Great Expectations (1946)

One of my favorite things about cinema is that movies are like cliff notes for the great literary works in history. Now, I like reading a great piece of literature as much as the next bibliophile. I've read a few great works in middle and high school including John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urberville, and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. But I avoided some classic novels due to the language at the time or the size of the book (War and Peace). Novels like Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility or Alexander Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo I never found time to read. All three of those novels have been turned into numerous film and television adaptations that emphasis the key plot points and remove some of the excess from the stories. One of my favorite classics is Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. I read an abridged version of the Dickens Christmas tale in my youth and have watched a few film versions including the 1938 A CHRISTMAS CAROL with Reginald Owen as Scrooge and my favorite, the 1951 A CHRISTMAS CAROL with Alastair Sim as the definitive Ebenezer Scrooge. As for Dickens other famous novels like A Tale of Two Cities or Oliver Twist, I never did attempt to read those books. Thankfully, London and Hollywood saved moviegoers time by making film versions of most of Dickens novels. 

MGM Studios, the most prestigious of the major studios during the Golden Era of Hollywood, took the first crack at Dickens, releasing two big budget adaptations of Dickens novels in 1935 with DAVID COPPERFIELD (no, not the magician) directed by George Cukor (LITTLE WOMEN) and starring young Freddie Bartholomew in the title role and comedian W.C. Fields in a supporting role and A TALE OF TWO CITIES directed by Jack Conway and starring Ronald Coleman (A DOUBLE LIFE) and Elizabeth Allan. After World War II, England ran with the Dickens torch, making two excellent black and white Dickens adaptations of their own with GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946) and OLIVER TWIST (1948), both directed by an up and coming film editor turned director named David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA). I watched both films about a year ago and found GREAT EXPECTATIONS the more exciting of the two.

I mentioned that A Christmas Carol was the only Dickens story I had read as a young person. However, after watching GREAT EXPECTATIONS and hearing the character names like Pip and Miss Havisham, somewhere in the dark recess of my brain I feel like I did read Great Expectations in school. Besides those two names, I don't recall a single thing about the book. Did I read it? Did a character from another book I read talk about Great Expectations and that filtered into my head? I may be imagining it all. I'm sure I would have remembered the atmospheric opening sequence in GREAT EXPECTATIONS with Young Pip in the church cemetery visiting his parents graves, the wind howling and the tree branches creaking as he runs into escaped convict Magwitch. It's a fantastic opening and I'm sure taken directly from the novel. If I had read that beginning (or any of the book), I do not recall it. 

Based on the novel by Charles Dickens, adapted by a cadre of screenwriters including David Lean, Ronald Neame (also the producer), Anthony Havelock-Allan, Kay Walsh (Lean's wife), and Cecil McGivern and directed by David Lean, GREAT EXPECTATIONS begins in the early 1800s on the marshes of Kent, England. Young Pip (Anthony Wager), an orphan visits his parents graves at a distant churchyard on a cold, blustery day. About to head home, Pip encounters an escaped convict from a nearby "hulk" or prison ship named Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie). Magwitch orders Pip to bring him a file to escape his chains and some food for him or else. Pip gives the convict his word and runs home to his guardians, the gentle blacksmith Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles) and his overbearing wife Mrs. Joe (Freda Jackson) who whips Pip for disappearing without telling her. They hear cannon fire in the distance, signifying a convict has escaped the "hulks." Pip nicks a file and a meat pie and returns to the churchyard to meet Magwitch. Pip comes across a second convict (George Hayes) with a scar who flees upon seeing Pip. Magwitch thanks Pip for the file and food. Pip returns home for dinner where the Gargery's entertain Uncle Pumblechook (Hay Petrie). Just as Mrs. Joe discovers her meat pie missing, the King's Soldiers show up, looking for the escaped convicts. Joe, Pip, and Pumblechook follow the soldiers who catch Magwitch and the second convict in the mud flats. As Magwitch is taken away back to the prison ship, he returns the favor to Pip, claiming he stole the file and meat pie from Joe's house, saving Pip from the wrath of Mrs. Joe.

