Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft had been playing their respective roles as Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, on Broadway for some time before director Arthur Penn (The Left-Handed Gun) built a mesmerizingly beautiful film around their layers-deep performances. Duke is astonishing as the deaf, blind, mute Keller, who awakens to an awareness of language under Sullivan's determined guidance. Bancroft is fascinating and focused. Penn wisely kept his adaptation unencumbered by cinematic indulgence. The black-and-white film is sparse and charged with the immediacy of the drama. The script is by William Gibson, who also wrote the original play. --Tom Keogh

Starring in what is quite possibly the most moving double performance ever recorded on film (Time), Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke are remarkable in their Oscar�(r)-winning* portrayalsof Annie and Helen. Ennobling and uplifting (Variety), this inspirational story of courageand hope is one of the finest works of art in the history of motion pictures (Boxoffice). Locked in a frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness since infancy, 7-year-old Helen Keller has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. ThenAnnie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touchthe only tool they have in commonand leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light. *1962: Actress (Bancroft); Supporting Actress (Duke)

The Miracle Worker is available at Amazon for $7.49. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

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Other Products of Interest

• The Miracle Worker
• The Diary of Anne Frank
• The Story of My Life
• Anne Frank - The Whole Story
• Lilies of the Field

El Graduado (The Graduate) es una película de Mike Nichols (Sin duda, la mejor del realizador) grabada en 1967. Sorprendentemente estaba basada en un libro de Charles Webb (que posee el mismo nombre) escrito 4 años antes. Los derechos de la historia se vendieron por un irrisorio precio de 20.000 dólares (además su nombre fue poco asociado en lo que a la distribución de la película se refiere).

Dustin Hoffman, entonces, era un actor novato (pese a que tenía 30 años) cuando Mike Nichols lo vio en una representación teatral. Hoffman, que había hecho pequeños papeles cinematográficos, no tuvo ningún problema para aceptar un papel protagonista.

El film nos cuenta la historia de Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), un inocente muchacho que regresa a casa de sus padres a pasar las vacaciones de verano. Ben, un estudiante excelente que no encuentra sentido a la vida, pasa las horas muertas perdiendo el tiempo. Entonces, el marido de la familia Robinson, amigo de la familia y compañero de negocios del padre de Ben, desea que el chico salga con su hija, Elaine (Katherine Ross). Mientras tanto, la señora Robinson (Anne Bancroft) manipula al joven para que no se enamore de su hija y mantenga relaciones sexuales con ella.

Tralier original

Tengo la obligación de destacar la emocionante escena final, parodiada hasta la saciedad, que debido a que el libro dejaba un final demasiado abierto se optó por finalizar con unas inexpresivas caras de los actores.

La película fue ganadora del Oscar a mejor direccion, de las 6 nominaciones que obtuvo. Hay que destacar las nominaciones a mejor actor, mejor actriz (Dustin Hoffman y Anne Bancroft, respectivamente) y la banda sonora.

La banda sonora esta compuesta totalmente por Paul Simon (y cantadas por el dúo Simon & Garfunkel). Todas las canciones habían sido publicadas anteriormente, menos ‘Mrs. Robinson’ que se compuso para la ocasión y fue el pelotazo del año.

Simon & Garfunkel - Mrs. Robinson (1981, concierto en Central Park)

A superprodução Delgo, de Marc F. Adler e Jason Maurer, que irá representar os Estados Unidos, é um belo épico de fantasia com personagens bem estranhos (imagem ao lado). O filme foi criado em computação gráfica e é dublado por atores de destaque como Val Kilmer, Anne Bancroft, Freddie Prinze Jr., Burt Reynolds, Malcolm McDowell, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Louis Gossett Jr. entre outros. Conheça mais sobre o filme em seu site oficial e assista ao trailer.

Idiots and Angels é outro representante dos Estados Unidos e foi criado pelo veterano animador Bill Plympton, que já é figurinha carimbada no Anima Mundi. Como não poderia deixar de ser, é uma comédia de humor negro sobre um anjo com uma certa dificuldade de aceitar o seu "destino". VEJA O TRAILER AQUI. O incansável Plympton também participa da competição de curtas, com Hot Dog, e da Portfólio, com Bonaroo Music Festival trailer.

