Six years ago, to commemorate World Book Day, I published a post about characters in Hindi cinema shown with books (not necessarily reading books, but sometimes even just holding a book). My main criterion there was that the book should be identifiable, and (preferably) a real book, not just a fictitious prop bunged into the film. The idea was to celebrate books, even in cinema. After all, the connection between books and cinema goes far beyond the fact that books are often adapted to the screen. Both the page and the screen are media used to tell a story; both can entertain, both can provoke thought, both can be incendiary. And just as characters in books may watch films, characters in films may read books. To underline their own personalities and interests, by way of making an oblique reference to a thematic element of the film itself, or simply to have something to do.

This year around, with World Book Day coming up again (today in the UK, for much of the rest of the world on April 23), I decided it was high time to do another iteration of that ‘characters with books’ idea. This time, it’s characters in English-language cinema: mostly either Hollywood or British cinema. As for my earlier post, the criterion here is that the book should be identifiable: its title should be readable. Also, preferably, it should be a real book, not a fictitious one. And, of course, as for all my posts on this blog, these are all from pre-70s films that I’ve watched.

1. Rhoda reads Elsie Dinsmore in The Bad Seed (1956): Or at least has been reading, is going to read once she’s finished showing it off. The Bad Seed actually had quite a bit of reading in it: there’s even a scene where Rhoda’s mother Christine (Nancy Kelly) does some bedtime reading to Rhoda (Patty McCormack), but that particular book was almost certainly a fictitious prop, no more. Martha Finley’s Elsie Dinsmore, however, is very real. In fact, it went on to be followed by several other books about the same character, Elsie Dinsmore, following Elsie through her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, even till Elsie has children of her own.

2. Rosie reads Forever Amber in Spring in Park Lane (1948): Lana Morris’s chatty housemaid, Rosie, is hardly the type of person you’d expect to be bookish: she has a tendency to be flirtatious and flighty, not at all the stereotypical bookworm. But then (as in the case of Rhoda in The Bad Seed, above), perhaps that is the main point: to show that books may be read by anyone, anywhere, and it’s not always necessary that the book reflects the character or personality of the person reading it. I read Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber ages ago, so have few memories of it, besides a very vivid description of what it might have been like to live through the Black Death in 17^th century England.

3. Montag reads David Copperfield in Fahrenheit 451 (1966): The screen adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic science fiction novel about a dystopian future, where books are taboo and are burnt when anybody’s caught with them, is in itself a film about books. About the power of books, the ability of books to open our minds and make us think: all that a dictatorial government may not consider desirable. Montag (Oskar Werner) isn’t just a citizen in this world; his very livelihood depends upon him destroying books: donning flame-retardant clothing, ransacking homes for books, and then making great big bonfires out of all that paper.

After he encounters a very odd young woman (who asks Montag if he’s ever read any of the books he’s confiscated), Montag, disturbed and unsettled by a series of events, actually does sit down to do so: and the book he opens and begins to laboriously muddle his way through, is Charles Dickens’s classic David Copperfield.

4. Melanie reads (aloud) from David Copperfield in Gone with the Wind (1939): I couldn’t resist this: another film, but the same book. Melanie (Olivia de Havilland), along with Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) and the other women of their small sewing circle sit around a table at night, ostensibly employed in their stitching, but all on tenterhooks as they wait for their husbands to return from what might be an endeavour fraught with danger. The tension mounts, nobody is really being able to concentrate on their sewing, and Melanie finally decides that it might be better if she read aloud to them all. The book she chooses—the book already on the table, the book at hand—is David Copperfield. Interestingly, in the original novel by Margaret Mitchell, Melanie reads from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, not David Copperfield.

