00:08Thanks for joining me for TCM Summer Romance.
00:11I'm Alicia Malone, and for every Sunday throughout this summer,
00:15I've handpicked a romance to watch, some much-needed escapism.
00:19And our next film uses one of the most fun tropes
00:22that appear in romantic stories, enemies to lovers.
00:26From 1940, directed by Ernst Lubitsch,
00:29it's the shop around the corner.
00:31There are a few reasons why this film has been remade several times over,
00:35and one of those is the enemies to lovers storyline.
00:38This has been a very popular trope in romance,
00:41used in everything from Greek myths to Shakespeare plays,
00:45Jane Austen books, and countless Hallmark Christmas movies.
00:49The will-they, won't-they push-pull of these stories keeps us engaged,
00:54and the conflict fuels high emotions,
00:56leading to exciting sparks between the characters.
01:00For the shop around the corner,
01:01Ernst Lubitsch took a Hungarian play he owned the rights to
01:05and assigned Samson Rafelson to adapt it.
01:08The story is set in Budapest around Christmas time,
01:11following the workers of a leather goods store.
01:14James Stewart stars as Mr. Kralik,
01:17a worker at the store who is expecting a promotion,
01:19and Margaret Sullivan is Miss Novak,
01:22a new employee who instantly rubs Mr. Kralik the wrong way.
01:26But these two have something important in common.
01:29They each have a secret pen pal they write love letters to.
01:33Lubitsch particularly wanted James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan for the leads,
01:38waiting until they were free and making Ninochka in the interim.
01:41These two are a great match for each other,
01:44throwing zingers back and forth,
01:46and they had natural chemistry because they were good friends in real life.
01:50Stewart and Sullivan had been part of the same theatre troupe in the early 1930s
01:55and stayed friends as they both became Hollywood stars.
01:59From 1940, enjoy The Shop Around the Corner.