O Brasil será representado por Belowars, do paranaense Paulo Munhoz, novo longa-metragem do diretor de Brichos baseado no livro infanto-juvenil Guerra Dentro da Gente, do poeta Paulo Leminski. A imagem que ilustra este texto, lá em cima, é uma cena deste filme que transformei num papel de parede. Se você quiser embelezar o seu computador com o desenho do Munhoz, basta clicar na imagem para fazer o download.

Clique aqui para ver trailers e vídeos do Anima Mundi e aqui para ler mais.

The Graduate is, of course, about watching Dustin Hoffman and thinking, "Gosh, he looked so young back then!" It is also about wondering how they could make Anne Bancroft look twenty years his senior, when she was only six years older in real life.

More interestingly, The Graduate is about exploring the connection between loneliness and sexuality. When I watch it, I ask myself why sex sometimes cures loneliness, and sometimes it does not. Or perhaps I ask myself if it is even true that sex ever does anything other than satisfy a temporary desire? Even lovers are distant from each other when they are close.

In any case, Ben is a intellectually promising college graduate who finds himself seduced by a woman of his parents' generation - Mrs. Robinson (think: Simon and Garfunkle.) She initiates him into the world of sexual intimacy. Ben soon experiences some boredom in their relationship, however, and begins to ask personal questions of Mrs. Robinson. He is curious about her life and her story.

Of course, she does not give herself away, and Ben moves on to falling in love with the Robinsons’ daughter, Elaine. This sets Mrs. Robinson on a quest of revenge against him and she arranges for Elaine to be married off to someone else. Predictably, this only reinforces Ben’s desire for Elaine. After a long chase, he eventually finds the wedding location and manages to convince Elaine of his love for her and then rescues her away from her own wedding. They take off together. In a school bus. (Is he finally learning what he never did learn in school?)

At the beginning of the film, Ben is a passive, immature young man who has no desire to create a meaningful future for himself. At the end of the film, he is willing to risk everything for the sake of one particular future he is absolutely certain that he wants for himself: Elaine. Clearly, something woke him from the slumber of immature youthfulness. It is easy to conclude that his sexual debut with an older and experienced woman is what did the trick. After all, she did help him out of his cage of inexperience and fear of inadequacy. At one level, this is clearly what The Graduate suggests.

But something else is going on, too. It relates to the question of why sex sometimes cures loneliness and sometimes it does not.

Not until Ben's sexuality comes alive is he able to admit his need for someone to enter his world of isolation and loneliness. There is something about this experience that sets him free to pursue the kind of relationship that could cure to this loneliness.

Apart from the story of Ben, could this suggest more generally that our sexuality is so essential to being human that we cannot think of loneliness without also thinking of sexual loneliness? That is, is the lonely person always also sexually lonely (whatever that means)? If this is the case, then sexual intimacy is critical for the cure of human loneliness.

Of course, The Graduate offers no guarantee that Ben’s relationship with Elaine will cure his isolation and loneliness. In fact, there are quite a few indications that they have disaster waiting in the wings of their life together. But that is beside the point.

The point I wish to make is that Dennis O'Brien is on to something. He says that, in order to understand the connection between sexuality and loneliness, we must first explore the role that our sexuality plays in defining us as persons. This is the very simple question that he wants us to ask ourselves and reflect upon:

“Is the sexual persona an essential part of this self which feels abandoned?” (O'Brien, "Sex and the Failure of Intimacy")

(Let us not even begin to discuss the fact that Ben uses Mrs. Robinson for his own purposes and then tosses her away as an old garment. Yes, she seduces him, but he turns around and uses that as an opportunity to reach his own goal. This little episode should securely exclude him from processes like beatification and canonization in the Catholic Church. He can safely stop waiting for the letter that officially announces his sainthood.)

(Photo by down the waterfall. Thank you!)

