Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

84 Charing Cross Road Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 19, 2019

84 Charing Cross Road (1987) is being released exclusively as part of Shout Select's eight-disc box set, The Anne Bancroft Collection.

While re-watching 84 Charing Cross Road, I couldn't help but take note of the striking similarities the film's epistolary narration shares with The Remains of the Day (1993), which also stars Sir Anthony Hopkins. In that Merchant Ivory film, Hopkins plays an English butler who's trying to reconnect with Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), the former housekeeper of Darlington Hall, who Hopkins's Mr. Stevens wants to return to his lordship's manor. Stevens and Kenton exchange letters as the film flashes back and forth between pre- and post-WWII Britain. While looking again at David Jones's 84 Charing Cross Road, produced and released six years prior to Remains, I felt like I was seeing Mr. Stevens's brother on screen. While the butler is unmarried and Hopkins's Frank P. Doel, an antiquarian bookstore proprietor on 84 Charing Cross Road in London, is remarried with two daughters, the two protagonists exhibit analogous dispositions and mannerisms. Stevens is socially and sexually repressed to the point of strict servitude to Lord Darlington (James Fox) and his guests. Kenton practically begs him to become her romantic partner but Stevens hardly budges. Doel is a step up from Stevens on the working-class hierarchy but he also seems repressed from his wife, Nora (Judi Dench). He thanks her plaintively for each meal she prepares for dinner but they never kiss or embrace.

Helene Hanff (Anne Bancroft), a poor freelance writer residing in a single room on New York’s Upper East Side, writes to Doel after spotting an advert in The Saturday Review of Literature listing his used-and-rare bookstore. Hanff can't find the books she wants at her local bookstores so he's elated to learn that Doel not only has the editions she seeks, but offers them at average of only $5 or $6. Hanff and Doel share a mutual love for a variety of books and begin a transatlantic correspondence that spans from 1949 through 1969. Hanff returns the favor by mailing nylons, tinned ham, and other canned goods to Doel and his workers. (England went through a great food rationing after the war.) Film editor Chris Wimble does a commendable job of intercutting Hanff, Doel, and other characters read the letters and cutting to reaction shots over a sound bridge.

Decorating the tree.

Hanff and Doel seem polar opposites. She's feisty and full of spunk. Doel is placid and imperturbable. Like Mr. Stevens, Doel wears an ashen face for much of the film. He's framed in close-ups in a very pensive manner. In one scene, he stares at a dressed-up woman in his shop and wonders if it's Hanff. Resignation also registers on his face. Contemplating his body language, I wonder if Doel considers how his life would have different had he connected with Hanff earlier. Likewise, would Stevens led an alternate life had he left service and eloped with Kenton?

The real Helene Hanff published 84 Charing Cross Road as a 97-page memoir in 1970 and its gone through many printings since. The screenwriter Hugh Whitemore adapted it as a teleplay for the BBC in 1975. It was performed on stage (likely at the West End) in London in 1981 and a year later on Broadway in New York starring Ellen Burstyn and Joseph Maher as the two leads. Critical and commercial reception was mixed. Ed Blank of The Pittsburgh Press saw it on stage and observed that Hanff's loft and Frank's store stood adjacent to the other in stead of alternating the sets. The characters took turns writing to each other in a dialogic way. The movie doesn't employ any split screens but features two scenes where Hanff talks directly to the camera, a direct mode of address Truffaut revived a several years earlier. She speaks to the audience and Doel who listens (imaginatively) in his store office. Jones doesn't employ any split screens to mimic the play's setup but his cinematic devices work fine on their own.

84 Charing Cross Road Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

84 Charing Cross Road is brand new to Blu-ray and arrives with a consistently solid transfer courtesy of Shout. I own the 2002 UK disc from Columbia Tristar and recall buying it because Sony panned-and-scanned the image for the R1 and didn't bother with the widescreen version on the opposite side. The film appears in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 that approximates its theatrical framing of 1.85:1. You'll see from the comparison shots that Shout hasn't cropped any side. The images in the first reel get off to an ominous start with dirt and debris (see Screenshot #s 22 & 23 of the Pan Am plane high above) and low contrast (see #20). The specks diminish in frequency thereafter. There are a few reel-change marks but artifacts diminish. The New York scenes are bright and sunny and accent some of the outfits. London scenes are dimly light and have coarser grain (see #12). Longtime film critic Dave Kehr cited moldy colors and dust-sprinkled sets in the bookstore and Doel's home in his review. Nearly all the scenes in London have a softer look than the NY locales and some of the interiors. The Arizona Daily Star's Robert S. Cauthom spotted the Soft lens in the former and the autumnal colors in the latter. Frame grab #19 is reappropriated documentary footage and hence has tramlines. Shout's MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer carries a mean video bitrate of 36000 kbps.

Screenshot #s 1-20, 23, 25, 27, & 29 = Shout Select 2019 BD-50
Screenshot #s 22, 24, 26 & 28 = Sony Pictures 2002 UK PAL DVD-5

The 100-minute feature is accompanied by the standard twelve chapter selections. (My DVD has twenty-eight.)

84 Charing Cross Road Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Like all the film's DVDs, Shout Select supplies a monaural mix, rendered here as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (1562 kbps, 24-bit). This is a peculiar anomaly since the sound was mixed in stereo for the theatrical prints. It still sounds very clean with Bancroft's sometimes boisterous utterances contrasting with Hopkins's Welsh accent.

The Brit George Fenton is the composer of record and according to music critic Jerry McCulley, Fenton arranged versions of Corelli's Church Sonata in A, Festival of British Conga, and the march, Auld Lange Syne. Frenton's original score is a mix of bouncy jazz tunes which are probably inspired by Gershwin. He incorporates an oboe d'amore, kantele, and dulcimer. To reflect the Doels' ethnic roots, he features an Irish flute in the fore. Both the Varèse Sarabande LP and CD soudtracks were recorded in stereo. While Fenton's score works seamlessly in the film, it's even better on album. Varèse issued a LE of only 1000 units so snatch up a copy if you get a chance.

The usual English SDH can be switched on/off from the sparse menu or via remote. My Sony disc has many subtitling options.

84 Charing Cross Road Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are absolutely zero extras on this disc. All the Columbia Tristar DVDs have bonus trailers for The Remains of the Day and Sense and Sensibility but oddly, no trailer for 84 Charing Cross Road.

84 Charing Cross Road Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

About half of my review is devoted to sketches of two of Anthony Hopkins's characters in "nostalgic" films so I don't want to lose fact that 84 Charing Cross Road is about book lovers and as an über bibliophile, I relate completely to the collector and seller in the film. It's a special movie and more cherished these days because old-fashioned civilized cinema has all-but vanished. Shout Select's transfer is a modest upgrade over the anamorphic DVD. It boosts richer color and enhanced clarity. WARMLY RECOMMENDED.