5. Lieutenant Hirth discusses Mein Kampf in 49^th Parallel (1941): And, every now and then, there’s a controversial book, even a book that’s banned in many countries. 49^th Parallel was the story of a U-boat crew which finds itself stranded in Canada and must make its way to the US (which is separated from Canada by the 49^th parallel, therefore the title) —the US at the time being neutral. The commander of this small group is a hard-headed Nazi named Lieutenant Hirth (Eric Portman), a man so dedicated to the Third Reich that he even carries around a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf with him. When he and his men take hostage a couple of trappers (played by Finlay Curry and Laurence Olivier), Hirth cannot resist the temptation to indulge in some evangelism. Literally: when he shows it to Johnnie (Olivier) and asks if Johnnie has read it, Johnnie replies: “I’ve no room in my pack for any book. I know my Bible, that’s enough for me.’ And Hirth says, “This is the Bible.”

A chilling reminder of just how fanatical Nazis could be.

6. Sergeant West reads British Birds in Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948): From a grim scenario to a light-hearted one. On the Orient Express, an American sergeant ends up sharing a compartment with an enthusiastic British ornithologist. Within a couple of minutes of being introduced, the ornithologist (who is on a lecture tour through Europe) presses on his reluctant fellow passenger a book he might enjoy. West doesn’t, not one bit, and hands the book back almost immediately.

This is one of those books that’s not immediately identifiable (that cover image, of a snipe, is not something I’ve been able to find online), and the name of the author isn’t visible. But, given the title of the book, the fact that the book should have been available in the late 1940s, and—though this could be coincidence—the appearance of snipe on the cover, it may be this book, by Wilfred Willett. There’s no certainty, though, since ‘British Birds’ is by no means a unique title.

7. Brigitta reads John Dale in The Sound of Music (1965): The Sound of Music is a film I have watched so many times, I actually remember several of the dialogues and pretty much most of the scenes. This scene, near the beginning of the film, when Captain von Trapp introduces his children, is one of the most memorable ones, since it helps introduce us to the children: not just their names and faces, but who they are, what they’re like. Brigitta, solemn and studious, comes into the room in answer to her father’s summons, with her nose in a book. Obviously a bookworm, though from this description of Ejnar Mikkelsen’s John Dale, it may not actually be a book for a child or to establish someone as being a discerning reader. On the other hand, maybe (like I was as a child), Brigitta is one of those who will read just anything she can lay her hands on.

8. Clarence reads The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946): Not all readers in cinema are humans. Some are once-humans, like Clarence, the angel on probation. Clarence hasn’t yet earned his wings, and is endeavouring to do so by looking out for the suicidal, severely depressed George Bailey… while dipping into what is obviously his favourite book, Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (literally dipping: the book takes a dunking, along with him, when Clarence flings himself into the water to save George from drowning. Clarence ends up having to shake the book dry). An angel might be expected to perhaps read something more erudite or religious (the Bible, perhaps?) but as this discussion explains, maybe there is a good reason for this choice—perhaps Clarence finds inspiration in the story of Tom and Huck.

9. Rachel Cooper reads the Holy Bible in The Night of the Hunter (1955): … and here someone does read the Bible. Or not, because in the particular scene where Ms Cooper (Lillian Gish) is shown with the Bible in her hand, she doesn’t actually read from it; she talks about an episode from the book, using it to illustrate a point to the scared child she knows is eavesdropping. Interestingly, the main character in the film, Robert Mitchum’s criminal Harry Powell, also has the Bible on hand—and is constantly using it in the proverbial ‘devil citing scripture’ way: he pretends to be a preacher, his knuckles tattooed with LOVE and HATE, his speech all fire and brimstone. It’s a brilliantly told example of contrasts, between Rachel Cooper’s understated but true Christian feeling on the one hand and Powell’s completely hypocritical bombast on the other.

10. Maxwell reads Crime and Punishment in Island in the Sun (1957): And, to end this list, a classic of not just Russian, but world literature, as also a book that has a bearing on the plot of the film. Maxwell (James Mason), maddened by jealousy (he suspects his wife is having an affair with a family friend), strangles the man and then tries to make the whole sordid thing appear like a robbery gone wrong. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel about the aftermath of a crime—the confusion, the guilt, the paranoia which grips the culprit—is mirrored in what Maxwell goes through, and this is not just subtly indicated by the presence of the book; it’s referred to, as well.

Have you spotted any other books in the films you’ve seen? Any favourites? Please share.

And yes, happy World Book Day! Which book are you reading right now?