Great Expectations

There have been so many Great Expectations films, it's hard to keep them straight! The good news is usually big names flock to the adaptations, so it's easy to remember them as the "John Mills one," or in this case, the "Michael York one."

In the Michael York version, several other big stars of the 1970s joint together for Charles Dickens's classic novel about striving to become a gentleman: Sarah Miles plays Estella, Margaret Leighton plays Miss Havisham, Joss Ackland plays Joe Gargery, Anthony Quayle plays Jaggers, Robert Morley plays Uncle Pumblechook, and James Mason plays Magwitch. While it's wonderful to see James Mason lend his talents to the heartwrenching role of Magwitch, I always wondered why he wasn't cast as Pip in the "John Mills version". He would have been the right age and had the right talents for the part.

This version is very "seventies" in the way it was filmed and edited, but there are some good parts to it. This is the only version I've seen where the character Biddy teaches Pip how to read; it's not necessary, but it is an interesting part of the story. Michael York has the wide-eyed innocence required for Pip, and if you can get past Sarah Miles, you can pretend he has other motivations and root for him. Great Expectations is my mom's favorite book, so she always recruits me to rent every version known to man. Unless this is also your motivation, just check out the cast lists and pick whichever version you think you'll like.

I remember being assigned to read Charles Dickens' novel, "Great Expectations," as an English major in college. I think this movie would have greatly enhanced my understanding of the story. The film has a first rate cast featuring a rising star, Michael York, as the adult Pip. Miss Havisham is played by the late great British actress, Margaret Leighton. Sarah Miles played Estella in this film. I loved Leighton's performance as Miss Havisham, the mysterious woman who lived in a mansion in a small English village with Estella, her adopted daughter. The first rate cast features plenty of great actors and actresses mostly British such as Joss Ackland, James Mason, Anthony Quayle, Heather Sears, Rachel Roberts, and even Tom Owen has a scene in there as taunting adult Pip. The quality is decent and the film was done in Elstree Studios long before East-Enders in Bedfordshire, England.

I got this film a tiny price in the Silver Classics series from Woolworths, at £2.79 cheaper than the local video shop (even if it were available, which is unlikely) and it surprised me.

Michael York as superb as the adult Pip, as is Joss Ackland as the humble Joe Gargery and Anthony Quayle as Jaggers, the rather cynical London lawyer. James Mason is good as the well-meaning convict, Abel Magwitch.

There don't appear to be any outside shots - all studio work - which is a shame, but the sets are brilliantly done, particularly the Blue Ball inn back by Romney and the marshes, and the stage coach office with its sign for 'Newhaven, Dartmouth, Plymouth'.

Of course, Sarah Miles has always been a remarkable beauty and she doesn't fail here either as Estella, boxed up in Satis House.

Overall, I would prefer the famous David Lean version, but this is still well worth watching.

I count a dozen versions of Charles Dickens' beloved classic Great Expectations made for the big and small screen, but this version from the BBC in 1984 stands up with the best of them. The best being the one that David Lean did in 1946.

Curiously enough I was watching some legislative hearings on the foster care system and it occurred to me watching this that Dickens was making some kind of commentary on it that's still relevant today. Mostly through the lawyer Jaggers played here by Anthony Quayle. Both the characters of Pip and Estella are in what we would consider foster care placements for good and evil. Jaggers tried to save two children from what at that time was a damned existence on earth by placing them in good surroundings. Unfortunately the strict class system being what it was both have to go through some trials before gaining a measure of happiness.

Michael York and Sarah Miles pretty well fit my conception of what Pip and Estella should be. Margaret Leighton is one batty old Miss Favesham. I lived with a relative while I was growing up who could have been a Miss Favesham, taking it out on the world around her for a miserable childhood. I knew another whom I worked with who also was left a bride at the altar and also behaved quite weirdly after that for her 90 plus years.

The convict Magwitch is a bit of offbeat casting for James Mason. I'm used to that polished and precise speech whether a good guy or a villain. Here Mason shows he's got the acting chops to stretch his casting persona as the rough and crude Magwitch who provides Pip with his Great Expectations.

I'm sure we'll see more and more versions of this classic in the future. This production can certainly hold its own with the others.

Having not read the book "Great Expectations," I don't feel comfortable discussing its faithfulness to Dickens' novel. However, I think that I can critique its worth as a movie. There are some good performances in it; Anthony Quayle is an effective Jaggers, he has that lawyer's edge, and he does bite his index finger at people (sometimes). Joss Ackland is a likable Joe. But the emotion of the movie is too far below the soaring Jarre score to be compelling. Maurice Jarre's wonderful music is a major reason behind the success of scenes in "Doctor Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia," but of course he is helped by excellent acting and direction(or maybe vice-versa). Unfortunately, neither the acting or the directing is up to that level. With its romantic crescendo, the final scene did make my eyes misty, but I was listening more to the music more than watching the character's interaction. 'Made for television' about sums up the quality of this production.