FILM 1512: YOU'VE GOT MAIL
TRIVIA: The scene where Joe
accidentally closes the door of Kathleen's shop on the balloons was unscripted.
Tom Hanks actually did
that, and ad libbed the line, "Good thing it wasn't the fish." Nora Ephron thought it was
so funny that she kept it in.
The children's book store scenes in
the film were actually filmed at Maya Shaper's Cheese and Antique shop on 103
West 69th Street. The film makers wanted to use the antique shop because it had
the quaint, homey feel they were going for. They sent the owner of the antique
shop on vacation for a few weeks and while she was gone they turned the store
into a children's bookstore. After filming was finished, they put everything
back the way they had left it and it became an antique store once again.
Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) is obsessed
with The Godfather (1972), and
frequently uses dialogue from it to shape his philosophy on life. In the
Coppola Restoration Godfather DVDs, Alec Baldwin
claims that Hanks and Rob Reiner
are both Godfather aficionados who have been known to host viewing parties
where the attendees do drinking games and quote famous lines while watching the
film.
The location of Fox Books in the
movie is actually the location of a real-life Barnes & Noble, on Broadway
and 83rd street on the upper west side. The Barnes and Noble generated
considerable neighborhood opposition when it opened in the early 1990s, as many
feared it would drive a local bookseller, Shakespeare & Co. on 81st street,
out of business. This is exactly what happened.
Joe Fox's grandfather mentions that
long ago, he briefly shared a pen pal romance with the store's previous owner,
Cecilia Kelly (Kathleen's mother), and that they only communicated through
letters. This may have been a reference to the movie's predecessor, The Shop Around the Corner
(1940), starring James Stewart
and Margaret Sullavan, or
possibly the famous book and the movie 84 Charing Cross Road
(1987) of the same name, with Anne Bancroft
and Anthony Hopkins as a
female customer in New York and a male employee of the bookstore at that
address in London.
The passage that we see Kathleen
Kelly reading during her bookshop's story time to a group of kids (including
Joe Fox's aunt and brother) is from "Boy: Tales of Childhood", an
autobiographical children's novel written by Roald Dahl.
A remake of the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner
(1940) starring James Stewart
and Margaret Sullavan. The
original film involved two employees at a gift shop. They could not stand each
other but they were unknowingly falling in love through the mail as anonymous
pen pals.
Michael Palin's scenes as
a benevolent writer who frequently gave readings at The Shop, were cut from the
film.
At the end of the movie, Tom Hanks' character calls
out to his dog, Brinkley. Brinkley was the name of the dog that played Hooch
opposite Hanks in Turner &
Hooch (1989).
In the party scene, Tom Hanks' character
responds to Kathleen's comment "that caviar is a garnish!" by
scooping up all the remaining caviar for himself. In the movie Big (1988), Hanks'
character tries caviar at a party, which he hates; he spits it out & wipes
his tongue with a napkin.