Die Reifeprüfung:

6 Vorstellungen von Juni bis September im Rahmen der "Camera Zwo collection" im camera zwo, Saarbrücken:

Nach seinem Collegeabschluss verbringt der junge Benjamin den Sommer plan- und tatenlos auf einer Luftmatratze im Pool - sehr zum Missfallen seiner Eltern. Als ihn die elterliche Freundin Mrs. Robinson überraschend zu verführen versucht, wehrt er sich zunächst, lässt sich dann aber doch auf eine Affäre mit der verheirateten Frau ein. Für eine Weile trifft er die attraktive Mittvierzigerin heimlich in Hotels. Als sich Benjamin jedoch unsterblich in Mrs. Robinsons Tochter Elaine verliebt, wird es kompliziert.

Originaltitel:		The Graduate
Darsteller:		Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Elizabeth Wilson, Brian Avery, Mike Farrell, Alice Ghostley
Regie:		Mike Nichols
Drehbuch:		Calder Willingham
Genre:		Drama, Lovestory
Land:		USA 1967
FSK:		freigegeben ab 16 Jahren
Laufzeit:		ca. 105 min.
Verleih:		Kinowelt

Alle Vorstellungen im camera 6 und das an den folgenden Tagen:

Donnerstag, 26. Juni 2008
Dienstag, 29. Juli 2008
Dienstag, 2. September 2008

jeweils um 18.15 Uhr und um 20.30 Uhr.

"Não posso ir ao seu encontro porque eu já estou com você." (Richard Bach)

Na era do mundo virtual onde as mensagens chegam tão rápido. Onde parece que logo tudo é descartado. Me pego a pensar se os jovens entenderiam a amizade que durou quase 20 anos entre Helen e Frank. E que com eles foram por cartas. Num passado não muito distante.

O filme é baseado na história da escritora Helene Hanif (Anne Bancroft). Pediram a ela para contar algo sobre a sua vida. E ela nos brinda com parte da sua vida adulta onde pontua um grande e inestimável amigo: Frank P. Doel (Anthony Hopkins).

Tudo começou em 1949. Na busca por certos livros, e fora do seu orçamento... um anúncio em uma revista de uma Livraria & Antiquários, em Londres, a leva a escrever uma carta. A primeira de inúmeras... Ah! Ela morando em Nova Iorque. E Frank responde dizendo que parte dos "problemas" dela já estavam resolvidos.

Pelo preços muito em conta, pela gentileza nos envios seguindo junto cartas numa linguagem pessoal, também foram fatores que deram início a essa longa amizade. Mas o que contribuiu mesmo, o que enraizou essa relação era o humor de ambos. Da parte dele, por ser tímido, como também casado, ficou mais comedido no início. Agora, o jeito extrovertido de Helen, do jeito divertido até em reclamar, acabou por conquistar de vez não apenas a ele, como os demais funcionários.

Além dos pedidos dos livros, Helen passou a confidenciar seu dia-a-dia. Como forma de retribuir o carinho, por eles estarem sobre um racionamentos do pós-guerra no tocante a certos alimentos, ela passou a enviar em datas especiais cestas de alimentos: embutidos, enlatados... Uma empresa na Dinamarca as vendia em catálogos. Para eles, um mimo inestimável.

Quando Helen obtinha recursos financeiros para cruzar o Atlântico e então conhecê-los, imprevistos a levava a usar o dinheiro. Assim, o tempo foi passando.

O filme começa quando ela enfim, vai a Londres. A partir dai, é que ficamos conhecendo esses anos todos. Em até que, como numa frase que ela diz no filme (Esqueci a autoria.): "Não sei se eles acreditarão ou não, mas eu estive lá." É, lá está ela, dentro daquele lugar que lhe é tão caro! E eu não consegui reter as lágrimas. Nem não sendo mais a primeira vez que vejo. Filmaço! Eu amo!

Ah sim! Eu adoro o título dado no Brasil: "Nunca Te Vi, Sempre Te Amei!" Sou uma eterna romântica.

Por: Valéria Miguez.

Nunca Te Vi, Sempre Te Amei (84 Charing Cross Road). 1987. Reino Unido. Direção: David Hugh Jones. Elenco: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench. Gênero: Comédia, Drama, Romance. Duração: 100 minutos.

