Rating: 
Summary: a fun movie
Review: I really enjoyed this movie. Compared to typical Hollywood movies, this one is slow, but that is what makes it stand out above the rest. The story is touching and gives one a glimpse into post WW2 England. The letter correspondence is always witty and enjoyable. Buy it, rent it and enjoy a nice quiet evening with a fun and relaxing movie.
Rating: 
Summary: An unspoken Love
Review: I thanked the man at Central Park who introduced "84 Charing Cross Road" to Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks for help making it into a film. David Hugh Jones did a splendid directing. Marvellous adaptation of Helene Hanff's book which I cherish. Without this film I may never find such a terrific book. Great contribution to books-lovers and movie-goers.I love this film.It's one of my all time favourite! Very literary unique with exquisite performances from Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. This bitter sweet true story is about lifelong letters correspondence between a struggling writer Helene Hanff(Bancroft) and a book dealer Frank Doel(Hopkins). It began when Helene, a New Yorker responded to an advertisement in the "Saturday Review of Literature". She wanted to mail order out of prints or cheaper edition old books from a London book shop which Frank worked as a book dealer. The book shop was located in 84 Charing Cross Road. At first everything were strictly business like. Helene was always interested and amazed by English Literature and cultures and Frank vice-versa,intrigue by this American. Eventually,they developed a special friendship,an unspoken love and care for each other without even seeing each other. They were like soul mates and that was extraordinary. The cultural and social differences between London and New York during that period were vividly illustrated. It's so touching to see Helene finally going to London.Her love for english literature was sincere and remarkable. This made the movie so unforgettable and great. Beacause all these actually did happened and those people really existed. Both Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins were astonishing in their roles. Also with great supporting casts like Judi Dench and Maurice Denham. This movie taught me about books,the magic of literature,friendship and many more.It also showed there are many different kind of perpetual love and care. I'll always re-watch it because I find it's a classic which touch my heart and soul.
Rating:
Summary: An unspoken Love
Review: I thanked the man at Central Park who introduced "84 Charing Cross Road" to Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks for help making it into a film. David Hugh Jones did a splendid directing. Marvellous adaptation of Helene Hanff's book which I cherish. Without this film I may never find such a terrific book. Great contribution to books-lovers and movie-goers. I love this film.It's one of my all time favourite! Very literary unique with exquisite performances from Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. This bitter sweet true story is about lifelong letters correspondence between a struggling writer Helene Hanff(Bancroft) and a book dealer Frank Doel(Hopkins). It began when Helene, a New Yorker responded to an advertisement in the "Saturday Review of Literature". She wanted to mail order out of prints or cheaper edition old books from a London book shop which Frank worked as a book dealer. The book shop was located in 84 Charing Cross Road. At first everything were strictly business like. Helene was always interested and amazed by English Literature and cultures and Frank vice-versa,intrigue by this American. Eventually,they developed a special friendship,an unspoken love and care for each other without even seeing each other. They were like soul mates and that was extraordinary. The cultural and social differences between London and New York during that period were vividly illustrated. It's so touching to see Helene finally going to London.Her love for english literature was sincere and remarkable. This made the movie so unforgettable and great. Beacause all these actually did happened and those people really existed. Both Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins were astonishing in their roles. Also with great supporting casts like Judi Dench and Maurice Denham. This movie taught me about books,the magic of literature,friendship and many more.It also showed there are many different kind of perpetual love and care. I'll always re-watch it because I find it's a classic which touch my heart and soul.
Rating:
Summary: Ahhh the days before e-mail...
Review: I took my 20 something nephew to see this film and even he adored it. Great film and I was most pleased to see it make an appearance on dvd.
