In The Good Old Summertime (1949)

Set at the turn of the 20th century in Chicago, the head clerk (Van Johnson) in a music shop and a new employee (Judy Garland) dislike each other intensely. Little do they know that they are anonymously communicating with each other as romantic pen pals. Based on the play PARFUMERIE by Miklos Laszlo by way of its previous screen incarnation THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) and directed by Robert Z. Leonard (THE GREAT ZIEGFELD). Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 film version is one of the screen's great romantic comedies. Someone at MGM thought it might be a good idea to add songs and Technicolor but the lightning doesn't strike twice. The magic isn't there except when Garland sings and the plot has been altered to be more wholesome (the adultery angle is eliminated). For Garland fans, it's de rigeur but it's one of her weaker vehicles but 1949 audiences lapped it up and it was a big hit. Technically, it's first rate as you would expect from MGM: Harry Stradling's Technicolor lensing, Helen Rose's costumes and Randall Duell's and Cedric Gibbons' art direction. A good musical of SHOP AROUND THE CORNER was made in 1963 on Broadway that would make a marvelous film musical. With Buster Keaton, Spring Byington, S.Z. Sakall, Clinton Sundberg, Marcia Van Dyke and in her film debut, Liza Minnelli.