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Great Expectations (1946)

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From Time Out London

David Lean’s black-and-white masterpiece may be a whirlwind tour of Dickens’ novel, but what a well-performed, economic and atmospheric tour it is, and one that manages in two hours to capture much of the chronological and emotional sweep of a 525-page novel. Lean’s superb opening recreation of the ominous Kent marshes, with young Pip (Anthony Wager) hurrying past a series of gallows-posts, sets the scene for this young child’s brush with fate and accidental elevation to a young London gentleman (played then by John Mills, already too old at 38). The characters have the same immediate power as on the page: Bernard Miles is gentle, damaged and good as Joe Gargery; Finlay Currie is terrifying and vulnerable as Magwitch; Martita Hunt’s imperial Miss Havisham has nasty charm; and Jean Simmons’ young Estella is dangerously alluring. A 32-year-old Alec Guinness (from whose stage-production the film emerged) is excellent as Pip’s oh-so-decent companion, Herbert Pocket. And Pip’s awkward scenes with Joe Gargery relate as powerfully now to themes of class, home, aspiration and snobbery as in 1946 and the mid nineteenth century. See it!

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London

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User reviews of this film

Technoguy said...

Posted on Aug 10 2008 18:19 Simply the best film Lean ever made.From it's opening scary scene in the churchyard, to the greatest casting ever.The whole way it treat's the theme of young Pip
maturing into a gentleman and not realizing Jagger's'dictum:"Take nothing on looks,take everything on evidence".The beautiful plotting and pacing of
Dicken's greatest novel.The beautiful scenes with Alec
Guiness as his flatmate in London.The secret source of his wealth in the terrifying Magwitch.A beautful but cruel Estella in Jean Simmons who slaps young Pip's face or lets him kiss her.The powerful dilineation
of class differences in the scenes with Bernard Miles as
Joe Gargery.There is nothing to compare with this in the Dicken's canon.It is the high point of post-war British
cinema.

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