THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (35mm) @ The Secret Movie Club Theater

SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents

Part of our HAPPY HOLIDAYS & HAPPY NEW YEAR Series, Saturday, December 24, 2022

LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021

*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.

11am THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940, dir. Ernst Lubitsch, USA, 99mns, 35mm)

SPECIAL NOTE: We are working to screen this at the Million Dollar Theater. At the time the was going to press, we had not yet fully confirmed. So please only get a ticket if you’re happy seeing at either the Secret Movie Club Theater or the Million Dollar Theater.

This year, our normal season capper, Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life is out of release due to a Fantom event. But even farmer’s rest their greatest fields every few years or so. So don’t worry, we’ll be bringing this back asap. But this year, we screen this programmer’s other favorite holiday movie. Which miraculously, ALSO stars Jimmy Stewart: The Shop Around the Corner.

While The Shop Around the Corner may not be as well known as It’s A Wonderful Life, it is every inch as great. And I love them both. Unabashedly.

The movie is directed by the incomparable Ernst Lubitsch: mentor to Billy Wilder, beloved by all moviemakers who love the cinematic gag that allows the audience to add up that 1 +1 = 2 without telling them.

It tells the story of the employees of Matushek’s Department Store in Budapest, Hungary during the Christmas Season. The owner Mr. Matuschek, especially loves his lead clerk, Alfred Kralik (Jimmy Stewart), who is like a son to him. But when Mr. Matushek begins to suspect that his wife is having an affair, he wrongly assumes it is with Kralik. Meanwhile an ambitious and whipsmart Klara Novak (Margaret Sullivan) in need of a job lands one at the department store. She and Kralik can’t stand each other in person, each not realizing however that they actually are carrying on an intense romance of the minds as pen pals.

As the holiday season nears Christmas Eve, all the main characters go through upheavals and it looks like a slim chance that things will work out well but. . .well, it’s the holidays.

Lubitsch was one of the few directors who could handle complicated sexuality, psychology, and adult issues with the lightness of an all-ages comedy. Lubitsch could smuggle in jokes that no other director could get past the censors. In The Shop Around the Corner, Lubitsch may have made his ultimate masterpiece-a movie both wickedly sharp in observing human foibles yet ultimately sublimely forgiving of them (or at least most of them-one obnoxious character gets a very deserved comeuppance for their lying and deceit).

Join us this Christmas Eve for the OTHER great Jimmy Stewart-starring Christmas Movie. It will become one of your new favorites.

Best always,

Craig Hammill

Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

REFUNDS:

We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.

However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: [email protected] and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)

HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:

We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.

There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.

HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?

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HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:

You can always email us at [email protected] with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.

Host or Publisher Secret Movie Club