Ben Braddock (Hoffman) returns to his comfortable California suburb after graduating college. His parents and their friends hassle him to get on with his life - get a good job, marry, settle down and become just like them. To his disbelief, his parents friend and neighbor, Mrs Robinson (Bancroft), seduces him. He proves to be pretty naive at conducting an affair:

Mrs Robinson:Benjamin, isn't there something you'd like to tell me?
Benjamin: Yes, I want to thank you for this.
Mrs Robinson: No, the room number. Wouldn't you like to tell me the room number?

He falls in love with her daughter and much comedy is wrung out of the situation as he tries to keep both relationships going. Not surprisingly, Mrs Robinson is opposed to the match with her daughter. In a comic rescue by bus, Ben steals Elaine back as she stands at the altar with another man.

Young audiences cheered the final scene as an act of rebellion: the young couple defying the wishes and manipulations of their parents. Older, wiser audiences know, as Nichols intended they should, that Ben and Elaine will end up just like their parents.
For the technically minded readers: use of overlap sound cut is used in order to alter or enrich unrelated visual images, to link action from scene to scene,and to enhance the pace. Watch the middle section of the film, from Benjamin’s seduction by Mrs. Robinson to his meeting with Elaine,  consists of a time-flow segment. Look at his idle, almost paralytic life by the swimming pool at home. Benjamin hoists himself out of the pool onto a rubber raft; as he makes this move a cut is made and he is shown rolling over on top of Mrs. Robinson in bed. In traditional editing each picture cut would have matched with a sound cut. In this film however the editor allows the sound to overlap into the incoming scene. By such overlap emotional and intellectual overtones of two disparate scenes, Benjamin’s comatose existence at home with an emotional affair in the hotel room, tie up the mismatching.
(ref: film and literature-Fred H. Marcus-1971)
Director: Mike Nichols
Ben Braddock: Dustin Hoffman
Mrs Robinson: Anne Bancroft
Elaine Robinson: Katharine Ross
Mr Braddock: William Daniels
Mr Robinson: Murray Hamilton
Mrs Braddock:Elizabeth Wilson
Berkeley Student: Richard Dreyfuss
105 minutes
Academy Awards
Won (1)

* Best Director

Nominated (4)

* Best Picture
* Best Adapted Screenplay
* Best Actress (Bancroft)
* Best Actor (Hoffman)
* Best Supporting Actress (Ross)
* Best Cinematography

The witty screen play, adapted by Buck Henry (who played the room clerk) and Calder Willingham from Charles Webb's novel got an Oscar nomination but lost out to Stirling Silliphant's screenplay for In the Heat of the Night. Richard Dreyfuss makes his Hollywood debut here in a minor role.

The Simon and Garfunkel song, Mrs Robinson, escaped award nomination but enjoyed as much success as the film.

Dustin Hoffman was Oscar nominated but he goes on to better things in other movies (and a lot worse too). His Benjamin is a nerdy creep whose get-up-and-go gets up at the wrong time to go to the wrong place.
Anne Bancroft in The Graduate

Out of many good performances, Anne Bancroft's stands out as the most memorable characterization. She is darkly funny, tired and nasty - the quintessence of what 25 years of middle class suburban motherhood can do to an intelligent woman. It is Mrs Robinson, not Benjamin, who is the dangerous subversive here. Her performance is even more incredible when you realize she is only six years older than Dustin Hoffman.

'The Graduate' (I can see clearly now) is a lesser movie. It comes out of a specific time in the late 1960s when parents stood for stodgy middle-class values, and "the kids" were joyous rebels at the cutting edge of the sexual and political revolutions.
~ Roger Ebert, on the 30 year anniversary
benny

Veteran Hollywood actor Richard Widmark has died aged 93. A former teacher, he found fame playing the bad guy in Kiss Of Death, and went on to appear in classics of the 'film noir' genre such as Pickup On South Street, Judgement At Nuremberg, and Don't Bother To Knock with Marilyn Monroe.

The film was set overnight in a hotel. Monroe was cast as a troubled young woman, and Widmark was given a more sympathetic role as a world-weary drifter who comes to her aid. Made on a shoestring budget, the script is sometimes cliched. But there are some genuinely touching moments, and both stars are compelling to watch. Anne Bancroft also made her film debut here as a lounge singer.

