Librarians in the Movies Category A - from Martin Raish's site

Submitted by burneyfan on Tue, 08/28/2007 - 12:39
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  • This list is excerpted and adapted (to fit character limits) from Martin Raish's wonderful site, "Librarians in the Movies: An Annotated Filmography." Being a list-loving film geek who masquerades by day as a librarian, how can I resist? Plot details are given in descriptions which may include spoilers.
  • Group A: Someone says or does something that clearly identifies himself or herself (or some other character) as a librarian. This person may be a professional, a clerk, a student assistant, a director or some other type of "librarian." Some have major roles, others have barely a dozen words to speak. (Groups B, C, and D are in separate lists.)
  • ADVENTURE (1945). Clark Gable is a seagoing roustabout who goes into the library to find a book. He gives the gorgeous librarian (Greer Garson) a rough time, and she returns the favor.
  • THE ADVENTURES OF MARY KATE & ASHLEY: THE CASE OF THE LOGICAL I RANCH (1996). The two girls sit with the smart but frumpy librarian while she helps them solve a mystery. (The librarian also sings and plays the air guitar.)
  • AGENT TROUBLE (1987). Catherine Deneuve plays a middle-aged librarian who decides to investigate the cover-up of a mass murder.
  • AFTER TWILIGHT (2004). Bookish Jen Frazier is pushed into action carrying contraband for the underground. Saying any more, including which character is the librarian, would be a spoiler.
  • ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1976). In this erotic version of the classic tale, Alice (Kristine DeBell) is a prudish, virginal librarian.
  • ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976). A library clerk (Jaye Stewart) gives circulation records to reporters working on the Watergate story. Jamie Smith-Jackson and Ron Menchine are librarians for the Washington Post and James Murtaugh is a library clerk.
  • ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN (2001). A librarian in WWII Germany serves as a contact for a team of British and American spies. The spies meet her at the library where she works.
  • APARTMENT FOR PEGGY (1948). One scene takes place in what appears to be the campus library, with students chatting noisily. A librarian (Crystal Reeves) offers William Holden and Jeanne Crain (Peggy) a book and says, "Here's something that might help."
  • AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL (1951). A man who has reached mandatory retirement age wants to find a loophole that would allow him to continue working. A pretty, young, blonde librarian (Carol Savage) quickly finds the information he needs. He tells her, "Whether you realize it or not, you have just solved one of the mysteries of the age!"
  • THE ATTIC (1979). Carrie Snodgrass is a spinster librarian who devotes her life to caring for her cruel, wheelchair-bound father. Frances Bay is a librarian colleague.
  • AUTUMN IN NEW YORK (2000). An older man follows a young woman into what appears to be a museum, going upstairs past the library. The librarian asks if she can help him. He wants to know the name of the woman. The librarian says "I'll tell her you're here," to which the man says no and the scene ends.
  • AWAKENINGS (1990). A doctor spends time in a library researching Parkinson's Disease. Adam Bryant is a librarian.
  • BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991). Belle is a devoted reader who borrows books from the kindly bookseller (Alvin Epstein) who acts more like a librarian than a merchant. Later, the Beast presents Belle with the free run of his huge library.
  • BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE (2005). Eva Marie Saint plays Miss Franny, a lonely spinster librarian who loves books and tells interesting stories, such as the time she fended off a bear with a Tolstoy novel.
  • BED OF ROSES (1996). A man goes to a branch of the New York Public Library to watch a librarian (Mary Alice) read a book during story time. They chat in front of the reference desk where he says something about how he never misses a story time if he can help it.
  • BIG BULLY (1996). Rick Moranis returns to teach at his old high school. He sees his old librarian sitting at her desk, just as he remembers her. He walks in, reminds her who he is, tells her how meaningful the library was in his life...and she pulls out an overdue slip and tells him how much he owes on a book he still has out!
  • THE BIG SLEEP (1946). A librarian (Carole Douglas) and an antiquarian bookseller (Dorothy Malone) figure in the convoluted plot.
  • BILLY ELLIOT (2000). A young lad in a mining town prefers ballet to boxing but he must practice in secret. In one scene he visits the bookmobile but is told by the librarian (Carol McGuigan) that he cannot take out a book because it is in the adult section, so he steals the book when she is distracted.
  • BLACK MASK [Hak hap] (1996). Jet Li plays Tsui Chik, a gentle, mild-mannered Hong Kong librarian who is also the superhero Black Mask. He gives a short monologue about his appreciation of library work: it's quiet, non-violent and people do not bother you. He kidnaps a librarian to save her from his enemies. When she realizes that he is a good guy (but bleeding heavily) she sneaks into a hospital to steal blood. She stops at the wall directory -- the sure sign of a reference librarian using appropriate finding aids! At one point he uses CD-ROMs as deadly weapons, throwing them at the enemy.
  • BLADE (1998). This tale of vampires includes a portrayal of an archivist named Pearl, who is so fat that it is difficult to know if she is male or female. In any case, she is in charge of the vampire culture's archives, all computerized. She announces that no one can possibly translate the old texts, except that the villain manages to do so.
  • BLISS (1997). A man is aided in his research by a middle-age, sexy but sane, librarian (Lois Chiles, the James Bond girl in Moonraker) who impresses him with her prowess in finding old books through ILL.
  • THE BLOT (1921). Claire Windsor, a clerk at the public library, is saved from a life of poverty by the marriage proposal of a wealthy young man.
  • THE BLUE KITE (1993). This is the story of a young boy and his family in China during the 1950s and 60s. The father is a librarian. Following the death of Stalin and the famous speech by Mao ("Let a hundred flowers bloom") he is called, with all the librarians, to a meeting to discuss why they have not found any reactionaries among the staff. He leaves to use the toilet and upon returning realizes that he has been chosen as the reactionary. He is sent to a collective farm for "reeducation" and soon dies there.
  • BRAZIL (1985). "There are those who maintain that the Ministry of Information has become too large and unwieldy. But in a free society, information is the name of the game." A lowly bureaucrat (Jonathan Pryce) is the closest thing this society has to a librarian. He begrudgingly accepts a promotion from Information Storage to Information Retrieval and meets the girl of his dreams. One day he spots a mistake in one of the pieces of paper he handles, but trying to correct it leads to further trouble until he ultimately is branded a terrorist and hunted by the state.
  • BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (1961). George Peppard takes Audrey Hepburn to the New York Public Library, where she has never been before. She is amazed to discover that the book he wrote is in the library. They use the card catalog and retrieve the book at the service desk. There the spinsterish librarian (Elvia Allman) shushes them and becomes upset when he autographs the book.
  • BRIDGE ACROSS TIME (1985, made-for-TV). Librarian Adrienne Barbeau helps solve the murders (caused by Jack the Ripper?) that result when the London Bridge is relocated to Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
