It's hard to even know where to begin to praise "The Shop Around the Corner." I'll avoid repeating what other IMDb critics have said by offering this:
A good friend of mine is an older man-- in his 70s-- who scorned films, preferring opera (and not just opera, but Wagner), literature (Tolstoy at least), and philosophy (Wittgenstein, of course). He offered me one chance to show him a movie that proved cinema's worth as an art form.
I chose "The Shop Around the Corner." It's neither highbrow nor lowbrow, it's neither epic nor a silly bit of froth, it's not a genre or a formula picture, and it's about nothing bigger than decency and love (which are plenty big enough). It is, however, flawless, both funny and touching, and I thought it was a fair representation of how superb even modest films can be, and therefore a fair test of how open-minded my friend was.
"Powerfully flavored," was his summation, and he was impressed enough to begin seeing movies again (the last one he'd seen on a big screen was "Lawrence of Arabia"). And so, among all its other qualities, "The Shop Around the Corner" is one of the best ambassadors the art form could ask for.
A good friend of mine is an older man-- in his 70s-- who scorned films, preferring opera (and not just opera, but Wagner), literature (Tolstoy at least), and philosophy (Wittgenstein, of course). He offered me one chance to show him a movie that proved cinema's worth as an art form.
I chose "The Shop Around the Corner." It's neither highbrow nor lowbrow, it's neither epic nor a silly bit of froth, it's not a genre or a formula picture, and it's about nothing bigger than decency and love (which are plenty big enough). It is, however, flawless, both funny and touching, and I thought it was a fair representation of how superb even modest films can be, and therefore a fair test of how open-minded my friend was.
"Powerfully flavored," was his summation, and he was impressed enough to begin seeing movies again (the last one he'd seen on a big screen was "Lawrence of Arabia"). And so, among all its other qualities, "The Shop Around the Corner" is one of the best ambassadors the art form could ask for.