MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Down 22 this week

Great Expectations (1946)

 -  Drama | Romance  -  26 December 1946 (UK)
8.0
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 8.0/10 from 13,300 users  
Reviews: 85 user | 47 critic

A humble orphan suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.

Director:

Writers:

(by), (adapted for the screen by), 4 more credits »
Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 1269 titles created 6 months ago
 
a list of 1360 titles created 10 months ago
 
a list of 1006 titles created 7 months ago
 
a list of 206 titles created 04 Jun 2011
 
a list of 105 titles created 6 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Great Expectations (1946)

Great Expectations (1946) on IMDb 8/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Great Expectations.
Won 2 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 3 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Romance | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.1/10 X  

Meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.

Director: David Lean
Stars: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Director: Orson Welles
Stars: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

Plain, repressed spinster falls for a dashing young medical student, but he prefers the wilder life, until it's too late.

Director: Peter Glenville
Stars: Laurence Harvey, Geraldine Page, Rita Moreno
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

Joel and Priscilla have been in love since they were children. Mark announces his engagement to her without obtaining her permission. While Joel and Mark are at sea Mark is abandoned in ... See full summary »

Director: William Nigh
Stars: Ramon Novarro, Joan Crawford, Ernest Torrence
The Quiet Man (1952)
Comedy | Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

A retired American boxer returns to the village where he was born in Ireland, where he finds love.

Director: John Ford
Stars: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald
Now, Voyager (1942)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

Boston spinster blossoms under therapy and finds impossible romance.

Director: Irving Rapper
Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Marty (1955)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Two lonely people have almost resigned themselves to never being truly loved.

Director: Delbert Mann
Stars: Esther Minciotti, Augusta Ciolli, Betsy Blair
The Heiress (1949)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A young naive woman falls for a handsome young man who her emotionally abusive father suspects is a fortune hunter.

Director: William Wyler
Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.

Director: Nicholas Ray
Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Joan Webster is an ambitious and stubborn middle-class English woman determined to move forward since her childhood. She meets her father in a fancy restaurant to tell him that she will ... See full summary »

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Stars: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

A poor boy gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women.

Director: George Stevens
Stars: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters
Women in Love (1969)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

The battle of the sexes and relationships among the elite of Britian's industrial Midlands in the 1920s. Gerald Crich and Rupert Berkin are best friends who fall in love with a pair of ... See full summary »

Director: Ken Russell
Stars: Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
Pip
Tony Wager ...
Young Pip (as Anthony Wager)
...
...
...
Francis L. Sullivan ...
...
Martita Hunt ...
...
Ivor Barnard ...
Freda Jackson ...
Mrs.Joe
Eileen Erskine ...
George Hayes ...
Convict
Hay Petrie ...
John Forrest ...
Edit

Storyline

Pip, a good-natured, gullible young orphan, lives with kind blacksmith Joe Gargery and his bossy, abusive wife 'Mrs. Joe'. When the boy finds two hidden escaped galley convicts, he obeys under -probably unnecessary- threat of a horrible death to bring the criminals food he must steal at peril of more caning from the battle-ax. Just when Pip fears to get it really good while they have guests, a soldier comes for Joe who takes Pip along as assistant to work on the chains of escaped galley-convicts, who are soon caught. The better-natured one takes the blame for the stolen food. Later Pip is invited to became the playmate of Estelle, the equally arrogant adoptive daughter of gloomy, filthy rich Miss Havisham at her estate, who actually has 'permission' to break the kind kid's heart; being the only pretty girl he ever saw, she wins his heart forever, even after a mysterious benefactor pays trough a lawyer for his education and a rich allowance, so he can become a snob in London, by now '... Written by KGF Vissers

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

benefactor | blacksmith | orphan | boy | secret | See more »

Taglines:

NOW The Screen Fulfills Your Greatest Expectations...In ACTION! In ADVENTURE! In ROMANCE! See more »

Genres:

Drama | Romance

Certificate:

Not Rated | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

26 December 1946 (UK)  »

Also Known As:

Grandes Esperanças  »

Company Credits

Production Co:

 »
Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

(Western Electric Recording)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

During one scene where she had to carry a candle while walking up the stairs, Jean Simmons' apron caught fire. See more »

Goofs

After leaving the office of Jaggers, Pip and Mr. Wemmick are walking down the street and when they approach the corner the conversation turns to a discussion of Jaggers' servant Molly; at this point the shadow of the boom mic is visible on the wall behind them in the left side of the shot. See more »

Quotes

Joe Gargery: Pip! A young gentleman of great expectations.
See more »

Crazy Credits

Martita Hunt plays Miss Havisham, and receives screen credit for it, but she can also be heard as the voice of the cow who, in Pip's mind, disapproves of him stealing food to give to Magwitch ("Somebody else's pork pie!"). She receives no screen credit for playing the voice of the cow. See more »

Connections

Referenced in Suburban Girl (2007) See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
A great film
21 June 2002 | by (Sydney, Australia) – See all my reviews

When David Lean directed Great Expectations, he used black and white, even though color was available. From the very first scene, you see that the black and white brings out a quality in the film, that wouldn't have been achieved with color. The black and white makes the film seem simpler than it really is. Great Expectations is a film, which ends very nicely for the characters, but their journeys throughout the film are not.

Pip sees himself for the rude snob he became, and Estella prides herself for being a heartless, ruthless bitch (for lack of a better word), and Miss Havisham is cold, and simply out to destroy men. The only person in this film who is not arrogant, or evil is the simple Joe.

I am far from a film expert. Infact, I only watched this movie because I am studying Great Expectations at school. However, after hours of in-depth discussion, there is so much more to this film than meets the eye. My favorite scenes are those in the first quarter of an hour. Lean's use of Silhouettes gives the search for the two escaped convicts a feel of war, and creates an atmosphere of tension very well. It also introduces the key characters in the story excellently.

As far as the story goes, I found it much easier on the head to watch than the book was to read. While it wasn't close in length to books i've read before (I think it's shorter than my little brother's "Harry Potter" books), it took me close to 30 hours to read. The movie compacts the majority of the book into 2 hours of film. The exclusion of characters like Orlick I have no problem with, as they are nearly completely irrelevant to the story. Lean explains the death of Pip's sister in less than 10 seconds, while the book takes somewhere in the region of 10 pages.

The acting is excellent. Alec Guinness was the only actor I had heard of, and that was only thanks to George Lucas. John Mills was interesting to watch, and after seeing the movie, I didn't know weather to like Pip for how he ended up, or to see him for the nasty person he had changed into (and come back from).

Only when watching it for the second time, did i realise the thought behind the direction. When Magwitch reappears, the atmosphere from their first meeting is created exactly; even the wind sounds the same. The sets were also incredible, and remade 19th century England perfectly. Ms. Havisham's `Statis House' was particularly memorable for me, as it is exactly how I pictured it from reading.

David Lean's Great Expectations set a benchmark in 1946 for great movies. It was nominated and won several Oscars, and is still enjoyed today. Every aspect of this film was enjoyable, it tells a great story, and if you look closer, you will appreciate the art of film making a little more, as I have.


53 of 67 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
40 year old Pip? VTPooh
Anyone have to watch this at school? lenny_rocks2678
Wemmick is awesome. TheHighVoltageMessiah
Where's Miss Havisham's mansion? vspinnet
Buying the 1946 version of Great Expectations. tl12
Dalai Lama Quotation - Miss Havisham goodjourney
Discuss Great Expectations (1946) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?