  • BUONGIORNO, NOTTE (2003) [Good Morning, Night]. This film tells the story of the 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro -- a young woman (Maya Sansa) works in the library of a government office but is also a member of the Red Brigade.
  • CAIN AND MABEL (1936). Clark Gable kisses his wife behind the library shelves. A fierce librarian presides.
  • CAL (1984). A young man falls in love with the wife of the policeman he has helped to have killed. She (Helen Mirren) works in the public library.
  • CAROLINA SKELETONS (1991). Louis Gosset Jr. is a marine officer who returns home to discover that an older brother he never knew existed was executed 30 years earlier for murdering two white children. In trying to clear his brother's name the local archivist/librarian (who is also the sheriff's daughter) helps him find the trial records.
  • CAVEMAN'S VALENTINE (2001). A man uses a microfilm reader to research newspaper articles about a photographer. He also converses with a hallucination/dream image of his wife at a younger age. She dissolves into a stout woman in a dark suit jacket with a bun high on her head who wakes him up and tells him that if he doesn't leave, she'll call the police. (The librarian is played by Deborah Lobban.)
  • CÉLINE ET JULIE VONT EN BATEAU [Céline and Julie Go Boating] (1974). A through-the-looking-glass type of comedy about two women, one of whom is a librarian. Some scenes take place in a library.
  • CHANCES ARE (1989). A young man meets the girl of his dreams in the Yale University library when she is pleading with an old fashioned librarian for relief from a fine. He tells the librarian (Kathleen Freeman) that someone is fondling the folios, sending her in a tizzy in search of the offender. He then erases the bill from the computer.
  • THE CHANGELING (1980). A librarian (David Peevers) helps the lead characters use microfilm in their research about a haunted house.
  • The Face of Jizo (2004). This film explores the relationship between a young librarian (Rie Miyazawa) and a shy, bespectacled man who is using the library to research the bombing of Hiroshima.
  • CHINATOWN (1974). Jack Nicholson uses the county archives. The clerk is a sullen young man who does not like his job and only grudgingly provides assistance. Nicholson tears out part of a page from a record book by covering the noise with a cough.
  • CHRISTINE (1983). A scene early in the film portrays a confrontation between the "hero" and the school librarian (Jan Burrell) over talking.
  • CITIZEN KANE (1941). Orson Welles' masterpiece contains a short scene with the world's meanest archivist (Georgia Backus), a woman with her hair in a bun and an intimidating stare on her face, a real dragon lady at the gates of knowledge.
  • CITY SLICKERS II: THE LEGEND OF CURLY'S GOLD (1994). Treasure hunters search through old newspapers on microfilm, and when they find what they need, they hoot and holler, making so much noise that (guess what?) the elderly, grey-hair-in-a-bun librarian shushes them.
  • THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS (1990). Natasha Richardson plays a character that she describes as "an American mother and librarian, . . . an intelligent, strong woman who is also vulnerable and a survivor."
  • COMMANDMENTS (1997). A very religious Christian man loses his faith and decides to turn against God by breaking each of the ten commandments. When he arrives at "Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain," he goes to the library to find a book that lists all the variations of the Lord's name, so he won't miss any. As he walks through the library he speaks some of the names out loud and is shushed by a librarian – and older woman with glasses and her hair in a bun.
  • COMPENSATION (1999). The film presents a pair of love stories, each about a deaf woman and a hearing man. The story set in Chicago in the 1990s revolves around a children's librarian. He is in his 30s, loves his work, and offers a poignant and positive model of a librarian. Nirvana Cobb plays a library assistant who reads/voices a poem to children that is simultaneously translated by an interpreter into American Sign Language.
  • THE CONVENT (1995). An American professor goes to Portugal to research his thesis that Shakespeare was born in Spain rather than in England. His wife thinks he is spending too much time with the young, beautiful librarian (Leonor Silveira) and this eventually leads to trouble for everyone.
  • THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER (1989). The lover (Alan Howard) is a librarian, although we never see him at work. The first time we see him he is in a restaurant, where he ignores the loutish behavior of the thief by reading the book he has propped up on the table. After his affair with the wife is discovered, he is killed by having a book on the French revolution shoved down his throat one page at a time.
  • DEBBIE DOES DALLAS (1978). Bambi Woods' friends help her raise money to go to Dallas and become a cheerleader by getting odd jobs. The "plot" includes sex in the stacks of the local library, run by a stodgy old man named Mr. Biddle. (A librarian who graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, where this movie was filmed, writes: "The story goes that the film crew misrepresented themselves as a 'legitimate' company and not as makers of porn films when they asked the administration for permission to film at Pratt. The library scenes were probably done on a holiday or weekend when the building was closed.")
  • DECEIVED (1991). A woman who suspects her husband of leading a double life uses the library to read old newspapers on microfilm. Later, an efficient, sympathetic archivist helps her find her husband's old school records.
  • DESK SET (1957). Spencer Tracy is hired to install a computer in the Reference Department of a television network. The librarians (Katharine Hepburn, Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill and Sue Randall) though single women, are knowledgeable, capable and efficient professionals. Miss Warriner (Neva Patterson), a young woman who operates the computer, is not a librarian. (Tracy refers to her as a "research worker.") She cannot deal with the pressure of the reference desk, nor conduct a reference interview. It is interesting to see how a query is entered into the computer (named EMMARAC -- the Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator). Boolean logic it ain't.
  • DINOTOPIA (2002, made-for-TV). Two boys find themselves on an island where humans and dinosaurs live together. One of the main characters is a librarian, named Zippo (voiced by Lee Evans). He is also a Stenonychosaurus - a dinosaur.
  • DON'T LOOK UNDER THE BED (1999). In one scene in a library, the heroine is talking to her invisible guide and the librarian shushes her several times. Later, the guide magically inhabits a film some children are watching and their loud laughter drives the librarian frantic.
  • DREAM WITH THE FISHES (1997). A scene shows a man in a hospital bed, dying. He tries to name the seven dwarves but can't. So he and his friend call the local library. The librarian (Beth Daly) names them all, explaining that most people forget "Bashful."
  • DROP DEAD GORGEOUS (1999). In a small Minnesota town the highlight of the year is their beauty pageant. Claudia Wilkens appears as an elderly woman reminiscing about having won the event in 1945. She was also the town librarian although we do not see her in this role.
  • THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970). Sandra Dee works in the college library where a rare book on the occult leads to adventure. The librarian is a little musty and considered to be a bit of a kook, but he doesn't shush anyone, and he does save us all from the evil Old One. Toby Russ is another librarian.
  • ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (1979). Clint Eastwood works for about half a day in the prison library. He wheels the prison library cart while casing the joint. Paul Benjamin is the prison librarian.
