in my family who had actual memories of World War II, either fighting in it or seeing movies like this in the theaters when they came out.

Except for a handful of atmospheric men and fewer barbs, this film is strangely like The Women. All the main characters are women: nurses and volunteers at a military hospital in Bataan, how they cope with each other, the wounded, their dwindling resources, and eventual surrender to the Japanese. Margaret Sullavan and Fay Bainter are two army nurses struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing stream of wounded. They recruit a handful of civilian women from among hundreds of refugees encamped not far away to help out: two students, a factory manager, a waitress (Ann Sothern), a Southern Belle (Diana Lewis, from Asbury Park, not Alabama, and soon-to-be Mrs. William Powell), a burlesque performer (Joan Blondell, who else?), and a fashion writer (Ella Raines).

The cast is kind of a cavalcade of Tier 2 and Tier 3 stars of the day (1943), except possibly for Margaret Sullavan, who may have been the biggest star in the cast and whom I've always loved in spite of those stupid bangs. Joan Blondell, who turns out to be adorable in work clothes, was not the draw she used to be by then, and Marsha Hunt (the sweet, skinny thing) was hitting her stride as a strong supporting actress.

Cry 'Havoc' was the film adaptation of an unsuccessful Broadway play called Proof Through the Night, starring Carol Channing (?!), that only ran for two months. I can imagine the play being fairly plodding without the benefit of close-ups and medium shots, or the occasional explosion. Many of the scenes in this movie are very stagey, in fact, with only the barracks, the communications hut, and kitchen serving as backdrop to the women's stories. There are a few outdoor shots of, well, havoc, but much of the real drama is indoors. There are friendships and rivalries and real conversations in this picture; Ann Sothern in particular is wonderfully cagey and natural.

It's a very affecting and effective movie that's well worth a look.

Points of Interest

Fay Bainter was my age when she made this picture, which is a little sobering.
No one does bearlike, working-class comfort like Connie Gilchrist, "Aw, c'mon kid, take a rest."
I have been using a version of this Ann Sothern comeback for years; now I know where I stole it from:

Marsha Hunt: We got plenty to be thankful for.
Ann Sothern: Yeah? Name six.