Well, that was an unexpected mixed bag from Walsh! There are several stories going on, and what felt like several genres too, all interweaving in in ways I found confusing, implausible and exciting all at once. 

The film was shot in Sequoia National Park, which looks beautiful, but being in black and white it doesn’t capture the stunning palette or the temperature of the rich shadows.

Local tomboy Joan Bennett is chased by basically everything in pants, a bunch of dudes from all different walks of like in this rural community, and there are several different subplots going about each wanting to kill another of them.

So many comedies of the 1930s and early 40s were set in glamorous worlds filled with madcap heiresses, glittering cocktail parties, men in white tie and tails, butlers and maids. But in The Shop Around the Corner, Lubitsch invites us into a Budapest luggage shop with a middle-class clientele, and the story focuses on the clerks, shop girls and errand boys who populate it. No fabulous costume changes, no nightclub scenes.

The only things that sparkle in this film are the dialog and the performances, and the carefully crafted direction that makes the whole thing seem natural and effortless.

This fizzy delight never fails to cheer me up.

And can we talk about how Myrna Loy looks in her fishing outfit?