Rating:
Summary: From airmail to email - the correspondence continues
Review: I was lucky enough to meet Helene Hanff in November 1994, just over three years before she died - the real-life star of this film. She was every bit as remarkable and likeable as she is portrayed in this film version which covers her corespondence with a London bookstore from 1949 to 1969. Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins do a wonderful job in bringing this small-time story to the big screen. If you're interested in finding out more about Helene Hanff you can use a web search engine - this may well point you in the direction of my site devoted to Helene, her life and her books. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A rare occasion where the movie is as good as the book
Review: I wrote a review not long ago about how much I loved the book 84 Charing Cross Road, now I can confess I saw the movie first. I stumbled across the movie one night and was instantly taken away by the superb, and under stated acting of Anne Bancroft as Helene Hanff and Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel. Although neither actor has even one second of screen time where they are in the same room, you can feel the friendship that devoloped between these two people. The just a touch of a smile that creeps across Hopkins face is a joy to watch as he would get a new letter from Ms. Bancroft's Helene Hanff. And never (at least in my memory) has Anne Bancroft gotten so totally lost in a role. You no longer see here as Anne Bancroft, actrees, but as Helene Hanff. A frazzled, passionate writer dreaming of living a life filled with books and travelling to London to meet Frank Doel. You can read the disappointment on her face everytime a new obstacle is thrown at her again and again. The only down note to this entire story is the very end. But as it is a true story, how can you really fault it. However you do find yourself wishing for the happy Hollywood ending for once in your life. Be you a fan of either actor, a fan of the book, a fan of books in general, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie. One little side note that just adds to your enjoyment of this film. Anne Bancroft's husband Mel Brooks purchased the film rights to the book one year as a birthday gift after she had told him about how wonderful the book was!
Rating: 
Summary: 84 Charing Cross Road-Poor DVD but Great Movie
Review: I've given this charming movie 2 stars because of the treatment it got on DVD. The movie itself deserves 5 stars. Columbia Tri-Star did a real disservice by releasing this movie in pan and scan mode and not in the format as it was shown in theaters. If you remember at the very beginning of the DVD the words "This movie has been reformatted to fit your television". So in reality, you viewing a heavily cropped out movie. I won't give a descriptive review of the movie as others have done so quite eloquently here. A quiet and magical movie that deserved far better treatment on DVD. Shame on Columbia Tri-Star.
Rating:
Summary: 84 Charing Cross Road
Review: I've given this charming movie 2 stars because of the treatment it got on DVD. The movie itself deserves 5 stars. Columbia Tri-Star did a real disservice by releasing this movie in pan and scan mode and not in the format as it was shown in theaters. If you remember at the very beginning of the DVD the words "This movie has been reformatted to fit your television". So in reality, you were viewing a heavily cropped out movie. I won't give a descriptive review of the movie as others have done so quite eloquently here. A quiet and magical movie that deserved far better treatment on DVD. Shame on Columbia Tri-Star.
Rating:
Summary: RSVP from across the Atlantic
Review: If you enjoy reading other peoples letters and diaries this is probably the movie for you. The developing friendship between a sassy american gal, Helene Hanff who collects rare books and the manager of a London Bookshop, Frank Doel via some 20 years of correspondence. This much loved story has now been set on film played convincingly by Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. The story is told with much humour and careful adherence to the morality of the times. Judi Dench makes for a fine supporting part as Franks loving wife.The director does a fine job in capturing the laid back ambience of the 50's and 60's and also the marked difference in living standards between the brits and the americans. The US, a burgeoning economic power and Great Britain still paying of an enormous war debt with its continuing austerity measures.I recommend this film to all bibliophiles as it instilled in me an inclination to reread all those classics that I had spurned so much in my schooldays. 7/10.
Rating:
Summary: The secret world of bibliophiles revealed
Review: If you love books - especially old, rare, classics that await discovery in estate sales, or in dusty second-hand shops with a house cat asleep next to the register - then you'll love 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD. Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins star in this low-key 1987 film, and you'll find no trace of Mrs. Robinson or Hannibal Lecter here. Set initially in the year of my birth, 1949, Bancroft plays Helene, a slightly irascible New York bibliophile with a passion for rare volumes. She answers an ad, placed by a London bookshop managed by the Hopkins character, Frank Doel, claiming to offer such books at reasonable prices. Thus begins a 20-year relationship, totally via the postal service, between Helene and Frank that eventually blossoms into a deep and abiding affection. Helene even melts to the point of sending the shop's staff Christmas packages of gourmet food items, delicacies in short supply in the austerity of post-war England. Hopkins plays the role that he does exceptionally well, that of the perfect, English, gentleman's gentleman, who remains even-tempered no matter what the provocation, which, in this case, is Helene's sometimes exacting standards. The ending is, at first sight, disappointingly bittersweet. But, on further consideration, the viewer may well realize that it is one too often consistent with an occasional love of one's life, and therefore perfectly appropriate.
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