84 Charing Cross Road (1987) on Netflix
PG19871h 40mBiographyDramaRomance
In 1949 New York, script editor Helene Hanff cannot find the out-of-print British classics she wants. She writes to Marks & Co., a London bookshop, where Frank Doel fills her orders.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.4/1012,484 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1949, Helene Hanff works as a script editor in New York and reads voraciously, especially nonfiction, but the city's bookstores do not stock the obscure British classics she wants. An advertisement in the Saturday Review of Literature leads her to Marks & Co., an antiquarian shop at 84 Charing Cross Road in London that handles mail order. Frank Doel, the shop's chief buyer and manager, answers her letter and finds most of what she asks for at prices she can afford, so she sends standing orders for more. The letters soon reach past the books, into the lives of the Marks & Co. staff, Frank's wife Nora and their two children, and Helene's own work and friends. Helene hopes to travel to London and meet the people who have filled a need in her life.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about 84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Hugh Whitemore and Helene Hanff shared the first USC Scripter Award ever presented, the prize going to the pair for their contributions to the screenplay.
- The story goes back to real letters: Hugh Whitemore's screenplay came from a play by James Roose-Evans, itself an adaptation of Helene Hanff's 1970 epistolary memoir compiling letters between Hanff, Frank Doel and others dating from 1949 to 1968.
