When you read yesterday that today we would be including an old Jimmy Stewart movie, did you correctly guess “The Shop Around the Corner”?  

The movie was made in 1940 and for some reason I’m always thinking the timeline is the mid 1930’s.   Along with Jimmy Stewart it starred Margaret Sullavan, and Frank Morgan (think The Wizard, in “The Wizard of Oz”). The setting is Budapest in a gift shop.   We quickly figure out before they do, that Stewart and Sullavan have been corresponding with each other in their letters as pen pals but have been doing so anonymously and yet in the gift shop do not get along with each other.

By now, you’ve guessed that the plot sounds very familiar to the 1998 movie “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.   It was news to me to discover there was a musical adaptation of the movie, “The Shop around the Corner” in 1949 with “In the Good Old Summertime” starring Judy Garland, and Van Johnson with the location being Chicago and not Budapest. It sounds like it is a movie I will have to catch (Netflix search had zero results for streaming or dvd, did find it available on Amazon in their shop instant video).

Back to our hero James Stewart, in the movie “The Shop Around the Corner” he suffers through a case of mistaken identity with his boss, Mr. Matuschek, (played by Morgan) which does get resolved and through it all he is steadfast and consistent in his behavior and ideals, remaining highly loyal and honorable. His character always struck me as being highly organized in this movie as demonstrated with the deliberate mannerisms he has with being a top salesman (and then as manager), his attention to detail, and how he managed to make time in his life to pursue the ideal of this person he has been corresponding.     Do we make time for ourselves to be able to pursue our ideal pursuits?   Had he not made the time he would have missed out.

Tomorrow on AnchoredScraps.com in continuing the theme of getting ourselves organized with our personal correspondence we will be talking about .csv files, exporting, importing, all for the sake of getting our name and address data and will keep it simple.   Technology wise it will be a far cry from that beautiful shop around the corner we visited today.   Ideally though a benefit to this work is that we are getting ourselves organized so when we are out and about should we find such a gem we will pause and enjoy!

Anchors Aweigh,  

Helen