Widmark, like many actors, found Monroe difficult to work with - yet the results rewarded their efforts. 'We had a hell of a time getting her out of the dressing room and on to the set', he recalled. 'At first we thought she'd never get anything right...But something happened between the lens and the film, and when we looked at the rushes she had the rest of us knocked off the screen!'

Offscreen, Widmark shunned the limelight and lived quietly on a ranch. In 1986 he narrated a documentary on his erstwhile colleague, Marilyn Monroe: Beyond The Legend.

Read more about Richard Widmark's life and career here

Watch a trailer for Don't Bother To Knock here

- opening lines to 84 Charing Cross Road (1987)

The 1970s memoirs of New York writer Helen Hanff -- 84 Charing Cross Road (and partly, The Douchess of Bloomsbury Street in 1973) -- became the basis for the 1987 film directed by David Hugh Jones.

Anne Bancroft takes the starring role as Hanff (Mel Brooks, the late actress's husband, purchased the rights to the book as a birthday gift one year). Hanff is at heart, a bibliophile, and it is literary voraciousness that serves as the impetus of the story. Unable to find obscure classics and forgotten British literature in New York City ("Doesn't anyone read in New York anymore?" she rhetorically asks surprised customers of a bookstore upon leaving), she sees an advertisement for Marks & Co., a bookstore in England that specializes in used, rare titles. And what begins in the 1940s as an overseas customer desperately searching for out-of-print books evolves into more than a thirty-year friendship between Hanff and the staff of the bookstore (especially Chief Buyer, Frank Doel who is played by the (later) uncharacteristically charismatic Anthony Hopkins).

Hanff's short memoirs are a collection of the letters primarily exchanged between she and Doel, all used verbatim in the film. And on the one hand, the film reveals distinctions between pre- and post-war United States and Great Britain, though its focus is more of the cultural rather than political affairs of each, differences which are particularly learned through correspondence in the days long before instant access to seemingly trivial information. Hanff orders a gift basket of food for the bookstore employees at Christmas--relatively simple things like canned ham and fruit preserves. One of the gracious employees writes to thank Hanff, explaining that most of the items received were either things that could only be located on the black market, or, like meats, limited by ration stamps.

The interaction between the characters in the two countries is almost entirely through correspondence, which, if remade today, would probably lose that novelty. But, because most of the interaction is through characters, the filmmakers in time abandon the cumbersome display of one character writing or reading the letters while its author or recipient reads what is written. This is a film, after all, that is translated from a series of letters and demands creativity as such. Once the relationship of Hanff and the employees of the Marks & Co. bookstore becomes more than mere transactions between a store and its customer, the characters--especially Hanff and Doel--began to speak the words of their letters directly to the camera, cutting back and forth with each other's responses. But there is certain discomfort in a friendship existing entirely through letters, and thus, the major question becomes--will Hanff ever meet her British friends and especially the cordial Frank Doel?

It is a very simple, pleasant film and one who's cinematography suggests a British public television quality to it, which may not be of any surprise, considering prior adaptations as BBC teleplays and radio plays, in addition to stage performances. Screenwriter Hugh Whitemore, who adapted the BBC teleplay in 1975 as part of the Play for Today series, holds the screenwriter credits for this 1987 film adaptation of Hanff's memoirs, expanding the characters to "include Hanff's Manhattan friends [which includes actress Mercedes Rhuel], the bookshop staff, and Doel's wife Nora, played by Judi Dench. Bancroft won a BAFTA Award as Best Actress; Whitemore and Dench were [respectively] nominated for direction and supporting performance." 1

It has been suggested that Hanff's memoirs are not entirely based on actual events. "Although claimed to be a true story, at least one source implies that there was a bit of artistic license. Leo Marks, later a screenwriter, was the son of the bookstore's owner, and the head of codes and communication for Britain's special operatives and the underground during WWII, despite being barely old enough for college. In his book "Between Silk and Cyanide" he says of his father: 'He never read the gentle little myth by Helene Hanff; Long before it was published he'd become one himself.'" But others still seem content to maintain a sense of that history--especially of the Marks & Co. bookstore while the film at least maintains that wonderful romanticism.

