MovieChat Forums > The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Discussion > Where can I find books by this playwrigh...

Where can I find books by this playwright?

posted 19 years ago by donrogers42
9 replies | jump to latest

Miklos Laszlo wrote the play, Parfumerie, that was the basis for Lubitsch's wonderful film The Shop Around the Corner, which was remade as In the Good Old Summertime and You've Got Mail, and musicalized as She Loves Me.

Besides that, IMDb lists the forgotten 1948 film Big City, with Margaret O'Brien, Robert Preston and Danny Thomas, as being based on a short story by Laszlo. Even more obscure is the 1937 Hungarian film Úrilány Szobát Keres (The Lady Seeks a Room).

The Library of Congress includes a 1950 play titled ...And the Snow Falls. As far as I can tell, nothing else that Miklos Laszlo wrote was ever published in English.

I'd be curious to know whether he was published in Hungarian -- I imagine he must have been. How would I go about finding his books? Any ideas?

[–] MEEdmo42 19 years ago

I checked Amazon and the only thing that seems available is the movies that were made from his plays,and the play And The Snow Falls, which is listed as out of print and unavailable. You might try finding some places on line which deal in used books and put a search on there. Start with your search place and go from there. (Like Google or such)

Mary

"Believe in the magic of your dreams"

[–] donrogers42 19 years ago

Anyone?

[–] seinok 18 years ago

Can't say I've looked everywhere but I've checked the most obvious places here in Hungary, the catalogues of bigger libraries and bookshops, and there doesn't seem to be anything. But then again, I didn't even find Illatszertár, which is strange cos it still appears on stage now and then, so I must have missed it somehow.

[–] donrogers42 18 years ago

Thanks for trying. This is just such a nicely constructed script that I was trying to figure out whether the credit belonged to Laszlo or to Samson Rafaelson.

[–] seinok 18 years ago

You know, there's an 80 min. Hungarian tv version made in 1987. It's been a long time since I saw it (and I loved it, some of our greatest actors in it, too). I'd say half-half, very roughly, of course. I remember some lines being exactly the same, but it had to be altered to fit the big screen and that audience, I suppose. The café scene is completely missing, the whole thing takes place in the shop, so he finds out a different way that she's the girl. The remark about her red hands is there, but it's toothpaste that she doesn't fill properly, it comes out at the wrong end of the tube... When I see it again, I'll tell you more. :-) It's strange though how they changed the names - they're just as Hungarian (and Austro-Hungarian/Jewish?) so why can't they be the same as in the play? Are the names used in the film known in the US?

[–] donrogers42 18 years ago

No, the character names in the American film don't have any obvious significance.

Since they exchange Christmas presents, the characters must be pretty well assimilated, if they are Jewish at all. However, I believe both Raphaelson and Lubitsch were Jewish, and for whatever reason I always think of Pirovich, the Felix Bressart character, as being Jewish, too. (Bressart also played "Greenberg" in Lubitsch's great To Be or Not to Be -- maybe that's why.) The thought of Lubitsch making this as a postcard to himself, from a middle Europe he knew was disintegrating, adds a layer of poignant nostalgia to the film. [Stewart and Sullavan's next film, The Mortal Storm, was a fine, early (for the US), anti-Nazi melodrama -- it also featured Frank Morgan. It would make an interesting double feature with The Shop Around the Corner.]

I don't suppose there exists something along the lines of amazon.co.hu? Thanks so much for checking. I feel like I have someone "on the inside".

[–] seinok 18 years ago

You don't know of a place where I could, well, get The Mortal Storm by any chance, do you? I can't do online shopping, you see, and it's not out here, not even The Shop (I only have a very poor copy of it :-( ). It seems the only James Stewart films you can buy here are mostly his westerns, and not many of that either, which is a shame.

No, I don't think we have any international kind of online shops, I've only heard people buy from amazon or ebay.

[–] donrogers42 18 years ago

No, sorry, The Mortal Storm doesn't exist on DVD yet as far as I can tell. An out-of-print used VHS copy of it is available, through amazon.com, for the steep price of $65.

I would think that you should be able to get ahold of Stewart's two great Hitchcock films, Rear Window and Vertigo (along with the lesser, but still interesting, Rope and The Man Who Knew Too Much). Stewart was an excellent actor in many genres. His seven top-rated films here are all non-Westerns, and all are warmly recommended:

8.70 - Rear Window (1954) -- Voyeuristic suspense drama, by Hitchcock. Stewart, laid up in his apartment with a broken leg, starts paying too much attention to his neighbors. With Grace Kelly and the always-welcome Thelma Ritter.

8.60 - It's a Wonderful Life (1946) -- Sentimental fantasy/comedy/drama, directed by Frank Capra, with Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymoore. A Christmastime staple here in the US. Stewart was nominated for Best Actor.

8.50 - Vertigo (1958) -- Strange but highly absorbing Hitchcock drama about a man who loses his love, then tries to remake another woman in her image. Co-stars Kim Novak.

8.30 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) -- Frank Capra directed this sentimental political fable about a naive young Senator. Stewart got his first nomination for Best Actor for this, and his earnest performance carries the film, but this was the year of Gone With the Wind.

8.10 - The Philadelphia Story (1940) -- Stewart won the Best Actor Oscar the next year for this sparkling drawing-room comedy, with a matchless cast: Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn co-star, but really the whole cast is great, down to Hepburn's precocious little sister, played by Virginia Weidler. Directed by George Cukor. They don't make 'em like this anymore -- not that they ever did.

8.09 - Anatomy of a Murder (1959) -- Courtroom mystery/drama. Stewart plays a cagy country defense attorney. Frank, intelligent, and adult in its approach to the story, especially for its time. Another Oscar nomination for Stewart.

8.09 - Harvey (1950) -- Fantasy farce/comedy. Stewart gives one of his best performances as Elwood P. Dowd, a gentle middle-aged lunatic whose best friend is Harvey, an invisible rabbit two meters tall. Or is Stewart the sanest character in the film? Oscar nomination, yet again, for Stewart's marvelously calm performance.

[–] angelofvic 17 years ago

Here's what Wikipedia says:

Because of its popularity, there have been many questions regarding the existence of an English translation of Parfumerie. A translation and adaptation does exist and is available through the agent of the Laszlo literary estate.

Questions regarding availability of the works of Miklos Laszlo should be directed to The Marton Agency, 1 Union Square West, Suite 815, New York, NY 10003-3303, tel: 212 255-1908.

It seems to be current, because the Wikipedia article/page was written September 22, 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikl%C3%B3s_L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3

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