84 Charing Cross Road

Don't see the film, it's very disappointing after the book.

I used to love book shopping in Charing Cross Road decades ago, but went there a year or so ago and was saddened by how it had changed.

You need to have a heart of concrete not to well up a bit at "Daddy, my Daddy".

I recommend Underfoot in Show Business. Her account of the opening of Oklahoma - which everyone thought was doomed to abject failure - is hilarious.

Charing Cross Road is not what it used to be, but there are still some good bookshops with decent stock. I like to think that www.henrypordesbooks.com/ is something of a remnant of what it was like in Hanff's time.

Remains of the Day was his film after his role as Hannibal Lecter. So that film cutely became known as The Silence of the Butler.

Love the film but never read the book but will do now!

The site ite of the bookshop at 84 is a little saddening if you don't know? There is a plaque on the wall to recognise the significance of the address. The ground floor is now a MacDonalds. Bit sobering.

On the back of this thread I've been watching a few youtube clips of the film and am starting to feel that Anthony Hopkins may well be Frank. I think I do need to see the whole film.

I must be soppy too. I get teary just thinking about that scene from the Railway Children.

And yes, Hopkins is great in Remains of the Day. The film was fine, I suppose, but for me it didn't have the power of the book.

Really loved the book and the film was good as well. I had no quibbles with it as I usually criticise films of books.

oh thanks, so my teenage self was right, trying to make it a bit more exotic!

Oh I LOVE this book. I remember not wanting to get off the tube at my stop when I first read it. I haven't seen the film either but Hopkins just doesn't seem right as Frank. I have such a clear mental image of how everyone looked that I think the film would only disappoint me.

Wonderful book and film. Highly recommended to anyone who has not had the pleasure.

HemiDemiSemiquaver, assuming the BBC (and Roy Plomley) never get pronunciation wrong, it's pronounced 'Hell-lane' according to this recording of Desert Island Discs: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0144n7w

I've never seen the film, but it was the 1975 Play for Today with Anne Jackson as Helene and Frank Finlay as Frank Doel that led me to read the book. Does anyone else remember it? Oddly, until I looked it up on IMDb, I was convinced it was Elaine Stritch who played Helene.

I was never sure whether her name sounded just like ordinary 'Helen', or whether it was some variation on that - and I can't remember how it was it the stage production. In my head I always thought it more with the emphasis on the second syllable "hel - lenne' or even 'hel - lane' but that's because as a teenager, it seemed much more exotic that way!

How lovely! I think this is one that bears rereading at least once a year. It reminds me also of this quirky cookbook I inherited from my American mother, "for starving actors", full of recipes involving 'take one can of cream of mushroom soup, pour over a veal cutlet, warm and serve'; I'm sure written for the sort of one-ring kitchenette that people like Helene Hanff had in her apartment.

Inspired by this thread, I have gone and bought a copy of 84 (mine had gone missing), and am devouring it.

I'd forgotten that she met Joyce Grenfell, whilst she was in London - Joyce is one of my heroines.

The movie is disappointing and will not add to your pleasure in terms of your love of the book - but, still, there is a pleasure in just seeing Bancroft and Hopkins, and I'm always happy when anyone makes a movie that showcases reading.

I love the book and the film. Different but both good.
I also have letters from New York - it's fabulous.

Her writing is just so sort of ordinary and conversational if that makes sense. You feel like you're having a chat with her

I love the book and film - I also saw a stage production many years ago which was gorgeous too. And the Q books are so lovely!

I love HH's books too.

Particularly Q's Legacy. Q had such a sad life, he lost his beloved son in the war.....

I also reread 84 CCR over and over again. What gets me every time is the Christmas box she sends over. Such generosity when she had so little money.

I've got all her books. There's one I think called letters from New York, which were pieces she did for Woman's Hour, which were so evocative of the city, that the first time I visited, I felt I had already been there.

And yes, my edition also has the sequel bound into it.

And yes, the film is not a patch on the book, but it still made me cry!

yes my 84CCR also includes Duchess of Bloomsbury and in my mind too, they are a single book.
Trusted and intense friendship, a kind of non-romantic love in my mind, and it disappointed me to make it seem more like a love affair.

i will have to look up her other books - wasn't aware of them.