It’s based on the real story of the long-distance friendship between the British bookseller Frank Doel and the American writer Helene Hanff, whose own book 84 Charing Cross Road formed the basis of the movie by the same name.

Frank Doel and Helene Hanff are wonderfully played by Sir Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft, and what makes this movie even more remarkable is the fact that the two main characters never get to meet each other even once, and their extensive communication is portrayed solely through letters and visits from mutual friends.

This also brings a touch of sadness to the film - especially when Helene Hanff finally manages to visit the by then closed bookshop of 84 Charing Cross Road.

Besides being a very thought-provoking film on the meaning and importance of friendship, even across continents, it’s also a great movie for learning more about books - especially the classics.

Last, but not least there’s also a very real sense of atmosphere in the depiction of the English bookshops, and having visited the famous London street Charing Cross Road myself, watching the movie brings back wonderful memories as this has always been one of my favorite places in London. :D

For further information on the actual 84 Charing Cross Road bookshop, here’s a recent website with lots of pics, trivia and historical information in general.

If you want the full story behind the movie, I recommend the two books:

84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, by Helene Hanff

Today is a special day. It is our twentieth wedding anniversary. It is a milestone, and worth taking time out to honor. The years have gone quickly, sprinkled with child-raising, dogs, sick parents, near-death experiences, heart-ache, joy, aging. A good mix for life I'd say. As I've noted, we are both geeks in our own ways, and as such, we understand each other. I just wanted to take a moment today to honor my best friend, and I figured he would enjoy and understand the movie reference below. He and I speak in movie references - lines from movies that capture the emotion of a moment for us. Over the years we have accumulated a collection of lines from hundreds of movies. They have become a kind of coded communication between us.

This particular movie is called 84 Charing Cross Road. Anne Bancroft stars. Her husband, Mel Brooks, purchased the rights to produce it - his gift of love to her, knowing how much she loved the story.

It's the true story of a New York City writer, Helene Hanff - a person kind of like me - no bullsh--, doesn't mince words, very "unglamorous." She has a sharp, but kind sense of humor and a great heart. Helene LOVED English literature, but in late 1940s New York City where the movie begins, she could not find any English literature books except at the library. Then she discovered Marks & Co. and began a decades-long correspondence with them. The story is told through her letters. From the opening of the movie:

"October 5, 1949, to Marks and Co., 84 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2, England. Gentlemen, Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase "antiquarian bookseller" scares me somewhat as I equate antique with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions. I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have any clean second-hand copies of any of the books on the list for no more than $5 each, would you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?"

Thus begins her relationship with the very proper bookseller at Marks & Co., "FPD." FPD, over letters and time becomes Frank Doel, then simply, "Frank." It's a love story, but not the usual kind. They live an ocean apart, have different lives, and he is married with daughters. Happily married. So no, there are no hot sex scenes, the crutch of most modern movies. Yet it is a love story, anyway, because true love at its deepest is about caring, generosity, and the connection of souls. It is not limited by the relationship but can be felt for spouses, friends, relatives, neighbors. Their friendship enlarges their lives, expanding to include his wife, neighbors, daughters, other workers at the bookshop, her friends. Their love is about adding something to each of their lives, not taking things away or destroying things. It is about understanding each other, and that is the quality of love that sustains it, whether in marriage or friendship, well into old age. And frankly, a marriage that lasts well into old age is as much about friendship, as anything else.

Throughout the movie, she revels in the old books she buys, books better for having been owned by someone else first. Again, it is a love of connection to others, even those she never met. She says: "I love inscriptions on fly-leafs and notes in margins. I like the camaraderie-sense of turning pages someone else turned and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to." She can't get enough of the books. Frank finds them for her.

By the end of the movie, he is "Frankie" to her, and she tells him, "You're the only soul alive who understands me." It's a sentiment that reflects a bond where you are known deeply, valued, and most importantly, accepted. Your truth is safe in the hands of another. Whether two people are the same or very different matters not if there is acceptance. When someone knows our deepest places, our vulnerabilities, and accepts us, they give us the best of gifts. The wish to be understood and accepted is one of the bonds that links us all. These are things I have felt for and from my husband.

