Great Expectations [Import] (Blu-ray)

Academy Awards 1947 - Best Art Direction - Set Decoration (b&w)

Academy Awards 1947 - Best Cinematography: Guy Green

Chicago Sun-Times - 08/22/1999
"...Lean brings Dickens' classic set-pieces to life as if he'd been reading over our shoulder....The movie was made by Lean at the top of his early form..."

Total Film - 03/01/2007
4 stars out of 5 -- "A gem from the late-1940s golden age of Brit cinema, David Lean's expressionistic GREAT EXPECTATIONS remains one of the most accomplished Dickens adaptations."

David Lean directs this definitive version of the Charles Dickens classic about an orphaned British boy befriended by a mysterious benefactor who enables him to become a gentleman of means. In nineteenth century London, in the gloom of a country graveyard, a young boy encounters an escaped convict, a chance meeting that years later leads the boy to mysterious adventure, wealth and joy.

This 1946 film is the definitive version of the classic Charles Dickens story of Pip, an orphaned British boy who is befriended by a mysterious benefactor who enables him to become a gentleman of means. Director Lean deftly represents Dickens' disdain for the iniquities of Victorian society. This sentiment rang particularly true when the film was released the year after the war in Britain, when Britain had just elected a labor government. In a style resembling horror films, starting with a straight narration of Dickens's first two pages, through the scenes of Miss Havisham's decaying petrified and cobwebbed house, we are caught in a narrative that is both heart wrenching and socially relevant. Lean's achievement is in setting once-in-a-lifetime performances in a vibrant narrative that maintains rich detail but never bogs down. Considered by many to be among the greatest films ever made.

Children | Classic | Essential Cinema | Recommended | Social Issues | Theatrical Release | Victorian Era