84 Charing Cross Road (Anne Bancroft)

(Amazon UK link)

It's nearly twelve years since we watched the film 84 Charing Cross Road, so we decided to see it again. It’s based on the true story of a lengthy correspondence between the American writer and bibliophile Helene Hanff (played brilliantly by Anne Bancroft) and the antiquarian bookseller Frank Doel (Anthony Hopkins).

Apparently there is a play of the same name, with only these two characters involved. But the film that we have on DVD also includes some of Helene’s friends in New York. In London other cast members are Frank’s wife Nora (Judi Dench) and Frank’s colleagues in the bookshop where he works (at 84 Charing Cross Road).

The film opens with Helene travelling to London for the first time, in the early 1970s, and reaching the empty bookshop. The story then moves back to 1949 and we see her as a much younger woman. Helene is an impoverished writer, living in a single-room apartment, looking for some classic British books. Her local bookshops in New York are unable to source them, so she writes to Marks & co in London, and her letters are dealt with, quite formally at first, by Frank.

It’s not an obvious plot for a film; indeed, there really isn’t much story, although we discover a little background to the lives of some of the characters. We see the years progressing; the main characters deal with this well. But I felt the people who deserved the most recognition are the make-up artists. The film was made in 1987, which is just over thirty years ago when the three main actors were all in their fifties. By the end, they all look as if they’re not far off sixty. But at the start of the film, both Judi Dench as Nora and Anne Bancroft as Helene could easily pass for women in their late twenties or early thirties. Anthony Hopkins as Frank looked older, but then the real Frank Doel was born in 1908, so he would have been forty or so in 1949.

Despite a thin storyline, the film is warm and engaging. There’s some humour in the way the letters are written, and there’s some good cultural contrasts depicting New York and London as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. Rationing was still in place in the UK for some years after the end of World War II, and we see the delight of the bookshop staff on receiving food parcels sent by Helene.

It’s somewhat bittersweet. With a real story, there are not necessarily tidy or happy endings. The first time I saw the film, I kept hoping that Helene and Frank would meet, but was concerned about what it might mean for Frank’s marriage. In a fictional story, that storyline would almost certainly have been explored. But it didn’t happen - as I had remembered - so I was able to relax more and enjoy the film for what it was.

The UK rating is U, the US rating PG, probably because there’s quite a bit of smoking shown, which was culturally appropriate for the era in both the UK and US. I don’t think there’s anything else that could possibly cause the censors to complain. There's no bad language, no intimacy, no violence, no hint of anything less than full (and often quite formal) clothing.

It’s hardly likely to be of interest to children or even teenagers, however, unless they, too, love the feel of out-of-print classic books and don't mind a story based around the correspondence of two adults in the middle of last century.

Recommended.

Review copyright 2018 Sue's DVD Reviews