As part of my Christmas viewing I reported on a three part BBC adaptation of the three part book by Charles Dickens Great Expectations. In my limited viewpoint in respect of the cinematic and stage adaptations there had been nothing until now to compare with 1946 film which had John Mills as Pip the young man and Alec Guinness as his friend Pocket. Jean Simmons played Estella the younger and Valerie Hobson as Miss Haversham with Finlay Curry and Bernard Miles also featuring. However although I saw the 1946 film soon after its release while still at preparatory school and it made a lasting impression, it is at least decade since seeing the film again on Television. It is also a long time since reading the text, if I ever have, although along the way I had acquired a Heron edition of the work. Over the weekend the 1946 film was shown on television and this precipitated to jump my reading, albeit fast reading, of the text to this week.
In all three of the works we commence with Pip as a young boy in the care of his married elder sister who husband Joe a blacksmith treats the child more as a young brother than a substitute father. The 1946 version has a much softer version of Mrs Gargary, called Mrs Joe in the text, than the portrait of her painted by Dickens which has her as an unattractive bossy woman who attempts to keep the menfolk around her under her thumb. The setting is Christmas Eve as Pip encounters an escaped convict in the marshes around his home who first frightens the boy and then engages his sympathy so that in addition to bringing the man a file to free him from the chains he also brings food, including a pork pie and brandy. On his way back with the supplies he encounters another escaped convict, a man with a scar on the side of his face. When Pip tells Magwitch of this encounter on the assumption the food is to be shared the impact is for Magwitch to react with anger, not at Pip but the news that a great enemy is to hand.
The Text covers the Christmas dinner and the horror of Pip when Mrs Joe announces to the company that as a treat they are to finish a full meal with a slice of the pork pie given to them by Pip’s uncle. She is just about to discover the theft when the troops arrive seeking the assistance of the Blacksmith, and soon he and Pip are joining the chase to find the convicts who appear to have escaped off the convict ship on its way or moored in the Thames. Magwitch is caught because he remained on the marshes to find and try and kill the other man. Both are now captured and taken on board the convict ship bound for the antipodes. Before departing he absolves Pip saying he broke into the forge and its house for the file and for the food. In all versions kindly Joe says he does not begrudge the man the food. This signals to the reader that Joe is far from the average working man who excitedly joins in the throngs in their tens of thousands who watch and cheer the constant hangings of men women and children in the capital for the most minor of offences.
The reason why Magwitch stays to try and kill the other convict is not explained in the 1946 film which is a much simplified version. In the 2012 series Pip has an uncle who delivers supplies as a trader to the local great house where it’s eccentric and considered mad Lady is looking for a local young boy to keep her adopted daughter company. Pip is suggested and while his sister sees this as a great opportunity for family advancement her husband is unsure. In the 2012 film Pip enjoys the visits despite the strangeness of Miss Haversham, a comparatively young woman who lives as a recluse on the first floor of the house where the windows are shuttered and the drapes closed where the dinning room is laid out for a wedding breakfast from years before. In the 1946 film Miss Haversham is a much older woman who appears to have been fixed in her situation for at least two decades and to have adopted Estella long after she had become hardened and set in her ways and with the plan to train the girl to become her weapon against men in society.
The young adopted girl Estella, brilliantly played by a 17 year old Jean Simmonds in 1946, is unkind to Pip who she regards as inferior until an event which changes their relationship. In the recent adaptation relatives of Miss Haversham call with their son but are refused access to Miss Haversham. They are incensed when they find Pip is allowed into the house and upper floors. He is told to immediately leave by Miss Haversham who cannot cope with his visit because of the situation with the relatives and when he leaves he encounters the son of the visitors who behaves like Estella, but in this instance Pip defends himself and strikes the young man down. This delights Estella because he has made something happen and in the book she allows Pip to kiss her. The fight is more prolonged in the text and more of a sporting than a bullying event. The difference is that the family are named as the Pockets and the elderly Miss Pocket appears to be a frequent visitor to the house. It is also made plain in text and film that the girl is being brought up to regard all men as enemies and that her primary function in life will be to break their hearts. Neither the adoption nor the visiting would be allowed today, or at last I hope this would be the situation.
Despite the way he is treated Pip is influenced by the lifestyle, knowledge and interests of those with money and education and he is disappointed when Miss Haversham decides to end the visits by announcing that she is to bring forward his wish to be apprenticed to Joe and will pay the family a Premium as a reward for his attendance at the house. The condition is that he does not return. This is not intended as a kindly act on her part. In the recent series Mrs Joe has the expectation that the whole family is to be socially improved by summons for her husband to visit with Joe and she rejects the offer of some rabbits by the hired help Orlick a young man who is known as old Orlick in the book. He is so incenses that off screen he batters the woman senseless. There is no reference to Orlick and his subsequent role in the 1946 film. In the recent series, shown on three consecutive nights the lawyers Jaggers is present with the papers of indenture whereas in the book Joe brings the papers and we first meet the lawyer four years later. Similarly we are yet to meet the assistant Orlick until later in the book. On return from the Hall Joe teases his wife suggesting at first a payment of ten pounds has been made, then twenty and only then twenty five, which are substantial amounts even for someone operating their own business as blacksmith. (One of my mother’s great aunts who she never knew married into a blacksmith’s family from a village close to her grandfathers town of Calne before he left to join the army, travel the world and eventually settle in Gibraltar and a hill village near Ronda in southern Spain).
In the book the battering of Pip’s sister by Orlick occurs when later during the apprenticeship he gets time off to make a visit to Miss Haversham to report progress and to see Estella. He is disappointed to find that she is away in Paris at school being trained to become an eligible young Lady in London society. He meets Orlick on the way home and Joe has been out at a local Inn for the evening. The crime is investigated by the police but their inquiries come to nothing except that Pip is suspicious of Orlick who knew his way around the house and forge and of their movements.
It is after his sister becomes disabled and in need of care that there arrives into the household Biddy, a young woman whose origin I am confused about thinking first that she was a relative. Biddy quickly commands the respect of Pip and of Joe, and indeed also manages to establish the confidence and affection of the sister. The sister scrawls the letter T on a slate which after a while it is Biddy who works out that this is intended to represent a hammer from the forge and that the attacked was Orlick who continues as if nothing has happened. While Biddy appears towards the end of the 1946 film there is no reference to the crucial point in the text about a third of the way through the volume when Pip confides in Biddy that he no longer wishes to become a Blacksmith but would like to be a gentleman. In fairness this is touched on in the 2012 series when Pip expresses disappointment at the decision to become apprenticed and stop his visits to the great House. However Biddy does not appear in the recent series which is odd.
Biddy possesses insight and wisdom as well as the capacity to act as the boy’s teacher and it is not surprising that Pip appreciates her superiority over Estella. He also becomes watchful when Orlick begins to take an interest in Biddy.
It is in the fourth year of the apprenticeship that Mr Dickens has Mr Jaggers, the lawyer, making an appearance, played in the latest series by the excellent David Suchet. In both film and series there is close adherence the text except that in the text despite the insistence that there are no inquiries and or disclosure as to the benefactor who is offering to educate and maintain Pip as a Gentleman of Great Expectations who will come into wealth on or after reaching his majority, Pip immediately expresses the belief that it is Miss Haversham who is the provider of his good fortune. Mr Jaggers provides twenty guineas for the purchase of appropriate clothing and for the journey to London and the excitement is shared in the household during the subsequent week before the requested departure.
It is also evidence that even before reaching London Pip understood he was changing one life for another and could not wait to get away, believing that he would not return to his former ways and life style. He is also determined to show Miss Haversham his new set of clothes before departure. On this visit she gives the impression of confirming she is the benefactor mentioning that she has heard of his change of fortune from Mr Jaggers.
There is one other important difference between the text and the 1946 film and 2012 series. In these Pip only discovers that he is to share accommodation and be tutored as a gentleman by the former adversary, Master Pocket who he encountered at the home of Miss Haversham when he arrives at the lodgings. In fact he is made aware of the arrangement by Mr Jaggers on his first visit and indeed the elderly Miss Pocket is at the Hall when Pip visits.
