84 Charing Cross Road (1987)

I love inscriptions on flyleafs and notes in margins. I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned and reading passages someone long-gone has called my attention to. 

Director 
David Hugh Jones

Cast
Anne Bancroft - Helene Hanff
Anthony Hopkins - Frank Doel
Judi Dench - Nora Doel
Ian MacNeice - Bill Humphries

84 Charing Cross Road, produced by Mel Brooks and starring his late wife, Anne Bancroft, relies mainly on audience appreciation of literature and writing. Otherwise, this movie is likely to be slow and boring. At least, that's what I fear for some people. In reality, it's a charming movie, funny enough and worthy of appreciation. As critic Gene Siskel put it in the Chicago Tribune, 84 Charing Cross Road "should be irresistible to anyone able to appreciate the goodness of its spirit and its spirited characters."
Roger Ebert, critic for the Chicago Sun Times, thought his school librarian might have enjoyed it...certainly more than he did atleast. Well, it's a personal favorite of mine and I wanted to include it here.
The story is based on true events surrounding American writer Helene Hanff (Anne Bancroft), and the pen-pal relationship she builds with a small antiquated bookshop in London called Marks & Co. It starts off in 1949 and covers several years.
Hanff first hears of the bookseller specializing in out-of-print books from an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature. 
Looking for a specific book, she pens a letter to the proprietor, Frank Doel (Anthony Hopkins). Truly in love with the gorgeous copy he sends back, the overseas friendship blossoms and continues on until the late 1960s.
The more she sends book requests and letters sharing her love of books and writing, and the more Dole and his coworkers reply back, the more Hanff yearns to fly over to London to see the shop for herself, meet the people who have helped build her library of antique books, and tour the England of English lit.
Hanff even sends them care packages during the food ration period in England.
She almost makes it to the U.K. for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, but pesky dental work drains her travel funds forcing her to send a raincheck.
This movie is just very appealing. Bancroft's New York wit works so wonderfully well off of Hopkin's genteel, sophisticated English mannerisms.

Anne Bancroft as Helene Hanff in 84 Charing Cross Road

While the shop clerks sip their tea selling old English literature, Hanff sips her gin while pounding out scripts for television on her typewriter and breaking the fourth wall asking "I hope 'madam' doesn't mean over there what it does here."
Doel calls her Miss. Hanff. Helene calls him Frankie.
So much springs from this very simple storyline. It's almost amazing. I read the book written by Hanff after I saw the movie. I was delighted to find out she wrote a sequel to the book entitled The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street.
In one scene in the movie, Hanff finds herself in the middle of a college protest. She argues with a police officer about how they're harshly treating the students.
"Why don't you go home and bake a pie," the officer yells.
"Oh, why don't you go home and bake a pie!" Hanff replies.
And at that, he arrests her.
When Hanff returns home and flips the TV on, she catches herself on the evening news being arrested. All she can do is laugh about it. Simple, but there's much to gain from such a scene about Hanff and the spirit of this movie.
This movie lacks action outside of the mail service delivering the correspondence between London and New York.
But Bancroft brings a liveliness - the spirit Siskel referred to -  trying as hard as she can to make it enjoyable to those outside the book and writing lovers in the audience.
I'm a personal fan of Bancroft and her portrayal of Hanff just brings it home for me. This is Bancroft at her best, showing just how versatile an actress she is, especially when compared to her other notable roles such as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate or as Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. She's a face and talent I sorely miss seeing and hearing on the big screen.
Don't get me wrong. It's not a movie only meant for print enthusiasts. My point is audiences with a love of literature and writing are, as I said, likely to appreciate the movie more.
It's a movie that will inspire just as easily as it could put you to sleep. If you don't nod off, then there's a lot to enjoy and take away.

Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel.