Film Review: Great Expectations (1946)

Great works of literature rarely serve as the basis for great films. Most of the time, screen adaptations serve as nothing more than the screen equivalent of CliffsNotes, allowing students to get familiar with great novels when they lack the time or inclination to delve deep into hundreds of pages of text. On a few occasions, however, great novels can indeed be transformed into great films. One such great novel was Great Expectations, an 1861 novel by British author Charles Dickens, known as one of his most popular and most critically acclaimed works. It was adapted for film and television numerous times, and among those adaptations, the most celebrated is the 1946 eponymous film directed by David Lean, known as one of the classics of British cinema.

The plot is set in England during the first decades of the 19th century. The protagonist is Philip "Pip" Pirrup (played by Anthony Wager), a young orphan boy who lives in the coastal marshes of southeastern England together with his shrewish older sister (played by Freda Jackson) and her kind-hearted blacksmith husband, Joe Gargery (played by Bernard Miles). One night, while visiting the graves of his parents near a church, he meets an escaped convict, Abel Magwitch (played by Finlay Currie), whom he would bring food and a tool to help with his escape. Pip is later brought to the mansion of Miss Havisham (played by Martita Hunt), a rich and eccentric local woman who wants the boy to make company for her young protégé, Estella (played by Jean Simmons). Pip falls in love with her, but he must stop visiting Miss Havisham's house after he is old enough to become Joe's apprentice. His apprenticeship is interrupted with the arrival of Mr. Jaggers (played by Francis L. Sullivan), who informs the adult Pip (played by John Mills) that a mysterious benefactor is willing to finance his stay in London, where he is to be educated and "made a gentleman". Pip comes to London where he would befriend a young man, Herbert Pocket (played by Alec Guinness). A few years later, he revisits Miss Havisham's house and meets the now adult Estella (played by Valerie Hobson), whom he wants to pursue despite her being cold and uncaring.

David Lean is best known for his "larger-than-life" bright colour epics made in the 1950s and 1960s. Compared to them, his earlier works, made in black-and-white and a 4:3 picture format, almost look like chamber pieces. But that doesn't mean that such works can't be classics in their own right. This happened with Lean's previous film Brief Encounter, and it happened with Great Expectations. Lean was an immensely talented filmmaker, and he could do wonders even with resources that seemed minuscule in comparison with those used in his future Hollywood megahits. He managed to easily reconstruct England from a century and a quarter before his time with the clever use of locations and studio sets, helped by the excellent cinematography of Guy Green and a very effective music soundtrack by Walter Goehr.

But Lean's greatest achievement was due to his ability to square a circle and find the proper balance between being faithful to Dickens' text while adapting it within the framework of the new medium of film. Lean was fortunate to get the idea for his adaptation after watching a 1939 stage adaptation which, like the film, abridged the plot and also had Martita Hunt playing Miss Havisham and Alec Guinness playing Herbert Pocket. For Guinness, who was 32 at the time, that role also represented his screen debut and the youngest role of his career, during which he would become one of Lean's favourite actors. Lean, who co-wrote the script with Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame, plays with different styles and different genres while maintaining a clear and understandable narrative. Almost anyone can find something in this film – melodrama, action (like in the extremely well-made scene of a failed escape near the end) and comedy, including scenes that literally feature gallows humour. The famous opening scene, on the other hand, functions like horror, and it later inspired many works of the genre. Like with many adaptations of Dickens, there is a lot of social commentary on the sorry state of English society, sharply divided between impoverished desperate masses and a rich elite, and a criminal justice system that maintains that sort of social order by having people chained, exiled to different parts of the world or hanged en masse (which includes many women and even one black man, a detail which was rather rare for 1940s British cinema).

Lean also had great success with the cast, although it is the cast that is the most problematic aspect of Great Expectations. While the 32-year-old Guinness still can pass as a young man (and is, thanks to that, hard to recognise for those familiar with his later roles), that can't be said for the 38-year-old John Mills who, despite all the work with make-up and photographic tricks, still looks like a middle-aged man. Another miscasting is Valerie Hobson, a beautiful wife of producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, who plays the adult Estella with less effect than the more talented 17-year-old Jean Simmons who has played the young Estella and could have easily played the older version. The general impression is improved by the supporting cast, which includes some of the best character actors from Britain, including Sullivan, who had the honour of repeating the role of Mr. Jaggers after playing it in the 1934 adaptation of Dickens' novel.

Great Expectations became a massive hit and enjoyed rave reviews, being rewarded with Oscars for art direction and cinematography. Although not among the best known works of David Lean, its reputation as a classic is well deserved, and the standards it had set for future adaptations of Dickens' novel aren't likely to be met in the foreseeable future.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

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