Handsome and ghostly, David Lean’s adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel is a triumph of atmosphere. Which is good, because the two leads—John Mills as Pip and Valerie Hobson as Estella—are, respectively, overly insistent and nondescript. Finlay Currie, as the convict-turned-benefactor Magwitch, makes more of an impression with his appropriately pirate-y presence, as does Frances L. Sullivan as Pip’s officious guardian, Jaggers. Yet even they take a backseat to the mournful long shots Lean manages of the windblown marshes that open the film, or the haunted corridors of Miss Havisham’s mansion (at one point, Martita Hunt’s wild hair seems to merge with the cobwebs strewn about her room). As an adaptation of Great Expectations, this is scattershot and unsatisfying, but as a fever dream you might have after reading it, the movie mesmerizes.