Before leaving the story as Pip makes his way excitedly to London and the first part of the book formally I will mention one incongruity about the 1946 film. This is that Pip and Master Pocket are played by established actors more than twice the age of their characters, with John Mills in his late thirties 30’s as Pip and Alec Guinness also in his thirties as Master Pocket. I also feel that the Black and White of 1946 is more effect in conveying the events on the marshes and the sinister nature of the Hall and Miss Haversham and Dickensian London and Society than the colour versions. It is also fiat comment to say that Joe, Biddy and indeed Pip himself does show ambivalence as the departure approaches but for Pip the driving force is that by becoming a gentleman he will also become an acceptable suitor for Estella.
In all three of the works we commence with Pip as a young boy in the care of his married elder sister who husband Joe a blacksmith treats the child more as a young brother than a substitute father. The 1946 version has a much softer version of Mrs Gargary, called Mrs Joe in the text, than the portrait of her painted by Dickens which has her as an unattractive bossy woman who attempts to keep the menfolk around her under her thumb. The setting is Christmas Eve as Pip encounters an escaped convict in the marshes around his home who first frightens the boy and then engages his sympathy so that in addition to bringing the man a file to free him from the chains he also brings food, including a pork pie and brandy. On his way back with the supplies he encounters another escaped convict, a man with a scar on the side of his face. When Pip tells Magwitch of this encounter on the assumption the food is to be shared the impact is for Magwitch to react with anger, not at Pip but the news that a great enemy is to hand.
The Text covers the Christmas dinner and the horror of Pip when Mrs Joe announces to the company that as a treat they are to finish a full meal with a slice of the pork pie given to them by Pip’s uncle. She is just about to discover the theft when the troops arrive seeking the assistance of the Blacksmith, and soon he and Pip are joining the chase to find the convicts who appear to have escaped off the convict ship on its way or moored in the Thames. Magwitch is caught because he remained on the marshes to find and try and kill the other man. Both are now captured and taken on board the convict ship bound for the antipodes. Before departing he absolves Pip saying he broke into the forge and its house for the file and for the food. In all versions kindly Joe says he does not begrudge the man the food. This signals to the reader that Joe is far from the average working man who excitedly joins in the throngs in their tens of thousands who watch and cheer the constant hangings of men women and children in the capital for the most minor of offences.
The reason why Magwitch stays to try and kill the other convict is not explained in the 1946 film which is a much simplified version. In the 2012 series Pip has an uncle who delivers supplies as a trader to the local great house where it’s eccentric and considered mad Lady is looking for a local young boy to keep her adopted daughter company. Pip is suggested and while his sister sees this as a great opportunity for family advancement her husband is unsure. In the 2012 film Pip enjoys the visits despite the strangeness of Miss Haversham, a comparatively young woman who lives as a recluse on the first floor of the house where the windows are shuttered and the drapes closed where the dinning room is laid out for a wedding breakfast from years before. In the 1946 film Miss Haversham is a much older woman who appears to have been fixed in her situation for at least two decades and to have adopted Estella long after she had become hardened and set in her ways and with the plan to train the girl to become her weapon against men in society.
The young adopted girl Estella, brilliantly played by a 17 year old Jean Simmonds in 1946, is unkind to Pip who she regards as inferior until an event which changes their relationship. In the recent adaptation relatives of Miss Haversham call with their son but are refused access to Miss Haversham. They are incensed when they find Pip is allowed into the house and upper floors. He is told to immediately leave by Miss Haversham who cannot cope with his visit because of the situation with the relatives and when he leaves he encounters the son of the visitors who behaves like Estella, but in this instance Pip defends himself and strikes the young man down. This delights Estella because he has made something happen and in the book she allows Pip to kiss her. The fight is more prolonged in the text and more of a sporting than a bullying event. The difference is that the family are named as the Pockets and the elderly Miss Pocket appears to be a frequent visitor to the house. It is also made plain in text and film that the girl is being brought up to regard all men as enemies and that her primary function in life will be to break their hearts. Neither the adoption nor the visiting would be allowed today, or at last I hope this would be the situation.
