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Four classic romantic comedies for Valentine’s Day
“The Shop Around the Corner”
By KATE GIESE
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
“The Shop Around the Corner” is a
delightful 1940 romantic comedy about
everyday people. As head sales clerk in a
Budapest notions/gift shop, Alfred Kralik,
played by James Stewart, and Klara Novak,
played by Margaret Sullavan, take an imme-
diate dislike to each other and are constantly
bickering.
What they don’t know, however, is that
they are each other’s anonymous pen pal,
regularly exchanging lofty correspondence.
On paper, they’re romantically compatible
and unwittingly fall in love through their
letters to one another. On the very night
they plan to meet, Alfred is fired by his boss
(played by the wonderful Frank Morgan)
who wrongly suspects Alfred of having had
an affair with his wife.
In a memorable scene, Alfred seeks com-
fort by keeping his date with his unknown
pen-pal in a café. Still, he doesn’t reveal
his identity to poor Klara yet. In the end,
though, Alfred gets rehired and comes clean
to the woman he loves.
One way to get into the Valentine’s Day
groove is to treat yourself to a movie; a
romantic comedy is best. If you’re open to
them, films from the 1930s and ’40s offer a
veritable treasure trove of enchanting takes
on boy and girl meet cutes in the movies.
Here are four of my favorites.
“The Lady Eve”
Director: Preston Sturges
This 1940 film is a riot. It begins on an
ocean liner bound for New York. Barbara
Stanwyck’s character, Jean Harrington, is
a con artist, on board with her father, “Col.
Harrington,” played by the redoubtable
Charles Coburn. The pair intend to fleece
the obscenely wealthy Charles Pike, played
by Henry Fonda, who is heir to the Pike Ale
millions. He’s been up the Amazon River
studying snakes.
As word of his immense wealth has
gotten around, every eligible woman on the
ship is making goo-goo eyes at poor Charles.
The shy scientist is not only uninterested,
he’s horrified — until he meets Jean, that is.
Where other women fawn, Jean alternately
teases and flirts with him — the poor sap
doesn’t have a chance.
While he may be her mark, Jean starts to
fall for him. When Charles finds out who she
is, he dumps her. In an act of revenge, she
re-enters his life — this time as titular “Lady
Eve Carrington,” making him fall in love
with her all over again. There’s a hilarious
proposal scene (where a horse repeatedly
bats Fonda in the head). It’s all such great
fun!
“Miracle of Morgan’s Creek”
“Ninotchka”
Director: Billy Wilder
Set in Paris, 1939’s “Ninotchka” isa
classic romantic comedy centering on clash-
ing ideologies: Soviet communism versus
capitalism, which soon give way to l’amour.
Greta Garbo plays a Russian envoy — hu-
morless, deadpan and all business — who’s
transformed by Parisian love. This is largely
thanks to the attentions of a playboy, Count
Leon D’Algout, played by the charming,
urbane Melvyn Douglas.
There are plenty of laughs, many cour-
tesy of three bumbling Russian emissaries.
They’re part of a subplot having to do with
selling some imperial jewels confiscated
during the Bolshevik Revolution. To prevent
this, the Count sets about corrupting the
hapless bumblers by introducing them to the
joys of capitalism, e.g., wine, women and
song. It isn’t long before Garbo (as Ninotch-
ka) is dispatched from Russia when things
aren’t proceeding as planned.
The cynical Count is quickly smitten giv-
en Ninotchka’s beauty and unique qualities.
He woos and wins her, exposing her to the
pleasures of a “decadent bourgeois lifestyle”
all the while. Ninotchka reluctantly returns
to Russia, but is then dispatched to Turkey,
to ride herd once again on the wayward
Russian trio. Upon arrival, she finds Leon
waiting for her. Awww.
Director: Preston Sturges
Released in 1944, this is one of director/
writer Preston Sturges’ top war-time screw-
ball comedies. Its content was considered
darned controversial. It skewers marriage,
parenthood, motherhood and the family no
less, and features Sturges’ trademark fast
dialogue and slapstick humor.
A hapless, small-town girl from Mor-
gan’s Creek, flirty blonde Trudy Kocken-
locker (Betty Hutton) attends a rollicking,
all-night farewell party with servicemen
from the local Army base, gets drunk and
marries a soldier. She finds herself preg-
nant, but can’t remember which soldier she
had married. Was his name something like
“Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki” or was it “Zitzki-
witzki”?
She’s plenty worried about her strict,
exasperated and overprotective father Con-
stable Kockenlocker (William Demarest).
On the advice of her younger sister, Trudy
convinces an average guy, Norval Jones
(Eddie Bracken) — a bank-clerk, 4-F reject
and Trudy’s childhood boyfriend — to marry
her and pretend to be her child’s father. This
unleashes a storm of problems, legal and
otherwise. Don’t miss this one.