A year passes. Uncle Pumblechook informs the Gargery's that the rich, eccentric Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) requests Pip's presence. At her mansion, they're greeted by the young, pretty Estella (a young Jean Simmons) who takes only Pip to meet Miss Havisham. The elder woman wants Pip to keep her company and play cards with her adopted daughter Estella. Estella tortures Pip, teasing him one moment and allowing Pip to kiss her on the cheek the next. Pip falls in love with Estella. On Miss Havisham's birthday, Pip meets the old woman's relatives, the Pocket family. A young, lanky boy in her garden, Herbert Pocket (John Forrest) challenges Pip to a fight. Having never fought before, Pip knocks Herbert down twice. Pip continues to visit Miss Havisham and Estella. Pip tells Miss Havisham he wishes to become a gentleman, to climb up from his humble origins. Three months later, Mrs. Joe dies. Pip turns fourteen. It's time for Pip to begin his blacksmith apprenticeship with Joe. Miss  Havisham informs Pip that Estella is leaving for France for her education. Pip kisses Estella one more time before they part. Pip's boyhood has come to an end.

After six years as a blacksmith alongside Joe, Pip (now played by John Mills) is visited by the gregarious Mr. Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan), a lawyer from London. Jaggers informs Pip a mysterious, unknown benefactor has bequeathed a tidy sum of money to Pip to travel to London and learn to become a "gentleman." The benefactor wishes to be anonymous until the right time to reveal themselves. "Pip! A young gentleman of great expectations," exclaims Joe Gargery. Before heading to London, Pip visits Miss Havisham to tell her the good news. Miss Havisham already knows (Jaggers is her lawyer as well). Pip travels to London to begin his new adventure. He goes to Jaggers office where Mr. Wemmick (Ivor Barnard) takes Pip to the Barnards Inn where he will board with Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness), the lanky boy he boxed with as a kid. Herbert reveals more about Miss Havisham as he teaches Pip manners he'll need to improve on. Pip learns dancing, fencing, and boxing. Pip turns 21. Jaggers scolds Pip for his spending. Jaggers still won't reveal who Pip's benefactor is. Joe the blacksmith comes to London to visit Pip. Joe looks out of place and Pip knows it. "In trying to become a gentleman," Pip laments, "I had succeeded in becoming a snob." Joe tells Pip that Miss Havisham wishes to see him.

Pip returns to Kent to visit Miss Havisham and finds a grown up Estella (Valerie Hobson) is back from Europe. Miss Havisham wants Pip to love Estella. Estella comes to London where she soon accumulates many admirers including Bentley Drummle (Torin Thatcher), making Pip jealous. On a stormy night, a stranger wearing an eye patch appears at Pip's door. The stranger is the convict Abel Magwitch who we learn was shipped off to Australia where he became a wealthy sheep farmer. Magwitch is Pip's mysterious benefactor, repaying Pip for his kindness on the marshes many years past, thinking of Pip as his own son after he and his wife gave up their child to adoption during hard times. Pip visits Jaggers to tell him the news. Jaggers doesn't want to know. Magwitch is still wanted as a criminal in England and has enemies who wish him hanged. Pip vows to help Magwitch get out of the country. Pip visits Estella one last time at Miss Havisham's. He professes his love to Estella. She reveals she's engaged to Bentley. Miss  Havisham realizes she's pointed Estella to the wrong man. As Miss Havisham rises from her chair, her dress brushes the fireplace and catches on fire. Pip tries to save her but he's too late. In GREAT EXPECTATIONS climax, Pip returns to London where he and Herbert try to sneak Magwitch onto a steamer, away from his enemies and Pip learns a secret about Estella that will change their lives forever. 

One of the reasons I love A CHRISTMAS CAROL is its supernatural element (three ghosts visiting Scrooge on Christmas Eve).  GREAT EXPECTATIONS is not a supernatural story but it has ghost story moments. The opening sequence as Young Pip visits his parents graves at a spooky coastal church showcases Lean's directorial expertise. Lean's use of sound, the wind whipping through the graveyard, the branches scraping each other, reaching out like arms as Pip runs into the massive escaped convict Magwitch is worthy of any Val Lewton (ISLE OF DEAD) horror film. Miss Havisham's house in Kent is equivalent to a haunted mansion. Its interior decaying, filled with cobwebs, curtains shuttered to keep out any sunlight, the clock tower's hands stuck for eternity at one fateful hour and minute. Miss Havisham is like a ghost, dressed in translucent white, her hair a fright. She's alive on the outside but mostly dead inside after her fiance left her at the altar the day of her wedding years before. Her dining room remains frozen in time, decorated for the wedding reception that never came to pass.