Despite the way he is treated Pip is influenced by the lifestyle, knowledge and interests of those with money and education and he is disappointed when Miss Haversham decides to end the visits by announcing that she is to bring forward his wish to be apprenticed to Joe and will pay the family a Premium as a reward for his attendance at the house. The condition is that he does not return. This is not intended as a kindly act on her part. In the recent series Mrs Joe has the expectation that the whole family is to be socially improved by summons for her husband to visit with Joe and she rejects the offer of some rabbits by the hired help Orlick a young man who is known as old Orlick in the book. He is so incenses that off screen he batters the woman senseless. There is no reference to Orlick and his subsequent role in the 1946 film. In the recent series, shown on three consecutive nights the lawyers Jaggers is present with the papers of indenture whereas in the book Joe brings the papers and we first meet the lawyer four years later. Similarly we are yet to meet the assistant Orlick until later in the book. On return from the Hall Joe teases his wife suggesting at first a payment of ten pounds has been made, then twenty and only then twenty five, which are substantial amounts even for someone operating their own business as blacksmith. (One of my mother’s great aunts who she never knew married into a blacksmith’s family from a village close to her grandfathers town of Calne before he left to join the army, travel the world and eventually settle in Gibraltar and a hill village near Ronda in southern Spain).
In the book the battering of Pip’s sister by Orlick occurs when later during the apprenticeship he gets time off to make a visit to Miss Haversham to report progress and to see Estella. He is disappointed to find that she is away in Paris at school being trained to become an eligible young Lady in London society. He meets Orlick on the way home and Joe has been out at a local Inn for the evening. The crime is investigated by the police but their inquiries come to nothing except that Pip is suspicious of Orlick who knew his way around the house and forge and of their movements.
It is after his sister becomes disabled and in need of care that there arrives into the household Biddy, a young woman whose origin I am confused about thinking first that she was a relative. Biddy quickly commands the respect of Pip and of Joe, and indeed also manages to establish the confidence and affection of the sister. The sister scrawls the letter T on a slate which after a while it is Biddy who works out that this is intended to represent a hammer from the forge and that the attacked was Orlick who continues as if nothing has happened. While Biddy appears towards the end of the 1946 film there is no reference to the crucial point in the text about a third of the way through the volume when Pip confides in Biddy that he no longer wishes to become a Blacksmith but would like to be a gentleman. In fairness this is touched on in the 2012 series when Pip expresses disappointment at the decision to become apprenticed and stop his visits to the great House. However Biddy does not appear in the recent series which is odd.
Biddy possesses insight and wisdom as well as the capacity to act as the boy’s teacher and it is not surprising that Pip appreciates her superiority over Estella. He also becomes watchful when Orlick begins to take an interest in Biddy.
It is in the fourth year of the apprenticeship that Mr Dickens has Mr Jaggers, the lawyer, making an appearance, played in the latest series by the excellent David Suchet. In both film and series there is close adherence the text except that in the text despite the insistence that there are no inquiries and or disclosure as to the benefactor who is offering to educate and maintain Pip as a Gentleman of Great Expectations who will come into wealth on or after reaching his majority, Pip immediately expresses the belief that it is Miss Haversham who is the provider of his good fortune. Mr Jaggers provides twenty guineas for the purchase of appropriate clothing and for the journey to London and the excitement is shared in the household during the subsequent week before the requested departure.
It is also evidence that even before reaching London Pip understood he was changing one life for another and could not wait to get away, believing that he would not return to his former ways and life style. He is also determined to show Miss Haversham his new set of clothes before departure. On this visit she gives the impression of confirming she is the benefactor mentioning that she has heard of his change of fortune from Mr Jaggers.
There is one other important difference between the text and the 1946 film and 2012 series. In these Pip only discovers that he is to share accommodation and be tutored as a gentleman by the former adversary, Master Pocket who he encountered at the home of Miss Haversham when he arrives at the lodgings. In fact he is made aware of the arrangement by Mr Jaggers on his first visit and indeed the elderly Miss Pocket is at the Hall when Pip visits.
Before leaving the story as Pip makes his way excitedly to London and the first part of the book formally I will mention one incongruity about the 1946 film. This is that Pip and Master Pocket are played by established actors more than twice the age of their characters, with John Mills in his late thirties 30’s as Pip and Alec Guinness also in his thirties as Master Pocket. I also feel that the Black and White of 1946 is more effect in conveying the events on the marshes and the sinister nature of the Hall and Miss Haversham and Dickensian London and Society than the colour versions. It is also fiat comment to say that Joe, Biddy and indeed Pip himself does show ambivalence as the departure approaches but for Pip the driving force is that by becoming a gentleman he will also become an acceptable suitor for Estella.
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