84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
84
Charing Cross Road is a true story in which Anne Bancroft and
Anthony Hopkins give distinguished performances as two strangers
on opposite sides of the Atlantic whose lives are linked through a
series of letters spanning more than twenty years.
 She's Helene Hanff - A salty, opinionated New York spinster
with a passion for rare books. He's Frank Doel - A dull, repressed
married clerk in a quaint old London bookstore on Charing Cross
Road.
Their friendship begins in 1949 with an advertisement in the Saturday
Review.
A correspondence begins between the American book
lover and the British bookseller, and as the letters continue,
Helene sends post-war tins of Christmas hams and nylons, bringing
joy and generosity into the lives of her overseas friends she's
never met.
Though they never do meet, Helene's letters from Frank finally
spiral her, years later (and, sadly, after his death) to the
London she loves so much. and one last chance to see the shop
before it's torn down.
What distinguishes this film is its feeling for character: the
Americans sending bundles of supplies to their deprived friends in
Britain, and for the proud but impoverished British sending in
return the only things they have left - The sense of history and
civilization they've preserved through books.
84 Charing Cross Road is an intelligent, sophisticated,
and soothing film that enriches the soul and warms the heart. The
film was produced by Mel Brooks - the husband of Anne Bancroft.
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