At one point a friend of Helene's made it to England and visited the book store. She wrote Helene with a description:

"It's the loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens. You would go absolutely out of your mind over it....It's dim inside. You can smell the shop before you see it. It's a lovely smell. I can't articulate it easily but it combines must and dust and age and walls of wood and floors of wood...The shelves go on forever. They go up to the ceiling and they're very old and kind of gray, like old oak that absorbed so much dust over the years they no longer are their true color."

Such a visceral, sensual description. It was a description both my husband and I fell in love with immediately when we heard it. It is a place we hope yet, to be.

At one point in the movie Helene writes to Frank:

"I require a book of love poems with Spring coming on. No Keats or Shelley. Send me poets who can make love without slobbering. Wyatt or Johnson or somebody. Use your own judgment. Just a nice book, preferably small enough to stick in a slacks pocket and take to Central Park."

Late in the movie, Frank is shown, reflecting on her as a Yeats love poem runs through his mind. The moment, and the poem, are my gifts to my husband, my best friend. Thank you for these last 20 years. They've gone so fast. I'd like 20 times 20 more, and if time allows, I'd like yet to walk into 84 Charing Cross Road with you.

So to "Eddie," all my love, and to you and all romantics out there, a poet who can make love without slobbering:

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths,
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939). The Wind Among the Reeds. 1899.

THE MIRACLE WORKER - Directed By Arther Penn - Starring : Anne Bancroft & More

—Anne Bancroft

R.

84, Charing Cross Road is a collection of letters, the real life correspondence (1949-1969) between Helene Hanff, a scriptwriter living in New York City, and Frank Doel and his staff at Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookseller in London. Read the 90-something pages to learn how a love for books can create remarkable friendships. This book is worth the investment if you have little time to read. It can be read in 1.5-2 hours. I read it over lunch on Tuesday.

Helene's antiquarian tastes for essays, poetry, speeches, sermons, and philosophy led her to discover Marks & Co.

Gentlemen:
Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase "antiquarian booksellers" scares me somewhat, as I equate "antique" with expensive. I am a poor writer with antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble's grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies.
I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean secondhand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?
Very truly yours,
Helene Hanff
(Miss) Helene Hanff

Her first letter to the bookseller gives you some idea about the types of books she preferred, but by her third letter you know more about her personality. She was brash, intelligent, and funny. At the half-way point, you also understand that she was compassionate and warm. Her sensitivity to the needs of others is what led her to send parcels of hard to acquire foodstuffs to Frank Doel and his staff. Shortages of eggs, meat, fruit, and vegetables existed for several years after the war (WWII). It was her provision of such items that induced Frank's associates to begin their own exchange of letters with Helene.

Frank Doel was an honest, earnest, and proper man who thoroughly enjoyed the lively exchange with Helene. He looked forward to finding the books she requested, and he was always eager to meet the woman behind the letters.

*Her reading choices were influenced by what she gleaned from the documented lectures of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge. His On the Art of Writing inspired her to read John Donne, Plato, Chaucer, etc.

The Film

The movie was a complete and pleasant surprise. Rarely do I like the transition of book to movie. This movie - 84, Charing Cross Road - exceptional! Anne Bancroft was Helene Hanff herself! Also perfect were Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel and Judi Dench as Mrs. Doel. This film couldn't have been cast better. Get this! Mel Brooks was the executive producer. This makes me wonder if perhaps Bancroft and Brooks (married to each other until Bancroft's relatively recent death) knew Helene.

I have to give a high five to the scriptwriter. Turning letters into conversation and action required some clever thinking and writing. The set designer also gets a high five. At the time the movie was made the bookshop was a record store; therefore, the bookshop had to be rebuilt at Shepperton Studios. I don't think Frank Doel would have noticed a difference. It seemed to capture the true essence of the original.

After you read the book, add the movie to your Netflix list. Enjoy both!

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Are documentaries or documentary-like films of interest to you? Take a look at the film review for Death of a President. You may find it intriguing.