THE OLDER I GET, the more I yearn for the nostalgia of years gone by, especially in the Arts: Music, Television, Movies, People, Places and Events. I guess we are all like that.
Those were the days when we were all
relatively peaceful, very safe, with the wind in our hair, and really not a
care in the world, not too many shillings in our pockets, but virtually every
new experience (the great, good ones anyway) have become the stuff our dreams
and the progressive encyclopaedia of our lives. For most of us, it was great to
be young. Sure, there was pain and suffering, but we bore that with courage only
the young years of our lives can suffer with courage.
All around us, lots and lots of young people
were doing amazing things. Not all, some were unfortunate. We remember them
too. This is our twilight hour … each day brings us news of a friend’s passing
and our hearts ache and ache with every new loss. Similarly, as short-term
memory loss continues to erase that which we remember with cinemascopic definition,
today some of us can’t until we meet someone who can … and for a few moments at
least our minds are set at rest.
Still, bravely with a smile and “chuuch” (you
know that sound) here and there, we prepare ourselves for the challenges of the
next hour.
Like I said, I am a sucker for old movies. I
used to be a dedicated fan of the BritBox, the British streaming service of
British cinema and television.
When I watched 84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
recently I tried to remember the number of times I had watched it. I forget.
But I have never forgotten the impact it had on me: I was always blown away by
the brilliance of the writing and, of course, the equal brilliance of Anthony
Hopkins and Ann Bancroft. Remember we watch Ann 20 years earlier in the movie
that had us all young guys slightly hot and bothered: The Graduate, opposite Dustin
Hoffman.
A review by that great fine man Cole Smithey: “84 Charing Cross Road” is about bonds of friendship formed and maintained by a mutual love of literature or, more to the point, books.
Anne Bancroft’s
earthy portrayal of real-life playwright and script-reader Helene Hanff (pronounced hell-ane han-f) is so effortless
and effervescent that it’s enough to turn a generation of young women into
chain-smoking, gin-swigging writers, if not full-fledged admirers of
beautifully bound editions by the likes of Jane Austin, George Orwell, Chaucer,
or Plato.
Helene Hanff was famous for saying that she never read fiction
because she could “never get interested in things that didn’t happen to people
who never lived.”
Personally, I know exactly where Hanff was coming from, and I
concur. So it is that the nature of this film, directed by David Jones, calmly
emphasizes the immediate surroundings and social conditions of its characters
from the late ‘40s to the late ‘60s.
Love of poetry and the written word is intrinsic in the fabric of
the narrative. Nothing is strained, even when characters break the forth wall
after earning sufficient trust from its audience. We are glad to be spoken to
directly. It’s a loving gesture that arrives as a reward.
Helene
Hanff lives in a weathered brownstone apartment on 95th Street off Central Park in Manhattan’s Carnegie
Hill. The address is actually on 94th Street
between Fifth Avenue and Madison. She frequents an actual bookstore at 1313
Madison that is still in business at the time of this writing. Unable to
locally acquire the specific titles that her ever-hungry literary appetite
requires, she responds to an ad for Marks & Co., a London-based antiquarian
bookseller overseen by Anthony
Hopkins’ Frank P. Doel. What follows is a 20-year
relationship of loving commerce elucidated by letters written back and forth
across the pond.
Oh, what a difference casting makes. There can be little doubt
that the separate but resonating chemistry between Bancroft and Hopkins rings
as a clarion bell of mesmerizing harmony. Through their constant correspondence,
we savour Hanff’s lean sense of nearly ribald humour as it rubs on the dry
paint of Frank Doel’s heartfelt sense of honest propriety. It should be noted
that Judi
Dench’s restrained performance as Doel’s loyal but
tightly-wound Irish wife Nora adds a layer of stoic resolve to the couple’s
marriage.
The primary action of the story revolves around Hanff’s written
requests for specific books that she augments with gifts of food stuffs meant
for the appreciative staff of Marks & Co., located at the address of the
film’s title. Hanff always sends cash.
So it is that the seemingly pedestrian story catches the viewer
off guard when the cumulative emotional effect takes its inevitable toll in a
tear-jerking sequence of satisfying catharsis. “84 Charing Cross Road” is a
valuable film for all of the right reasons of theatrical balance and narrative
truth. It is a movie that hits you like a live play. I can think of no higher
compliment for the source material of soul-bearing experience.
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