"I have known just such a little shop in Budapest
Already in a two picture deal with MGM, "Shop..." came in a packaged deal with the Greta Garbo-helmed "Ninotchka" which Ernst Lubitsch ended up shooting while waiting for his dream leads, James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as they finished their respective projects. Where "Ninotchka" is a beautiful and glamorous romantic comedy, "Shop..." is a romantic comedy of the blue collar sort . Matuschek and Company is a leather goods store with a stern but friendly owner (Frank Morgan, "The Wizard of Oz." [literally]) leading a staff of shop women Ilona and Flora (Inez Courtney, Sara Haden), his wife's gofer and delivery boy (William Tracy), the bumbling but loveable Pirovitch (Felix Bressart, "Ninotchka"), the suave Ferencz (Joseph Schildkraut) and his number one salesman Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) who immediately takes a dislike to the newest employee Klara (Margaret Sullavan). But Alfred and Klara actually do know each other as they are corresponding through letters after having "met" through a newspaper ad unbeknownst to their work lives.
Much of the story is autobiographical in Lubitsch and Samson Raphaelson's work lives. Before getting into film, a young Lubitsch had worked in his father's tailor shop in pre-Weimar Germany and Raphaelson bringing in the experience of working in Chicago during the World's Columbian Exposition. What had made "Shop..." so successful is its use of competition in the workplace in Kralik's disdain that Klara was able to sell a musical cigarette box which was an impulse purchase on the part of Matuschek. Early morning sequences in front of the store waiting for the owner to unlock gives the film a sense of consistency, of the average work day. What makes the work seem so regular works for the romantic comedy aspect in a rather fantastical situation between Stewart and Sullavan's characters, although who they are at the store is much more subtle than their future counterparts in "In The Good Old Summertime"'s Van Johnson and Judy Garland.
Now in the turn-of-the-century Chicago, Andrew Larkin and Veronica Fisher are in the same boat. The shop owner now S.Z. Sakall as Otto Oberkugen of Oberkugen's Music Shop does not have Morgan's tragic regality in the B-storyline, but instead an adorable attachment to the violin, which he cannot play any better than Larkin's neighbor and supposed love interest (Marcia van Dyke). The rest of the staff (Clinton Sundberg as the gofer and delivery boy, Rudy, Spring Byington as the saleswoman and Otto's romantic interest Nelly Burke) do not seem as close as Lubitsch's characters, but like all MGM romance musicals, the glamorous attractions in this film are turned up to a thousand than the subtle yet burgeoning blue collar romance between Stewart and Sullavan .
Buster Keaton also stars in this ensemble-trying-not-to-be-a-ensemble film in his first and last role since "What! No Beer?" in 1933 as Otto's subservient and nervous nephew Hickey, every bit of a Keaton-esque character full of pratfalls and fantastic physical comedy. Working as an MGM gag writer, it was Keaton's concoction on how breaking a violin could be both funny and yet credible which led him to be cast in the film. Keaton also orchestrated and coached Johnson in the scene where Andrew meets Veronica and accidentally destroys her hat.
Judy Garland is every bit of radiant in "Summertime" despite her blossoming reputation in the studio. When asked how the film went as smoothly as it did, Van Johnson explained to Louis B. Mayer that "We made her feel wanted and needed. We joked with her and kept her happy." Singing such standards as the title track, "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland," and a show stopping "I Don't Care" featuring a beautiful red dress by Irene, Garland is completely in her element so much so, the conclusion of the movie rounds out with her own daughter Liza Minnelli playing the future child of the married Larkins.
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