  • EXTREMELY GOOFY MOVIE (2000, video only). Goofy loses his job and decides to go college to earn a degree. There he meets the college librarian, stamping and shelving books. At first she is typically prim and proper -- she wears glasses, shushes him and says something about having respect for the Dewey Decimal System -- but she quickly sheds the stereotype and offers to help. They strike up a conversation and learn that they both like the 70s and disco.
  • FINAL NOTICE (1989, made-for-TV). A private detective teams with a blonde bombshell librarian (Kate Davis) to track down a psychopath who has killed library patrons.
  • FIRESTARTER: REKINDLED (2002, made-for-TV). A student who works part-time in the campus library explains to a researcher that he must search through a huge collection of declassified government documents by himself. There is a shortage of librarians to catalog them for him because students just aren't taking an interest in library science like they used to.
  • FOLLOW THE STARS HOME (2001, made-for-TV). The Two brothers are in love with the same girl. Her mother (Blair Brown) is a librarian who retires from her job to care for her handicapped granddaughter. One scene takes place in the library and involves another librarian, played by Debra Orenstein.
  • FORBIDDEN (1932). Barbara Stanwyck is a small town librarian. She is taunted by local kids as "old lady four eyes," and later she declares "I wish I owned this library...I'd get an axe and smash it to a million pieces, then I'd set fire to the whole town and play a ukulele while it burned."
  • FOREVER YOUNG (1992). A pilot who was frozen in an experiment in 1939 and wakes up in 1992, goes to the public library to get caught up on a half-century of world history. The 10-year-old boy who accompanies him sees a girl he has a crush on and despairs, saying, "I'm in a library on Saturday. She'll think I'm a geek." A librarian shows him how to use the microfilm reader and volunteers to call him (which she later does) with the desired information.
  • FOUL PLAY (1978). Goldie Hawn is a librarian pursued by Chevy Chase, a detective. She is quite alluring in the opening scene, in contrast to how she looks when she goes to work in her sensible shoes. Two other librarians stand out against Hawn's youthful blonde hair and innocence. Marilyn Sokol is a young, attractive, dark-haired man-hater, while Frances Bay is an older grey-haired woman who takes home an arm full of books to read.
  • GHOSTBUSTERS (1984). The first place visited by the ghosts is the NY public library. Two librarians appear in the film. One (Alice Drummond) is a victim of the 'visitation' when the card catalog is attacked. She is portrayed as a mousy neurotic. The other (a ghost) is shown as the classic harsh old maid with her hair in a bun and with her only message being "Shhhh!" John Rothman plays the library administrator.
  • THE GIRL RUSH (1955). Rosalind Russell was a librarian before inheriting a half-share in a Las Vegas hotel.
  • THE GIRL WHO COULDN'T LOSE (1975, made-for-TV). Julie Kavner is a plain, prudish but intelligent librarian who becomes a sensational TV game show contestant and finds romance.
  • GIRLS' SCHOOL (1938). Anne Shirley begs private school librarian (tall, thin, bun, glasses) Virginia Howell for the afternoon off but Miss MacBeth insists, saying, "Obligations to the school are important." Anne proceeds to help the librarian with some light shelving using a mysterious classification system: "C 128, Fiction section, Shelf D," etc. in what appears to be an 8-shelf library. Anne makes her escape out the library window when Miss MacBetth is tut-tutting over the schoolgirls' handling of the books.
  • GOOD NEWS (1947). June Allyson is working her way through college as an "assistant librarian." She falls for Peter Lawford, and they sing "The French Lesson" in the library, dancing through the stacks as she reshelves books with little attention to call numbers. In a later scene she wants to dress up and asks her girlfriend's opinion of her outfit. "You sure don't look like a librarian," she says.
  • GOODBYE, COLUMBUS (1969). Richard Benjamin, a librarian, pursues Ali McGraw, an heiress. A thoughtful scene at the beginning of the story shows him helping a small boy find a book. This is a good antithesis to the terrible reference interview seen in "Sophie's Choice."
  • THE GUN IN BETTY LOU'S HANDBAG (1992). Betty Lou (Penelope Ann Miller) is a young but mousy librarian whose husband takes her for granted. After a murder in town, she finds the murder weapon but can't get anyone's attention to tell them. Finally in a fit of frustration she fires the gun and when taken to the police station insists she is the murderer. It has the desired effect: people do pay attention. In one scene her supervisor says that the goal of a library book is to be returned to the shelf unmutilated. The library open house scene is a wonderful teaser for libraries.
  • HAMMETT (1983). A somewhat offbeat story about Dashiell Hammett, set in San Francisco in 1928. Marilu Henner plays a sexy librarian.
  • HAPPY TOGETHER (1989). In one scene a young man is studying in the library when his roommate enters on her roller skates. She skates around the card catalog/ reference area, leading to the inevitable shushes from the librarian.
  • HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS (a.k.a. "Bigfoot and the Hendersons") (1987). A librarian (Peggy Platt) helps people find books on Bigfoot.
  • HEAD OVER HEELS (1979). Laura (Mary Beth Hurt) is a librarian who is obsessively loved and sought by the hero Charles (John Heard). At one point he refers to her as "the only person I know who understands the Dewey Decimal system."
  • HEADING HOME (1991). Joely Richardson moves to London after WWII and finds a job as a librarian. She becomes involved with two men and leaves her job. By the end of the film she has lost both men and returned to work at the library.
  • HEAR MY SONG (1991). An entertainment promoter is putting on a concert, but he realizes at the last minute that the musicians have no sheet music. They dash to a music library with high hopes. The library is a big, confusing, dusty place. The librarian (Mary MacLeod) is a middle-aged, no-nonsense woman with her hair parted very straight down the middle. She says they can have the music copied and it will be available in ten days. But they need it NOW! So they sweet-talk her into giving them the music immediately and rush away to the concert.
  • HEART AND SOULS (1993). Four people are killed in a bus crash but are allowed to return to life to take care of unfinished matters. One of them (Charles Grodin) is a shy librarian and aspiring singer.
  • HIDDEN CITY (1988). Cassie Stuart is a film librarian who becomes obsessed with finding a mysterious piece of film hidden by the government.
  • THE HUMAN COMEDY (1943). The children's librarian, a bookish older woman (Adeline De Walt Reynolds), says "I've been reading books for seventy years." In another scene a boy takes a younger boy to the library for the first time and, as he gestures to the rows and rows of books that they pass, repeats, "All these, all these."
  • I LOVE TROUBLE (1994). Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts are fierce competitors who work for rival Chicago newspapers. While they are searching for information in the library a young librarian (Annie Meyers-Shyer) shushes them. Another librarian, an older lady with grey hair and glasses, is visible in the background.
  • IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993). Five members of an Irish family spent 14 years in prison wrongfully convicted of a bombing. An attorney (Emma Thompson) obtains a court order to look through records in the British Police Archives. On her second visit she gets the file by waving the court order in front of a substitute archivist who reluctantly relents. There is strong implication that the chief archivist would have hidden or destroyed the records had he been the one on duty that day.
  • INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989). Indiana Jones finds the final clue to the location of the chalice in a library in Venice. To do so he must break a hole through the marble floor and coordinates his pounding with the sound of the librarian stamping books. The librarian, an aged man, is surprised by the loud noise his work suddenly makes.
  • INTERLUDE (1957). June Allyson does a little light shelving in the American Cultural Center in Berlin, while falling in love with conductor Rossano Brazzi.
  • INTIMATE STRANGERS (2004). One of the characters is a sexy, hip librarian (played by Sandrine Bonnaire). Despite becoming annoyed at some of her more clueless patrons, she is a caring, smart and sensible confidant to the main character who is going through an emotional crisis.
  • IREZUMI: SPIRIT OF TATTOO (1982). A young woman pleases her middle-aged lover by having her back covered with tattoos. He is a mild-mannered librarian who wears conservative business suits and is utterly ordinary except for his passion for tattooed skin.
  • IRONWEED (1987). A sick and homeless woman tries to take refuge in front of a fireplace in the reference room of the public library. A librarian (Bethel Leslie) catches her sleeping in the chair and, very nicely, tells her she is welcome to use the library, but sleeping is not allowed.
  • IT (1990, made-for-TV). Tim Reid is the small town librarian who stays behind while all the others go off to become rich and famous. "IT" comes and makes all the books fly off the shelves in the library.
  • IT HAPPENED TOMORROW (1944). Dick Powell is a cub reporter who is befriended by the paper's veteran librarian (John Philliber). After the librarian dies, his ghost returns to give Powell copies of the next day's paper for three successive days.
  • IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946). Jimmy Stewart is given an opportunity to see what life would have been like had he never been born. His wife (Donna Reed) is beautiful in their real life, but when he sees her as a single woman she is a librarian with glasses and a bun, and quite shy. Stereotype city but a happy ending.
  • JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO (1990). Tom Hanks hates his job as a "librarian" for a corporation's advertising department. He really isn't a librarian, nor does he really work in a library -- he is more of a shipping clerk. Referring to himself as a librarian is a misnomer, but it does help establish his character as a timid, wimpy sort of guy, especially since he used to be a strong, heroic fireman.
  • JUDICIAL CONSENT (1994). Billy Wirth is a handsome (but also psychopathic) law library clerk who has an affair with a trial judge.
  • JUST CAUSE (1995). Liz Torres is a newspaper librarian who helps a lawyer prepare to defend a client who is accused of murder. She is middle-aged, capable, professionally dressed -- and also flirts with the lawyer in the compact shelving.
  • JUST LOOKING (1999). A teenage boy from the Bronx is sent to live for the summer with an aunt and uncle in Queens. A scene shows four boys doing some research in the public library followed by shushing from the librarian with her hair in a bun.
  • KATIE DID IT (1951). Ann Blyth, the librarian in a small New England town, shocks everyone by posing in scanty attire for a commercial artist in New York.
  • KES (1969). A young layabout, no-hoper boy discovers an interest in birds of prey when he takes a kestrel chick from its nest. He goes to the public library to get a book on hawks but the haughty librarian (Zoe Sutherland) sends him away because he is dirty and obviously irresponsible -- not the sort of client she wants to deal with. This short scene does not offer a positive image of service or compassion.
  • LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (1948). A young lady haunts the "Musik" section of a Vienna library trying to find information about the man she loves, a famous pianist and composer. A librarian turns from his work to watch her step down from a ladder after pulling books from a shelf. He is irritated with her because she has returned a large book by hammering it into place with the heel of her hand.
  • THE LIBRARIAN: QUEST FOR THE SPEAR (2004, made-for-TV). Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle) has twenty-two college degrees, apparently having worked his way through the alphabet beginning with ancient languages and ending with technology and zoology. Along the way he learned “Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress,” how to do research and even how to create an RSS feed. Thus he is well qualified to become The Librarian at the Metropolitan Public Library. Someone steals a section of the spear that pierced the side of Christ. So Flynn is charged to find the spear and return it to the library. He joins forces with Nicole (Sonya Walger) who also works for the library but does not describe herself as a librarian, and Judson, his boss (played by Bob Newhart).
  • THE LIBRARIAN: RETURN TO KING SOLOMON'S MINES (2006, made-for-TV). This is even worse that the first installment of Flynn Carsen's adventures, with virtually no library scenes other than a few moments when he is trying to avoid getting poked by Poseidon's trident.
  • LITTLE SECRETS (1991). Six women on the eve of their tenth high school reunion hold a slumber party and relive the old days. One of the stories revolves around a stereotypical shushing librarian (Monica Walsvick).
  • LOVERS & LEAVERS (2002). The transformation of a 30-year-old bookstore clerk (Minna Haapkyla) from a lonely girl waiting for her Prince Charming into a wiser, self-assured woman. One scene intended to demonstrate this positive growth shows her as a smiling librarian behind the reference desk.
  • MAJOR LEAGUE (1989). Rene Russo is a young, beautiful librarian. We are even told that she has a master's degree, an unusual admission for a movie librarian. She has a license plate that says "READ." Confronted by a former lover who wants her back, she tells him that while she used to be an athlete, now "books are my life." As they continue to argue she disturbs patrons by shouting that she has a better body than Miss Fuel Injection of Detroit.
  • THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956). In 1943 the British secret service tries to confuse the Germans with false documents. Gloria Grahame is a librarian who must convince the Nazi agent that the information is authentic. She is a bit of a wild one and goes out with a lot of RAF officers.
  • MARTHA, RUTH & EDIE (1988). Andrea Martin plays a timid, small-town librarian who is reunited with two crazy aunts from Hollywood at her mother's funeral. Her favorite film is "Gone with the Wind." She wants to be Scarlett but fears she will only be Melanie.
  • MASK OF DIMITRIOS (1944). A mystery writer researching the tangled past of a master criminal visits a municipal archive in an eastern European country. He encounters a helpful, if somewhat servile, archivist.
  • THE MATRIX (1999). The character of Tank (Marcus Chong) sits at in front of a group of about 16 computer monitors looking up documents and manuals that help the main characters save the world. "Definitely counts as a librarian in my book," says our reporter from the field. "He is the ultimate reference/digital services librarian icon in recent Sci-Fi."
  • MAXIE (1985). A flapper from the 1920s inhabits the body of a 1980s woman. Two librarians (Mandy Patinkin and Valeria Curtin) help resolve the plot.
  • MEN OF HONOR (2000). A young Black man, desperate to become a Navy master diver, seeks help at the public library. He takes his manuals and a bouquet of flowers and begs the librarian to help him study for the entrance exams. The older librarian, who is married, directs him (with a twinkle in her eye) to her unmarried assistant (played by Aunjanue Ellis), who is putting herself through medical school by working in the library. She helps him pass his exams with high scores and along the way they fall in love. Several scenes take place in the library.
  • MERCURY RISING (1998). An outcast FBI agent uses the library to track down a suspect's e-mail address. The librarian (Barbara Alexander) is very helpful.
