Great Expectations (1946 film)

"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip."

"Long after I'd gone to bed that night, I thought of Estella and how common she would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith. I thought how he and my sister were sitting in the kitchen and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common things."

"As I watched Joe that Tuesday morning dressed grotesquely in a new suit, let me confess that if I could have kept him away by paying money I certainly would have paid money. In trying to become a gentleman I had succeeded in becoming a snob."

"I went to Richmond yesterday to speak to Estella, Miss Havisham, and finding that some wind had blown her here, I followed. What I have to say to Estella I will say before you in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not displease you. I'm as unhappy as you could ever have meant me to be. I have found out who my patron is. It isn't a fortunate discovery, and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune, anything. But there are reasons why I can say no more of that. It is not my secret, but another's."

"I have something to tell you. Can you understand what I say? You had a child once who you loved and lost. She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her."

"Biddy, you have the best husband in the world. And, Joe, you've the best wife in the world."

"You may kiss me if you like. … Now you are to go home."

"Pip! A young gentleman of great expectations."

"Dear boy. … I thought you wasn't coming and yet I knew somehow that you would. … God bless you! You have never deserted me and what's best of all is you've been more comfortable alonger me since I was under a dark cloud... than... than when the sun shone. That's best of all."

"Come close. Look at me. You're not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?"

"Take nothing on its looks, take everything on evidence. There is no better rule."

"Now, Pip: put the case that this legal advisor has often seen children tried at the criminal bar. Put the case that he has known them to be habitually imprisoned, whipped, neglected, cast out, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that here was one pretty little child out of the heap that could be saved. Put that last case to yourself very carefully, Pip. … Did he do right?"

"One of the great things about Charles Dickens is the way his people colonize your memory. I wonder if there's any writer except Shakespeare who has created more characters whose names we remember, and whose types seem so true to human nature. A director adapting a Dickens novel finds that much of his work has been done for him. Certainly that's the case with David Lean's Great Expectations (1946), which has been called the greatest of all the Dickens films, and which does what few movies based on great books can do: Creates pictures on the screen that do not clash with the images already existing in our minds. Lean brings Dickens' classic set-pieces to life as if he'd been reading over our shoulder: Pip's encounter with the convict Magwitch in the churchyard, Pip's first meeting with the mad Miss Havisham, and the ghoulish atmosphere in the law offices of Mr. Jaggers, whose walls are decorated with the death masks of clients he has lost to the gallows."

"It was quite a surprise to learn that David Lean had not read Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations before he embarked on his film version in 1945. The closeness of the adaptation, the understanding of the characters, make one swear it was made by an aficionado, for Dickens is part of every English child’s education. Lean was not "well read" — amongst Dickens’ works, he claimed acquaintance only with A Christmas Carol — but like Dickens, he was a born storyteller. Lean brought to the project all his experience as a film editor — he cuts, dovetails, transposes, and simplifies, without betraying the source novel, though the ending to one of Dickens’ most pessimistic works has been somewhat modified. … Great Expectations reveals a director free of any stage conventions and relishing his craft. The opening of the film has been studied for years and is held up as an exemplar of film editing. But it is also a brilliant synthesis of location shooting (the pan across the marshes with their lonely gibbets) with a studio set (graves with a back-projected church and looming sky), in which the hero, Pip, has his first fateful meeting with the fearsome Magwitch. … Fortunately, the Dickens-Lean partnership was more than a great strength. It was a marriage made in heaven."

"From the Vivid Pages of Charles Dickens' Masterpiece!"

"Great Thrills! Great Romance! Great Suspense! Great Adventure!"

"NOW The Screen Fulfills Your Greatest Expectations...In ACTION! In ADVENTURE! In ROMANCE!"

"Anthony Wager - Pip as a boy"

"John Mills - Pip as an adult"

"Jean Simmons - Estella as a girl"

"Valerie Hobson - Estella as an adult, and as Molly"

"Martita Hunt - Miss Havisham"

"Finlay Currie - Abel Magwitch"

"Francis L. Sullivan - Mr. Jaggers"

"Bernard Miles - Joe Gargery"

"Alec Guinness - Herbert Pocket as an adult"

"John Forrest - Herbert Pocket as a boy"

"Freda Jackson - Mrs. Joe Gargery"

"Eileen Erskine - Biddy"

"Ivor Barnard - Mr. Wemmick"

"Torin Thatcher - Bentley Drummle"

"O. B. Clarence - the Aged Parent"

"Hay Petrie - Uncle Pumblechook"

"Everley Gregg - Sarah Pocket"