Great Expectations (1946)'s comments

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Emiam

6/10
Surprisingly not a masterpiece, considering its being on 19 official top lists and a real classic movie! Good story though, not predictable. Francis L. Sullivan, the lawyer Jaggers, made the best acting. The nodding scene made a really good laugh.

https://archive.org/details/GreatExpectations1946
Public domain.

8 years ago

PrinceJax

A messy adaptation, but not a bad one. Agreed with those saying that the actors should be younger. Pip as a child was wonderful, he played it well. This is just my opinion but I've always thought that the truly heartbreaking and tender relationship in the book was never between estella and pip but between him and Joe. I'd love to see an adaptation which treats their bond as importantly as the novel does.

6 years 1 month ago

NataliaGandara

didn´t like the ending

9 years 8 months ago

Melvelet

I wasn't completely satisfied. And not only because of the much too old actors in the grown-up segment.

9 years 11 months ago

Siskoid

Before seeing his adaptation of Great Expectations, I'd only seen David Lean's gorgeous color films. Well, turns out he was adept at black and white cinematography, and one of the main reasons to recommend the 1946 version is its strong, atmospheric look. After all, there is something of the Gothic in this Dickens classic - the graveyard opening, the nasty escaped convict, the cobwebbed mansion where an old woman lets her uneaten wedding feast rot - and Lean certainly (coughs) leans in that direction. This is one of the Dickens novels I am most familiar with, a melodrama built on ludicrous coincidences, but so filled with interesting ideas - the mystery benefactor, the girl bred to be a weapon to hurt men, heck, Lean even includes the judgemental cows - that you forgive the contrivances. If it has a weakness, it may be in the casting. Adult Valerie Hobson simply can't follow young Jean Simmons as Estrella, the latter a much more mysterious and dangerous creature. John Mills as the older Pip is, indeed, too old for the part, but he's acceptable. But hey, it's Alex Guinness' second role ever, and he would go on to work with Lean in all his best productions.

4 years 2 months ago

Armoreska

The younger actors are so much better than the grown ups! You can't follow Jean Simmons

10 years 2 months ago

DisneyStitch

I really liked this one, David Lean's penchant for good cinematography is on display here despite it being one of his earlier works. The acting is good and since I haven't read the book I was very much left wondering where the story was going next. A brilliant movie.

6 years 3 months ago