1h 45min | Musical | TV Movie 1978
A BBC production of the 1963 Broadway musical based on "The Shop Around the Corner."
Director: Michael Simpson
Stars: Robin Ellis, Gemma Craven, Peter Sallis.
Watched online; blurry.
20 songs in the Soundtracks, all Music by Jerry Bock, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.
I just watched You've Got Mail ('98), saw there was a musical version, and found this.
I don't know how much of my neutrality is the poor quality of the print, and how much this invokes the 1940 film. When it invokes the film, it misses some of the things I liked (the salesclerk who feels inferior but friendly, Felix Bressart; the charm of J.Stewart), and makes worse some that I did not (the story; M.Sullavan). And I don't like the cast at all. I'm not a fan of Frank Morgan in the 1940 film, but I like him better than the shop owner here.
It feels like they musicalized some things just to add songs to the show. The errand boy gets a song. The smarmy salesclerk (J.Schildkraut in the film) gets one or two of his own. The salespeople sing to a customer as they leave to call again (that would prevent me from returning).
Well, there's a B'way revival recorded in 2016 that PBS has online, so we'll see how I feel then.
Rated 8.5 (86)
BBC, dir. Simpson; 6
