Great Expectations

David Lean's Great Expectations (1946) is a richly made but problematic film. The gorgeous photography and incredible art direction are belied by clogged-drain pacing and a pair of naff leads. A huge pitfall in adapting something as expansive as a Charles Dickens novel is that much is inevitably lost in transition, and Great Expectations is no exception.

Pip (Tony Wager) is the adoptive son of a blacksmith (Bernard Miles) who accidentally runs into Magwitch (Finlay Currie), an escaped convict, and shows him kindness before he is arrested. Pip comes under the tutelage of the deranged Miss Haversham (Martita Hunt), becoming entranced by her adoptive daughter Estella (Jean Simmons), whom Miss Haversham advises to "break his heart". Years later, helped by a mysterious benefactor, Pip (John Mills) travels to London to become a gentleman, reacquainting himself with childhood chum Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness) and Estella (Valerie Hobson), as diffident as ever. At the same time, however, he discovers his benefactor is none other than Magwitch - whom Pip must smuggle out of the contrary when the authorities show up.

Great Expectations is unquestionably gorgeous to watch: from Guy Green's striking black-and-white photography to John Bryan and Wilfred Singleton's striking art direction - most notably, the cemetery and marshes early on, and Miss Haversham's vast, cob-web enshrouded mansion, it's a truly beautiful film, reveling in period detail and costumes. The famous opening scene, where Pip encounters Magwitch in a fog-shrouded graveyard, is brilliant, bravura film making at its best. It's much more ambitious than the beautiful but modest Brief Encounter, giving the first hint of the man who would become the pre-eminent director of epics. On a purely artistic level, Lean's film is quite an achievement. In other areas, however, it's highly problematic.

Attempting to compress a Dickens novel into a film is no easy task; compressing it into a two hour film, however, is even trickier. The written-by-committee script (including Lean, his Cineguild buddies Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame, Cecil McGivern and Lean's wife Kay Walsh) struggles to make sense of Dickens' jumbled, episodic narrative, with an uneasy flow and sluggish pace, with little connection between scenes. Character development is marginal, with Pip's unsatisfactory narrative filling in gaps and telling us what Lean and Co. seem incapable of expressing - most notably, Pip's supposed conversion to a "snob" and Estella's change of heart. Without the introspective capabilities of a novelist, things just seem to happen, and the result is largely unsatisfactory.

The cast is wildly hit-and-miss. John Mills is badly miscast as Pip, stiff as ever and way too old for the part. Valerie Hobson (Kind Hearts and Coronets) is equally one-note as Estella, easily bettered by the radiant young Jean Simmons. In his first film role, Alec Guinness is unusually colorless. Martita Hunt (Becket) and Finlay Currie (Ben-Hur) shine in the two most colorful roles. The supporting cast includes such fine actors as Francis L. Sullivan (Oliver Twist), Bernard Miles (In Which We Serve), Ivor Barnard (The 39 Steps) and Freda Jackson (A Canterbury Tale).

Ultimately, Great Expectations is a mixed bag. Lean would do a much better job of it with Oliver Twist two years later, creating a Dickens adaptation that works as a film, both artistically satisfying and entertaining.