Certainly, you can't go too wrong (as was the case on Reel 13 this past Saturday) when you've got two British masters in play – the ever-amazing David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO) adapting Charles Dickens. This is early Lean, but you can already get a sense of his manipulation of powerful imagery (even in black and white) to achieve maximum impact. You can even see him start to experiment with scope and depth, though budget and technical limitations seem to prevent him from accomplishing the kind of iconic shots he would later become known for.
Fortunately, GREAT EXPECTATIONS lacks the kind of stuffiness one might expect from a British literary adaptation. It is briskly paced, clever and well-crafted. I don't remember all that it cut from the very long novel (the film is only two hours long – short for a Dickensian adaptation), but it didn't seem to be missing anything, which is a testament to the outstanding screenplay, co-written by Lean. Oddly enough, some of the coincidences within the world of Dickens don't hold up like they used to. I suppose the contrivances didn't bother me as much as a student, but now I found myself thinking 'Really? All these strangers are actually connected?' The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much Dickens relied on the random and rather implausible interconnections between people across countries and counties. His novels were initially published in a serialized format and if you think about it, that aspect of it, combined with the style of the plot seems more connected to the modern soap opera than anything else.
Before I seem like too much of a blasphemer, let me add that there are several elements that raise Dickens above mere melodrama. The oft-copied Miss Havisham character, for example, is a great and wonderful creation and Martita Hunt's trippy performance does the unique and iconic character due justice. It was also good to see one of my favorites - Jean Simmons - again, making her third appearance this year on Reel 13. She is as wonderfully appealing as the young version of the famous beauty Estella as she was as an adult in THE ROBE (1/19/08) and GUYS AND DOLLS (2/16/08). Unfortunately, Valerie Hobson, as the adult Estella, isn't half as attractive or engaging as her precocious counterpart, which is one of the few disappointments in the film. The rest of the supporting cast (including an unrecognizable, baby Alec Guinness) are all capable thespians who deliver nuanced, detailed character portraits. That leaves us with John Mills as the main character, Pip. I was actually impressed with Mills – he manages to infuse Pip with edge and spunk that was missing on the pages of the novel and he does so without losing the character's earnestness. Unfortunately (despite winning an Oscar in 1970), today John Mills is better known as the father of Disney's girl next door from the 60's, Hayley Mills (POLLYANNA, THE PARENT TRAP).
I have to say that in a way, the mistakes/flaws of GREAT EXPECTATIONS were as exciting as the triumphs. There were a few times that Lean chose to employ long fades to black in between "chapters" that only accomplished interrupting the strong rhythm that they established. The film also could have used more cutaway reaction shots, instead of, for the most part, using primarily the master or cutting strictly to the person speaking. The other little nitpicky note I made was in regards to Lean and the cinematographer's artistic license with candlelight as a light source. If somebody lights a candle in GREAT EXPECTATIONS, someone turns on a huge 500K light or something, simulating the brightest candle EVER. It's the kind of sloppiness that is still an attribute amongst young filmmakers and Lean would go on to correct all these types of mistakes in his future masterpieces. But that's perhaps the most exciting/interesting thing about seeing GREAT EXPECTATIONS again. We got to see a young genius cutting his teeth and learning his craft, the results of which are amongst cinema's greatest achievements.