Dickens had a penchant for creating characters that were so detailed and memorable that they literally jumped from the page into your imagination. Lean and his production crew accomplish the impossible in GREAT EXPECTATIONS as every actor in the film looks the embodiment of a Dickens character. The Young Pip and Young Estella (played by Anthony Wager and Jean Simmons) seamlessly become their adult versions played by John Mills and Valerie Hobson. Even the young, skinny Herbert Pocket (John Forrest) uncannily resembles Alec Guinness who plays the adult Herbert Pocket. From Pip's guardians, the kind and humble blacksmith Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles) and his polar opposite wife the mean spirited Mrs. Joe Gargery (Freda Jackson) to the colossal London lawyer Mr. Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan) and the equally intimidating convict Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie) to the affluent spinster Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) still wearing the wedding dress from the wedding she never had, Lean and his writers create vivid, unforgettable cinematic versions of the characters Dickens dreamed up in 1861 when his novel was published.

Dickens plots can be intricate and complicated with characters appearing early in the story and reappearing at various times throughout. The escaped convict Magwitch, head shaven, scares Young Pip and the audience at the beginning of GREAT EXPECTATIONS before he's recaptured. We think we'll never see him again as he's rowed back to the moored prison ship. We're teased with a red herring that Miss Havisham is Pip's secret benefactor until Magwitch shows up years later at Pip's room on a stormy night. He now has long white hair and an eyepatch. Magwitch became wealthy as a sheep farmer when he was exiled to the penal country of Australia and returned Pip's kindness that blustery day by paying for Pip to become a gentleman. Young Pip first casts eyes on the lawyer Mr. Jaggers at Miss Havisham's gloomy home. They exchange no words. Jaggers will later show up in young adult Pip's life with the opportunity of a lifetime, courtesy of an unknown benefactor. It turns out Jaggers is the lawyer for both Miss Havisham and Magwitch. Jaggers is the keeper of many secrets that Pip will slowly uncover including (SPOILER ALERT) that Estella was adopted by Miss Havisham from Magwitch and his wife Molly who Jaggers got acquitted from a murder charge. 

One of my pleasant surprises watching GREAT EXPECTATIONS was the unexpected delight discovering two British actresses I had only seen previously in one of my favorite vampire films of all time both have noteworthy roles in GREAT EXPECTATIONS. In the Hammer film BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960) directed by Terence Fisher, Martita Hunt who plays Miss Havisham in GREAT EXPECTATIONS appears as Baroness Meinster, a Transylvanian version of Havisham dealing with her son Baron Meinster (David Peel) who happens to be a vampire. Freda Jackson who dominates her few scenes in GREAT EXPECATIONS as Mrs. Joe Gargery plays opposite Hunt as the Baroness's servant Greta (complete with a maniacal cackle). Hunt and Jackson bring cache to BRIDES OF DRACULA. Dickens stories are usually male heavy but Hunt and Jackson make memorable and unforgettable female characters in GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Hunt is especially good as the jilted Miss Havisham, part matchmaker, part marionette as she influences both Pip and Estella. 

Some of Lean and his production team's casting choices for GREAT EXPECTATIONS are no brainers as several actors had played their roles in earlier stage productions of the Dickens tale. Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham and Alec Guinness as Herbert Pocket had performed the same roles in stage versions of Great Expectations. Francis L. Sullivan had played Jaggers previously in an earlier 1934 version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS directed by Stuart Walker. For Alec Guinness, GREAT EXPECTATIONS was the beginning of a long, fruitful collaboration with director David Lean including one of Guinness's finest performances as the unbending British Colonel Nicholson in Lean's WWII adventure film A BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (1957). In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Guinness shows off his comedic skills as Pip's roommate and etiquette teacher Herbert Pocket. Herbert was the boy Estella teased and discarded first before moving on to Pip. Herbert becomes Pip's only true friend in London. 

A Tale of Two Young Careers. Child actors who morph into adult characters (and different actors) is a tricky balance that can make a film sink or soar. GREAT EXPECTATIONS gets it right with both Anthony Wager as Young Pip and Jean Simmons as Young Estella. Wager's Pip is the embodiment of most young Dickens boy characters. Loyal, curious, naive, and ultimately, brave, Wager's Pip is the anchor for the first third of GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Chosen by director Lean out of 700 applicants for the role, Wager's career sadly never took off (he grew too tall after GREAT EXPECTATIONS to play any more child roles). Wager worked in television in Australia in the late 1960s. Bad health led to Wager's early death in 1990 at the age of 58. 

Young Jean Simmons career trajectory was the opposite of  Wager's. After GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Simmons had significant roles in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) starring Deborah Kerr and she played Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's version of HAMLET (1948). Hollywood came calling and Simmons obliged starring in Henry Koster's biblical drama THE ROBE (1953) with Richard Burton and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's musical GUYS AND DOLLS (1955) with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. Simmons became a major Hollywood star. In Simmons early roles like Estella in GREAT EXPECATIONS, she exhibited a provocative sexuality for a young female character coming of age. Young Estella teases and tortures Young Pip with her feminine guiles, goaded by Miss Havisham who had been abandoned herself as a young woman on her wedding day.

