In the Good Old Summertime

The musical version of The Shop Around the Corner from 1940. The setting moves from thirties Budapest to Chicago at the turn of the century, but the mechanism is identical: two people working in the same shop who cannot stand each other are, without knowing it, pen friends who are in love in the letters. Judy Garland and Van Johnson take the leads. Buster Keaton is also in it, in what became his last work for the studio he had first joined in 1928. The small and famous detail is in the closing shot: Garland's daughter, the three-year-old Liza Minnelli, walks on screen for the first time alongside her mother and Van Johnson. The same story would be told again years later, that time through electronic mail, which places this film in the middle of that family tree. Who it is for: viewers who love classic MGM musicals and Judy Garland. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the original's fine register, since the musical version is brighter, simpler and louder.