The Pickwick Papers

This enjoyable adaptation of the Dickens story "The Pickwick Papers" captures the atmosphere and characters of the book rather well. While it of necessity leaves out some large portions of the book, they did quite a good job of selecting some of the portions that would work well in a movie, and these are filmed faithfully. Even with the omissions, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but the cast of character actors, led by James Hayter as Pickwick, generally do a good job of making each one distinctive.

The story of Pickwick and his friends traveling about England is a more light-hearted look at Dickens's society than are most of his later stories, but even so, the few scenes of serious social commentary, such as those in the debtors' prison, are pretty effective. This is true also of the movie version. The production is not anything especially fancy, but it seems quite efficient, and it keeps moving at a good pace. Anyone who enjoys Dickens should find this film version worth watching.

Splendid adaptation of Dickens at his most hilarious, a kaleidoscopic odyssey around old England with a potpourri of intrigue and adventure squeezed into 100 minutes of virtuoso entertainment of English theatrical art at its best. Every single character is absolutely perfectly Dickensian and convincing as such, and it's a miracle to observe how such an extensive novel of so many characters and complicated intricacies of unexpected turns of events at every corner has been so successfully concentrated in Dickensian essence, which will certainly keep you busy through every minute of it, with even some human pathos to it - the prison scene with Mr. Jingle's change of fortune is perhaps the most impressive part. It's even impossible to say who is the best of all these acting paragons of excellence, but dominating are certainly James Hayter as Mr. Pickwick, Nigel Patrick as Mr. Jingle, James Donald as the besotted Mr. Winkle and Harry Fowler as Sam Weller, the most pleasurable character of them all, but Donald Wolfit crowns them all as Sergeant Buzfuz. It's as superb as a Dickensian entertainment as it was 65 years ago, it hasn't grown one day older but instantly established itself in the timeless zone of cinematic literary classics. It was about 50 years since I last saw it, and although I remembered it well, it was all perfectly fresh again as if it was an entirely new movie. These films cannot age.

I remember this movie with great affection from the days of my childhood when it was broadcast several times on the CBC. When it became available on DVD I had to purchase it if only to mark Dickens bicentennial year of 2012. All the major comic episodes of the novel are covered with the exception of the Eatanswill election and the cricket match between Dingley Dell and All-Muggleston. As noted by another reviewer the movie by necessity omits the rather gloomy moral tales that Dickens chose to insert at intervals. The movie is further enlivened by the presence of a roster of great British character actors - Hattie Jacques, Hermione Gingold and James Hayter as Mr. Pickwick. Canadians will know him best as Mr. Tebbs, the senior salesman in the Mens Department, on the sitcom Are You Being Served. I notice that the actor who played Sam Weller died in January 2012 just a few days before I purchased the DVD - he was the last survivor among core cast.

James Hayter is most likely remembered in the UK as the voice of Mr Kipling in the TV advertisements, but here he is an excellent Mr Pickwick, the lead character in this adaptation of 'The Pickwick Papers' by Charles Dickens.

Not in the same league as the David Lean-directed 'Great Expectations' and 'Oliver Twist' which preceded it, this film, directed by Noel Langley, is nevertheless not bad. It is entertaining, with an excellent cast ranging through character actors such as James Donald, Hermoines Baddeley and Gingold, Nigel Patrick, and William Hartnell; through to scene stealers like Joyce Grenfell.

It distills rather a wordy novel well, and provides it with the language of cinema to get the point across. Not an expensive production, but with some nice touches, such as Kathleen Harrison's twitchy Rachel; Mr Jingle's deck of cards; the runaway horse; and an early display of outraged bluster from Hattie Jacques, which she would repeat two decades later as a member of the Carry On team.

First off, let it be understood that this film is not a complete version of The Pickwick Papers. But then, nobody could possibly fit a novel of some 600 pages into a movie of less than 2 hours without making a considerable number of cuts. That being said, however, it is a very good condensation of Charles Dickens's first novel.

The Pickwick Papers was not only Dickens' first novel, it was among his lightest and funniest. Those who know Dickens only from his heavy, dark novels, such as of Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby will find herein a much lighter and merrier Dickens, for The Pickwick Papers is very definitely a comedy

Nevertheless, however, Dickens' eye for characters and scenes is fully in evidence. Few novels can boast of so many memorable characters as The Pickwick Papers, and this film version certainly does them all justice. Nobody films Dickens like the British, and they've certainly done themselves proud here. The original Pickwick Papers was published as a magazine serial and came lavishly illustrates, and all of the actors have gone the extra mile to depict, as faithfully as possible, the characters as set down in the original novel.

The story is of a naive old gentleman who sets off to discover England, accompanied by three equally naive members if his club and his worldly Cockney valet. The misadventures of Mr. Pickwick and his friends, among the plethora of colorful characters whom they encounter, form the basis of the book. The production is not the most lavish, but the performance of every one of the large cast is spot-on perfect, and that more than makes up for a lack of budget. Those who have read the novel will love this version, even if is abridged. This who have not read the novel can still enjoy it for its many colorful characters and hilarious situations.