Kralik! She's Dunking!

That's a line from The Shop Around the Corner, one of my all-time favorites. I watched it again last night on TCM and it never gets old. Top Ten, definitely. The line comes from the scene where Pirovitch (the marvelous Felix Bressart) is peeking in the cafe window looking for Kralik's (Jimmy Stewart) girl, whom, at this point in the movie, Kralik has never laid eyes on - or so he thinks. He doesn't know her name or what she looks like; he only knows her through the letters they have been exchanging for months. They are supposed to meet for the first time that night, in the cafe, where she'll be carrying a copy of "Anna Karenina" with a red carnation as a book mark. Having just been fired from his job, Kralik is going to cancel the date by having Pirovitch deliver an explanatory letter to her. So Pirovitch peers into the cafe from the sidewalk outside and finally spots the book with the carnation. But he can't quite see the girl - a coat rack is blocking his view.

"I see a cup of coffee Kralik...and some cake...and...Kralik! She's dunking!"

As if it were a deal-breaker. Can Kralik actually be with a woman who dunks? It's laugh out loud funny. To Kralik's credit he immediately replies "Who cares if she's dunking?" So we breathe a sigh of relief - dunking is not an obstacle; happiness is still obtainable. Of course, a moment later Pirovitch can see the girl in the cafe and he reveals what really is the deal-breaker (almost) - it's Clara (Margaret Sullavan), one of the clerks in the Shop with whom Kralik has never gotten along - they can't stand each other. So within the space of a few hours, Kralik has been fired from his job of nine years and had his heart stepped on. He decides against having the letter delivered - he just leaves, leaving Clara sitting alone in the cafe waiting for a man who will never come. But, of course, he returns later, acting like it's just coincidence they are both there at the same time, not revealing to Clara that he is the man writing the letters.

Enough spoilers though. If you haven't seen it but the description above reminds you of another movie, well, of course, You've Got Mail is based on it. A lot of people pan the remake but I actually found it quite charming. To criticize it because it's not up to the original is silly - nothing could be. But "You've Got Mail" rides along easily on the likability of its three stars, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, who seem to belong together, and New York City in the spring; the Upper West Side neighborhoods, Riverside Park - the sense of place is so pervasive it becomes a character in the movie itself. Take it out of New York and put it in Detroit and half the charm would be gone. Then replace Hanks and Ryan with others not so appealing, there goes the other half.

So what's your deal breaker, if not dunking? What about a potential lover constitutes such a grievance that, no matter what other positives they might possess, you could never ever consider a life with them? I think I ran into the concept for the first time when I was a kid and read Ball Four, Jim Bouton's extraordinarily entertaining diary of his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros. In it, if I recall, he states how he could never be with a woman who had a southern accent. Or maybe he talks about another person who told him that (it's been a long long time since I was a kid).

Peter DeVries takes the concept further in "Madder Music" (that Peter DeVries, once this country's premier comic novelist, is now virtually out of print borders on the criminal). The book's main character, Bob Swirling, is having an affair with a woman named Becky Tingle. During their first, um, encounter, in moment of passion she cries out:

'Oh Bobolink!'

I'll let DeVries tell you the rest:

'What?'

Again he refused to believe the testimony of his senses, much less the larger chilling implication that this was to be her pet name for him. She was given to the diminutive in addressing friends...so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry became Tommy, Dicky, and - well, you couldn't do anything much with Harry. But they had a mutual friend named Peter whom most called Pete, but she called Peterkin. Swirling had frequently been Bobby, which was enough. Now there was more, borderline unendurable. He was to be her Bobolink, and every time he heard it he died a little, every time he heard it he paid - another installment of interest on his moral debt.

Was it worth it?

Perhaps I should have called this post; 'Oh, Bobolink!'

The other night while watching a TV cooking show with my wife, the chef kept saying 'honking', as in, you don't want big 'ole honking pieces of peppers in this dish, you want to cut them up small. She said it many times during the show and I'd heard her say it before on previous shows. I finally had to pause (TIVO, what would I do without you?) and tell my wife that this was an 'Oh, Bobolink!' deal-breaker. I could never be with a woman who said 'honking'.

Which is neither here nor there for me - I've got my girl, and I intend to keep her.

Unless she starts saying 'honking'.