The actors who play the adult versions of Pip and Estella are equally good with John Mills slightly more memorable as Pip than Valerie Hobson's subdued and mercurial Estella (Hobson is still beautiful and alluring). Mills was the British equivalent of Gary Cooper or Tom Hanks, a versatile actor who was comfortable in a variety of different genres from comedy in David Lean's HOBSON'S CHOICE (1954) to military drama in Sidney Gilliat's WATERLOO ROAD (1945) to adventure in Ken Annakin's SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (1960). In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Mills effortlessly picks up where young Wager left off in the story as Pip's life changes forever with a secret benefactor's generosity. Mills expertly conveys Pip's journey from humble blacksmith in Kent to aspiring "gentleman" in London.

Valerie Hobson career started off in Hollywood and she captured my attention with her lustrous dark hair and doe eyes in two Universal horror films as Dr. Frankenstein's fiancee Elizabeth in James Whale's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) and as the werewolf's wife in Stuart Walker's WEREWOLF OF LONDON (also 1935). Hobson returned to her native England in the 1940s and appeared in some excellent British films including Robert Hamer's dark comedy KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949) with Alec Guinness and Anthony Pelissier's fantasy drama THE ROCKING HORSE WINNER (also 1949) co-starring John Mills. In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Hobson's performance as Estella is muted. She's beautiful but a bit cold. She's a pawn for Miss Havisham to groom and manipulate. Still, what a leap for Hobson from scream queen ingenue in her early horror film days to one of Britain's leading ladies in the late 1940s.

One can't praise the cast of GREAT EXPECTATIONS without mentioning two supporting actor giants (literally) whose performances and appearance are straight out of Dickens casting.  With his bulldog jowls and mutton chop sideburns, Francis L. Sullivan is perfect as the solicitor Mr. Jaggers. Jaggers knows all the story's secrets, keeping them close to his vest, allowing Pip to discover them over time as he matures. Sullivan was so authentic as a Dickens character that he appeared in three other film adaptations of Dickens novels including playing Mr. Jaggers previously in an earlier version in Universal's attempt at GREAT EXPECTATIONS in 1934.  Sullivan co-starred in Stuart Walker's MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD (also 1934), an adaptation of Dickens unfinished novel starring Claude Rains and his GREAT EXPECTATIONS co-star Valerie Hobson and Sullivan was in David Lean's second Dickens adaptation OLIVER TWIST (1948) as Mr. Bumble. 

For the imposing Finlay Currie (at six feet two inches tall) who plays Magwitch, GREAT EXPECTATIONS kick started a long career for the Scottish actor with primarily supporting and bit roles in numerous period films including Henry Hathaway's THE BLACK ROSE (1950), Richard Thorpe's IVANHOE (1952), and William Wyler's biblical epic BEN HUR (1959). Currie's Magwitch is the most surprising character in GREAT EXPECTATIONS. At first, Magwitch comes off as sadistic and cruel as the desperate, escaped convict.  We think we'll never see him again when he's captured. When Magwitch turns up later in the film, he's a completely different person. He's Pip's benevolent angel, a wealthy sheep farmer secretly rewarding Pip for Pip's generosity towards him years earlier. Currie brings pathos to the one eyed Magwitch. 

Some final GREAT EXPECATIONS trivia tidbits. Actress Valerie Hobson's first husband Anthony Havelock-Allan was a co-writer and one of the producers on GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Director David Lean's wife Kay Walsh also was a co-writer on the film. Later in life, Hobson was married to British politician John Profumo who had an extramarital affair with a 19 year old model Christine Keeler in 1961 and was forced to step down from his political career. This incident was later made into a 1989 film called SCANDAL starring Ian McKellen, John Hurt, and Joanne Whalley. Similar to Miss Havisham catching on fire toward the end of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, actress Jean Simmons apron caught fire during a scene and Anthony Wagers put the fire out. Lastly, having made two of the best film versions of Charles Dickens novels with GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST, David Lean claimed he had never read a Dickens novel before working on the film.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS is a great film adapted from a great novel by Charles Dickens. The film has the benefit of an up and coming director in David Lean becoming more confident in his craft. It has a cast that included three actors who had played their characters previously either on the stage or an earlier film version and knew their roles inside and out. GREAT EXPECTATIONS is a fine example of taking the best and most important parts from the novel and shaping it into a tight, exhilarating film that feels like you are watching a novel. If I have built up your expectations for GREAT EXPECTATIONS than guilty as charged.