The Shop Around the Corner Inspires 2 Movie Remakes

 The Shop Around the Corner is a 1940 American romantic comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. This film was ranked #28 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions. In 1999, The Shop Around the Corner was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Set in and around a Budapest store, co-workers Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) and Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) hold an intense dislike for each other, while maintaining a secret letter-writing relationship, neither realizing who their pen-pal is.

The film spawned a 1949 musical remake, In the Good Old Summertime, which starred Judy Garland and Van Johnson in the title roles.

The plot element of two people who detest each other while having a romance by anonymous mail is used in the film You've Got Mail (1998) with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, in which one of the protagonists owns a bookstore named "The Shop Around The Corner."

Love Affair was An Affair to Remember | 3 Remakes

Love Affair is a 1939 romantic film starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya. It was directed by Leo McCarey and written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, based on a story by McCarey and Mildred Cram.

Love Affair was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay (Mildred Cram, Leo McCarey), Best Original Song (Buddy G. DeSylva, For the song "Wishing"), and Best Art Direction (Van Nest Polglase, Alfred Herman).

The film is currently in the public domain, and can be found at the Internet Archive.

The film was remade in 1957 as An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the lead roles. The film is considered one of the most romantic of all time, according to the American Film Institute. An Affair to Remember was almost identical to Love Affair on a scene to scene basis. McCarey used the same screenplay as the original film, which was penned by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart.

A 1994 remake reverting to the original title of Love Affair was written, directed, and starred Warren Beatty, featuring his wife Annette Bening as the female protagonist, and also Katharine Hepburn in a small but pivotal role, which would prove to be her last screen appearance. It was directed by Glenn Gordon Caron and produced by Warren Beatty from a screenplay by Robert Towne and Warren Beatty. The music score was by Ennio Morricone and the cinematography by Conrad L. Hall

Nora Ephron's 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, was inspired by An Affair to Remember, and clips from the earlier film and its theme song are used throughout.

The climactic meeting at the top of the Empire State Building is a reference to a reunion between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember that fails to happen because the Kerr character is struck by a car while en route. At one point, some of the characters discuss Affair, with Sam commenting that it sounds like a "chick movie."

Sleepless in Seattle received two nominations for awards in the 66th Academy Awards (held in 1994), but did not win either of them.