1h 42min | Comedy, Musical, Romance | 29 July 1949 | Color
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Stars: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, Clinton Sundberg, Buster Keaton.
Robert Alton ... director: musical sequences
7 songs performed in the Soundtracks, with more in the score.
Remake of The Shop Around the Corner (1940), which I didn't like either. In each case, one of the 2 leads is someone I don't like: Margaret Sullivan in '40, Van Johnson here. But I think I don't like the story either; all the bickering and dislike. I think I've seen the 3rd film from the story, You've Got Mail ('98), but don't remember it well enough to know whether that version also irritated me.
I missed the moment/s when JG turned from disliking VJ to sort of liking him. It happened well before she learned he was her pen pal, which was at the very end of the film. Nor did I see why his attitude changed after he learned she was his pen pal.
As a musical, it's shrug-worthy. The songs are either truly old-timey, or made to seem such. And the songs are not personal; this is NOT an integrated musical like Meet Me in St. Louis ('45). They're all songs being demonstrated in music shop, or performed at the party. The dancing is very limited, either ankle-waving or social.
The pratfall where BK breaks the "Stradivarius" is very well done.
MGM, dir. Leonard; 6
