THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) You've got snail mail!

Watching the romantic comedy, THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, directed by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch, I have to smile knowing it’s what the popular but oh-so-Hollywoody YOU’VE GOT MAIL was based upon. The only similarity is that both films feature a young man and woman who dislike each other in person but, as anonymous pen pals, are in love. I prefer the original, in which the couple's growing relationship develops by hand-written letters rather than the e-kind. Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan play the endearing couple who, together with an incredible cast of oddball supporting characters, inhabit this charming, if glamorized, European world. When it comes to bringing lovers together, paper beats rocketing e-mail anytime.