  • MINDKILLER (1987). A shy, studious nerd (Joe McDonald), who is also a library clerk, wants to be more popular. He reads about the power of the mind and develops amazing telekinetic abilities, but these eventually turn against him.
  • MIRANDA (2002). A lonely and somewhat nerdy librarian (John Simm) meets the beautiful and mysterious Miranda when she walks into the library. He follows her to London where he discovers that she has three identities – a dancer, a dominatrix and a con-woman.
  • MIRRORMASK (2005). A teenage girl become trapped in her own imaginary world and experiences several adventures during her efforts to return home. One character is a librarian (played by Stephen Fry) who is part human, part robot and part puppet. He helps her but also shushes patrons.
  • MISS MARPLE movies (1961-1964) starring Margaret Rutherford. Her side kick, Mr. Stringer (played by Stringer Davis) is the village librarian. He is her faithful partner in solving many crimes, and also holds the latest volume of new mystery fiction for her under his desk at the library.
  • MR. BELVEDERE RINGS THE BELL (1951). As part of a plan to help the citizens of an old folks' home, Mr. B visits the local public library to "borrow" a stamp from a collection on display. The mousy librarian (Dorothy Neumann) is very thin, wears a too-large, ill-fitting dress, and in a variation on the bun, wears her hair in two disheveled braids across her head.
  • MR. SYCAMORE (1974). Jason Robards plays a mailman who has a crush on librarian Jean Simmons, as well as a strange desire to become a tree.
  • MONKEY TROUBLE (1994). A young girl, Eva, feels ignored after her new baby brother arrives. When she finds a monkey her life become more interesting, especially when she discovers that he is a trained thief. She goes to the reference desk in the library for information about her new pal. The librarian (played by Julie Payne) is a bit doofy, and loses her cool when the monkey pops out of Eva's backpack, but she does use her computer to come up with the information requested, and quickly, too.
  • MORNING GLORY (1993, made-for-TV). Nina Foch is a nice small-town librarian who helps a newcomer to town (Christopher Reeve) do some research on bees. But she won't give him a library card because he can't prove residency. Later he becomes the library custodian.
  • THE MUMMY (1999). Rachel Weisz plays a young Egyptologist and librarian who becomes involved in an adventure to kill the mummy that has returned to take his revenge. In an early scene she topples all the ranges of books in the library. Later, after consuming a few drinks, she says, "I may not be an explorer or an adventurer or a treasure seeker or a gun fighter, but I am proud of what I am [...] I...I'm ...I am a librarian!" In the beginning she needs her glasses to shelve books, but later she manages to read hieroglyphics without them.
  • MUSIC MAN (1962). Shirley Jones plays Marian Paroo ("Marian the Librarian") of the River City Public Library, who makes available scandalous materials such as the works of Balzac and Chaucer, and sings while she stamps book slips. Later she looks up the fact that Prof. Harold Hill (Robert Preston) could not have graduated in the year that he claimed because his school didn't exist at that time.
  • MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN (1969). A young boy who runs away from home to live close to nature is helped by a local librarian (Tudi Wiggins). She is single but very knowledgeable and well respected in the town. She protects the boy's secret and helps him work through his challenges.
  • NAME OF THE ROSE (1986). Mysterious deaths occur at a monastery in 1327. The search for clues to the deaths leads Sean Connery to the monk who supervises the scriptorium and the library. A suspenseful scene in the library has Connery trying to quickly learn the arrangement of the collection. This leads to a confrontation with the librarian, then to the solution to the mystery and finally to a fire that destroys the library. (Note: In the book the description of the classification scheme is fascinating.)
  • NAVY BLUES (1937). Doris (Mary Brian), a prim and proper librarian pursued by Rusty, a sailor on shore leave. By the time they actually go on a date she has been transformed from dowdy to beautiful by his flattery -- and a few lies that soon lead to trouble.
  • NO MAN OF HER OWN (1932). Clark Gable is a big city con man who goes to a small town to lie low. He meets the local librarian, Carole Lombard. She is young and beautiful. The other (older) librarian, played by Lillian Harmer, encourages her to take a chance with him. This film is noted for the scene in which he ogles Lombard's legs while she stands on a ladder to reach a book on a high shelf.
  • NORMAN CONQUESTS (1978). The central character is a drunken librarian (Tom Conti) who spends the weekend trying to seduce his wife and his sisters-in-law in different rooms of the same country house.
  • NOTHING PERSONAL (1980). A nerdy-looking librarian assists a woman.
  • OFF BEAT (1986). Judge Reinhold is a library clerk going nowhere with his life. He puts on roller skates and zips around the stacks of the NYPL, fetching books to put onto a conveyor belt. He agrees to take the place of his police officer friend in a charity show, where he falls for a female officer and gets into scrapes with cops.
  • ONLY 38 (1923). May McAvoy's husband, a clergyman, leaves her a widow with teenage twins. She sends them to college where she accepts a job as a librarian. She soon sheds her old-fashioned clothes and becomes a bit wild!
  • ONLY TWO CAN PLAY (1962). Peter Sellers is an ambitious (and lecherous) assistant librarian in a small Welsh town who is in competition with another librarian for a promotion. Mai Zetterling is the wife of a prominent member of the Library Board who can influence the promotion decision. Funny scenes with Sellers providing books for a sleazy patron.
  • ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE (1984). Donald Sutherland uses the local library to look at newspapers, while the elderly lady librarian is checking in returned books.
  • THE PAGEMASTER (1994). A young boy who is afraid of virtually everything takes refuge from a storm in the public library. The librarian (Christopher Lloyd) is disappointed to learn that he has not come to read books. The boy falls down and bumps his head, after which he finds himself on a magical journey into literature. Lloyd reappears as the Wizard who accompanies the boy on his adventures.
  • THE PAPER CHASE (1973). Set in a famous East Coast law school, it features anxiety-ridden students making use of the library. The librarian is not really mean, but she is unbending and becomes the reason a student breaks into the building at night in order to have access to information he wants.
  • PARTY GIRL (1995). Parker Posey gets arrested and asks her godmother, a librarian, for bail money. To repay the loan she works as a library clerk. At first she hates it, but later decides that she would like to go to library school and get her degree. One scene shows her talking about library schools with librarians, all of whom are in their 20s and 30s and casually dressed, with nary a bun in sight. Sasha von Scherler plays the "real" librarian.
  • PEEPING TOM (1960). Anna Massey works in the children's library in London but is ashamed to admit it. She rents a room in the same house with a killer and becomes involved with him.
  • PERSONALS (1990, made-for-TV). Jennifer O'Neill is a quiet, bespectacled librarian by day, but uses the personal advertisements in the newspapers to become a knife-wielding slasher of errant husbands by night.
  • THE PHANTOM (1996). A male librarian fails to keep confidentiality so the villain tricks him into looking into a microscope that proceeds to damage his eyes.
  • PHILADELPHIA (1993). A gay lawyer with AIDS seeks redress for having been fired. At one point he looks for information in the library, but the male librarian (Tracey Walter) is not at all helpful, or even friendly. The scene illustrates the public fear of AIDS but it is unfortunate that a librarian was chosen to give the negative image.
  • PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940). Jimmy Stewart asks the Quaker librarian (Hilda Plowright) if they have any local history materials. She replies that he should check with her colleague in the other room. He then asks the perennial library question, "Dost thou have a washroom?" The librarian, engaged in the popular movie past time of placing handfuls of books onto empty shelves without consulting call numbers, continues her work while pointing to the restroom door. Stewart then encounters Katherine Hepburn and they are shushed by the librarian while they discuss his "poetic writings."
  • PLEASANTVILLE (1998). When two 1990s teenagers are transported to the black and white, 1950s-style town of Pleasantville, they notice that all the books consist of blank pages. When the teens tell the plot of a missing text, the book fills itself in in color. Soon the library becomes the most popular place in town; teenagers line up, eager for new ideas. When the "old guard" of Pleasantville attempt to stop this process, their techniques include burning the books and forbidding access to the library.
  • PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953). A man stops at a desk just inside the door of the NYPL and asks the reference librarian (Jay Loftin) a question. He points in the general direction of the microfilm reader.
  • PRIMARY COLORS (1998). A librarian (Allison Janney) is awkward, nervous, and lacking in poise, and is later described as "your typical school board bureaucrat." But the next time we see her she is emerging from a presidential candidate's hotel room, somewhat disheveled and buttoning her shirt cuffs.
  • THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969). Two girls are in the school library composing a letter. The librarian (Isla Cameron), a rather sour sort who is checking out books, is distracted by their giggling. She walks over to see what they're up to, shushes them and eventually chases them out of the library. The girls slip the letter in a book but the librarian finds it and declares, "This is a library!"
  • PUBLIC ACCESS (1993). A small town is stirred to trouble by a newcomer using the local public access cable station. He dates the shy, young town librarian (Dina Brooks) who complains to him about an old grievance. This begins a chain of events that eventually leads to the deaths of some townfolk, including her own.
  • QUIET PLEASE, MURDER (1942). Nazis and art thieves cause a high death rate in a public library. Lynne Roberts, the librarian, is the de-facto heroine of the film. She helps private eye Richard Denning nab the forgers who are trying to loot the rare books room. Byron Foulger is the head librarian, a mousy little fellow who does an about-face when the air-raid sirens go off -- he is also an air-raid warden and in that capacity is as fearless as he is cowardly while wearing his "bookworm" hat. Frank O'Connor is a library guard.
  • RAGTIME (1981). The film concludes with a takeover of the J. P. Morgan library in New York City and features the director of the library as a bombastic, yet cowardly, curator.
  • READ OR DIE (R.O.D.) (2001). A superhero has power over all things paper. She can shape loose pieces into an impenetrable shield, throw them like daggers and even fashion a parachute. Attached to the Royal British Library's Division of Special Operations (the bookworm's equivalent of James Bond's M5 outfit) she is a young woman who is a bit clumsy, wears glasses and is dedicated to books, but she also helps save the world from evil. [A sequel titled Read or Dream follows the adventures of three new paper users.]
  • RED DRAGON (2002). A detective visits a library to track down the source of a quote by Hannibal Lecter. The librarian is a gum cracking young blonde who finds the quote for him, and other sources as well.
  • THE REMAKE (1977). A middle-aged librarian (Ed Nylund) learns that he has cancer, so decides to do a remake of the musical Showboat.
  • RESTING PLACE (1986, made-for-TV). John Lithgow is assigned to help the family of a black officer killed in Vietnam. In looking into the officer's background he learns that when he was about eight years old the librarian wouldn't let him borrow a book because he was black. He said he would wait until she changed her mind. He stayed all day until she finally gave in and let him have the book.
  • ROLLERBALL (1975). James Caan uses the public library to seek information about the infamous game of which he is the star. The information is restricted. Later he goes to the great central computer (in Switzerland) that has all the information in the world -- except for the 13th century, that has been lost.
  • ROME ADVENTURE (1962). Suzanne Pleshette, a pretty librarian in an American girls' school, goes to Rome to learn about love.
  • RUANG RAK NOI NID MAHASAN [Last Life in the Universe] (2003). Asano Tadanobu portrays a meek Japanese librarian living in Bangkok. He is a neat freak who has fastidiously transformed his book-filled apartment into an oasis of calm and order.
  • SALMONBERRIES (1991). The story of the relationship between an orphaned young woman (kd lang) working the Alaska pipeline and a middle-aged German woman (Rosel Zech) working as a librarian in a small mining town in northern Alaska.
  • SCANDAL STREET (1938). This strange B-movie is a blend of soap opera, slapstick comedy and murder mystery, centered on Louise Campbell as a stereotypical librarian in a nice, small town.
  • SCENT OF A WOMAN (1992). A timid prep school student works in the library, and when a classmate asks him to borrow a book that's on reserve, he lets the book go out overnight.
  • SCREAM 3 (2000). Two people use a movie studio archives to research the connection between Sidney's mother and the killer. The archives are in a dark basement. The archivist (Carrie Fisher) is unwilling to help until she is offered a $2000 ring. She is rude, uncaring and just plain mean.
  • THE SECRET LIFE OF GIRLS (1999). A girl is looking for a book in the stacks but can't find it. The librarian, an older woman with white-blue hair and big glasses, says the book must be there because it isn't checked out. The girl gets upset, insisting it isn't on the shelf. The librarian eventually asks her if she would like to fill out a missing book slip but this does not help the situation. A student interrupts the exchange, apologies to the librarian for the other student, and then takes her to the Reserve stacks. It turns out the book is there.
  • THE SEVEN FACES OF DR. LAO (1964). A circus features exhibits that seem quite ordinary but become less so as certain individuals interact with them. Barbara Eden, the typical prim and inhibited librarian, slips into a tent in which the mythological deity, Pan, is on display. Pan begins to play his pipes, and Ms. Eden's clothing gets looser and looser and she perspires more and more until the music finally stops. Ms. Eden immediately regains her senses and is shocked and disgusted when, upon leaving the tent in which Pan is displayed, the god looks up at her and bawls like a goat.
  • THE SEVENTH COIN (1993). While looking for clues to solve some old murders, a rookie police officer uses newspapers on microfilm. He asks the librarian how to find out if one of the people mentioned is still alive. The librarian (Mark Nelson) replies, "Have you tried the telephone book?"
  • THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943). A man goes to the library to find out what books some people have been reading. He flatters the librarian (Sarah Selby) by saying things such as, "You have such lovely hands, Miss Gottschalk. So slim and capable. I want to see what they read so I'll know what kind of books to give my friends as presents. There's nothing nicer for a gift than a book." So she gives him the information.
  • SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943). A woman researches a murder in the Santa Rosa public library. She rushes to the library just as it is closing. The librarian (Eily Malyon) is a severe old lady with her hair in a bun. She gives her a strict lecture about making exceptions, but does eventually let her in "for five minutes."
  • SHADOWS IN THE STORM (1988). Ned Beatty is sacked from his position as a Donne-quoting librarian because of heavy drinking. He retires to a cabin in the woods, meets a woman and begins an affair that leads to murder -- or does it?
  • THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994). Tim Robbins plays a successful banker convicted of murder. While incarcerated he takes over and greatly expands the prison library. It becomes a key location in the film, used for high-school equivalency education, among other things. The film presents a positive image of a prison library.
  • SHOOTING THE PAST (1999, made-for-TV). A British photographic library of 10 million items, run by a small staff of librarians, is threatened with closure. The building has been sold and the head librarian has one week to find a buyer for the collection or it will be destroyed. To persuade the new owner that it is worth saving, the librarians assemble a series of stories linked to various photographs in the collection -- sort of a librarian's Scheherazade. It offers a fine portrayal of librarians as extremely resourceful, able to find virtually anything in a non-computerized collection and very creative at putting together information. The theme of library closure is also a powerful one, and the hard-fought battle is inspiring.
  • A SIMPLE PLAN (1998). Two brothers find $4.4 million in cash in a plane crash. In trying to decide what to do with it, one of them confides to his wife (Bridget Fonda) who works at the local library. They are seen talking in the stacks. At one point he asks her if she really wants to shelve books for the rest of her life.
  • SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS (1994). A librarian (Donna Todd) has a small speaking part in this movie about an FBI agent trying to track down a serial killer. Donna describes her character as "someone who is both excited and nervous about having spotted a suspect in her library."
  • SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY (1991). Julia Roberts works in a library. She fakes her own death to escape from her abusive husband, then takes a job in a library in another city.
  • SO WELL REMEMBERED (1947). Martha Scott is a librarian in a public library who seems to be meek, but is really aggressive and ruthless. Another librarian is played by Roddy Hughes.
  • SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983). Jason Robards, Jr., is a meek librarian with some dark secrets and regrets, but he is also the only person in town with enough courage and will power to confront the evil brought by the traveling carnival and the mysterious Mr. Dark.
  • SOMEWHERE IN TIME (1980). Christopher Reeve falls in love with a girl in a photograph. A librarian (Noreen Walker) helps him find information about her. At first, she isn't very helpful -- she tells him there is more information in the back, but she is just going to lunch -- but he persists and she goes off to find it for him.
  • SOPHIE'S CHOICE (1982). Sophie (Meryl Streep) goes to the library to get a book by her beloved Emily Dickinson, but in her heavy accent she asks for a book by "the American poet Emil Dickens." The librarian (John Rothman) is a surly young man with very thick glasses who lambastes her for her ignorance because we all know that Charles Dickens was not an American, nor did he write poetry. Sophie is so intimidated and confused by the experience that she faints. This scene should be shown in every library school reference course as the worst reference interview of all time.
  • SOYLENT GREEN (1973). Edward G. Robinson is a "police book" who helps a detective do research at the former public library, now the "Supreme Exchange -- Authorized Books Only." The librarians (mostly older women) tell him the real source of Soylent Green and this drives the rest of the story.
  • THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965). Richard Burton, a disgraced spy turned counter-agent, works as a clerk in a library devoted to the occult. Claire Bloom is a librarian and also a Communist.
  • STANLEY AND IRIS (1990). Jane Fonda, a recent widow, helps Robert DeNiro learn to read. Near the end of the movie he parades through the public library picking up every book he sees and proudly reading aloud passages from each. The librarian (Dortha Duckworth) is as stereotypical as they come -- old, spinsterish, with grey hair pulled tightly back. She scolds him with "Shhhh, this is a library," to which he responds "Yes! This is my library!"
  • STAR TREK: INSURRECTION (1998). At one point Riker and Troi do some research about an alien race they plan to visit, and read lots of background information from electronic records. But the scene in which the librarian helped them find the information was cut before the film was released. The scene is available on the DVD edition of the film. In it we see a spectacle-wearing, middle-aged female librarian of the 24th century saying "Shhhhh!"
  • STAR WARS, EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002). Needing to find the location of a distant planet, Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to the Jedi Archives for information but he doesn't find what he needs. A librarian/archivist (Alethea McGrath), with her grey hair in a bun, approaches him, asks a few questions, then declares that if the archive doesn't have it, the information doesn't exist. She does not help him search any further but instead turns her attention to helping a small boy. Obi-Wan soon gives up and leaves. In fact the planet does exist, but someone had erased the information about it. Says one librarian and Star Wars fan, "Any librarian worth his weight in Imperial Credits wouldn't give up so easily." In this library the "books," that glow with an iridescent blue color, are lined up on shelves, with busts of famous Jedi at the ends of the ranges.
  • THE STATION AGENT (2003). A young man born with dwarfism ends up living in an abandoned train depot in rural New Jersey. An attractive, young, blonde librarian (Michelle Williams) helps him obtain a library card.
  • STEPPING OUT (1991). Liza Minelli is a tap-dance instructor who has passed her prime but is offered an opportunity to have her class perform for a big benefit program. Her students include a mousy librarian with allergies (Andrea Martin).
  • STORM CENTER (1956). Bette Davis is typical small-town librarian: widowed, hair in a bun and a bit fussy. She devoted 25 years to building the library from a small room behind a bar into a beautiful ivy-covered edifice. She wants to add a children's wing to the building and the town council agrees to support her on one condition: that she remove a book on communism from the library shelves. She refuses and is fired. Other events ensue that ultimately lead to tragedy not only for some individuals, but for the town as a whole. Davis offers a strong, positive image of a librarian. She knows her collections, provides personal service to her patrons, is kind and supportive to children (especially one boy who loves to read) and is not afraid of those who brand her a subversive. She is also human: being ostracized by the community leaves her sad, lonely and demoralized (she is not even invited to the groundbreaking ceremony for the library expansion). She eventually returns even stronger in her resolve to defend the library's mission of providing information on all topics, even those deemed undesirable by politicians more focused on their careers than on the free flow of ideas. This is one of the finest anti-censorship films ever made. Kim Hunter is an assistant librarian who struggles with her feelings and commitment to the ideals emulated by her (former) director.
  • SUMMER OF THE MONKEYS (1998). On the 19th century Canadian prairie a young boy finds a group of chimpanzees who have escaped from a circus and for whom a reward has been offered. He looks for help and advice, and in one scene visits a library and talks to the slightly fuddy-duddy librarian (Beverly Cooper).
  • SYLVIA (1965). Through a series of flashbacks we follow a detective who is investigating the background of a former prostitute. One scene shows her in a library where she asks for a book. The librarian (Viveca Lindfors) later introduces her to the finer things in life.
  • THE TELL-TALE HEART (1962). Lawrence Payne, as Edgar Allen Poe, dreams he is a crippled librarian living alone.
  • THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS (1971). A wealthy lawyer believes he is Sherlock Holmes and teams with a psychiatrist whose real name is Dr. Watson to try to rid the world of evil. Jack Gilford plays an aged archivist/librarian who dreams of being "The Scarlet Pimpernel." Although his quirkiness and name -- Wilbur Peabody -- do little to instill confidence in his abilities, he does come across as the sanest person in the movie and he finds clues to track down Moriarity. Later in the film he takes up his role as the pimpernel to help save the day.
  • THE TIME MACHINE (1960). Rod Taylor is taken to a dusty old place where there is a shelf of books and becomes furious when the book he is holding disintegrates. Later he discovers a museum/library that contains a "History Machine," a set of metal rings that "speak" when they are spun.
  • THE TIME MACHINE (2002). Orlando Jones is Vox #NY-114, a very cool virtual librarian of the future who is the compendium of (no less than) All Human Knowledge. He describes himself as a "third generation fusion card photonic with verbal and visual link capabilities connected to every database on the planet." He does a reference interview and even holds story time for kids. We first encounter him in 2030, then later about 800,000 years into the future.
  • TOMCATS (2001). A meek, bun- and spectacles-wearing librarian transmogrifies into a leather-clad, whip-cracking S&M aficionado in the bedroom.
  • LA TOTALE! (1991). Miou-Miou plays a librarian who is bored with her life and her husband, whom she regards as a pleasant but dull man employed by the telephone company. In fact he is a top undercover secret agent.
  • A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945). Peggy Ann Garner goes to the library where she is involved in a project to read all the books in order of the card catalog. Lillian Bronson is the children's librarian.
  • TWISTED NERVE (1968). Hayley Mills is a librarian, but this has little to do with the plot of this chiller-killer film other than to show her as smart and single. Her more visible role is as damsel in distress.
  • THE TWO JAKES (1990). A librarian gives Jack Nicholson a hard time.
  • THE UNNAMABLE II: THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER (1993). The last half-hour of this film takes place in the library where two people are chased through the stacks by the monster. They end up in the Rare Book Room where they find the missing pages of the manuscript that help them defeat the creature. A policeman also gets killed in the stacks. At one point someone says, "My God, its gone into the stacks. You can get lost there even in the daytime."
  • UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE (1967). In a not-so-flattering scene a librarian complains that a student owes a fine on library books, just after the student has tried to kill herself by jumping from a window.
  • A VERY GOOD YOUNG MAN (1919). A woman turns down a marriage proposal from an assistant at the public library (Bryant Washburn) because her mother has convinced her that he is too morally faultless. He tries to tarnish his reputation by going on a date with another woman, stealing some jewels and gambling, but fails at all three. So he confesses his situation and the young woman agrees to marry him anyway.
  • VIOLENT SATURDAY (1955). One character is a stereotypical female librarian but she is also a purse-snatcher.
  • WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953). Ann Robinson is a library science teacher, although this serves only to establish her as educated-but-not-aggressive.
  • WEB OF EVIDENCE (1959). A librarian (Vera Miles) assists a young man who is trying to prove his deceased father innocent of murder.
  • WETHERBY (1985). A stranger kills himself in the small town of Wetherby. Several people are touched by his death, including the constable, the school teacher and the librarian (Judi Dench).
  • WHERE THE HEART IS (2000). A teenage single mother in a small town is helped by several somewhat eccentric locals, including the town librarian (James Frain). Actually his sister is the librarian; he just works in the library. When he first meets the young lady he is rude, but he later becomes quite pleasant.
  • THE WICKER MAN (1973). An investigator researching the disappearance of a young girl discovers a society that is deeply involved in pagan rituals. Near the end of the film he goes to the public library to research some specifics of pagan religions and while there discovers information that leads to the film's surprise ending. Ingrid Pitt is the librarian who helps him.
  • A WIFE ON TRIAL (1917). Mignon Anderson plays Phyllis Narcissa, an underpaid children's librarian, who, in exchange for a life of wealth, reluctantly accepts an offer to marry a rich young man paralyzed in an automobile accident.
  • WILDERNESS (1996, made-for-TV). By day, Alice (Amanda Ooms) works in a university library, where, as she explains, she is "surrounded by order." But by the light of the moon she turns into a werewolf.
  • WIMPS (1986). A freshman geek falls for the luscious library clerk (Deborah Blaisdell) but cannot get very far until he becomes the project of a bunch of fraternity brothers who try to mold him into a different man.
  • A WINTER'S TALE (1992). A French hairdresser has unsatisfactory relationships with two men, trying to decide which to marry. Maxence owns a string of beauty salons and she finds him sexually attractive, while Loic (Herve Furic) is a librarian who excites her mind but whose admiration bores her a bit.
  • WITH HONORS (1994). A student strikes a series of bargains with a homeless man, eventually becoming his friend. A few scenes involve the librarian (Patricia Butcher, middle-aged, with glasses) who questions the man about his right to be in the library, or looks on in the background.
  • WITWER MIT 5 TÖCHTERN (1957). A comedy from West Germany in which a widowed librarian (Heinz Erhardt) raises his five daughters.
  • WONDER MAN (1945). Danny Kaye plays both Buzzy Bellew, a nightclub singer, and his twin brother, a brilliant, bookish scholar who spends his days at the library writing with both hands. There he meets and falls in love with the beautiful, young librarian, Virginia Mayo.
  • YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW (1966). Peter Kastner is a 19-year old page in the NYPL. His mother tries her best to retain his innocence but his father (Rip Torn), a librarian in the rare book collection, has other ideas.
lbangs08/28/2007

I am very disappointed not to find Conan the Librarian (from UHF) on this list.

Still, given my attracttion to librarians, my girlfriend really wishes I didn't discover this! ;)

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

burneyfan08/28/2007

I think it's on the Group B list, under UHF. :-)

lbangs08/28/2007

Whoops! Seeing the requirements for Group A, I assumed it would belong here. I really should stop that assuming business...

Fun trivia - for the next few months, I get to see the woman from the Wheel of Fish segment of UHF nearly every day.

It is a long story, and not very exicting, I fear, but still...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

AJDaGreat08/29/2007

I really hope this is something work-related...

lbangs08/29/2007

Nope, but not entirely personal either.

Avocational, not vocational, or something like that...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs