They've glamorized the fantastic Dickens epic through vivid color and thus removed the darkness and dour atmosphere that was noticeable in the abridged 1934 Hollywood version and extremely prevalent in the iconic 1946 David Lean British version. As the third version (and first in color), this is handsome and certainly watchable, but not as emotionally vacant as it should be. Only Pip, a few of the other young characters (certainly not Sarah Miles' Estella) and select older characters should show any kind of verve, and there are times when you expect the characters to break out in song. These are characters with no song in their heart or any rhythm in their soul, and even without songs, this emotion greatly harms the film as a whole.
There are good central performances by Simon Gipps-Kent and Michael York as Pip, and York is definitely the selling point due to his popularity at the time. Sarah Miles as Estella has a Jean Simmons look about her (obviously why she was cast), but having her playing Estella as a young girl was a huge mistake. She looks like a young school teacher while flirting with young Pip, and that makes her taunting of him seem all the more perverted, and not in the way that Dickens meant. As Pip ages, his continued affection for this manipulated young woman makes him seem a fool as he is used as the victim for Miss Havisham's revenge.
As the ghostly living walking dead, Margaret Leighton is seemingly even more sinister than Martita Hunt was in her iconic role that is the guidebook of every Miss Havisham in stage and film history. Her insanity isn't as pitysom as it is much more frightening as Hunt used a longing coming from her eyes to glimpse what could have been, while with Leighton's, she seems to simply care less. Robert Morley, James Mason, Rachel Roberts and Anthony Quayle fill out other major parts with mixed success. I really wanted to love this version, but it is probably too lavish for its own good, while a little bit of dirtying it up and giving a grittier viewpoint could have added to the mood that is sadly missing. Not a complete failure, but this would not be the go to version for readers of the book who have never seen it on screen before.
There are good central performances by Simon Gipps-Kent and Michael York as Pip, and York is definitely the selling point due to his popularity at the time. Sarah Miles as Estella has a Jean Simmons look about her (obviously why she was cast), but having her playing Estella as a young girl was a huge mistake. She looks like a young school teacher while flirting with young Pip, and that makes her taunting of him seem all the more perverted, and not in the way that Dickens meant. As Pip ages, his continued affection for this manipulated young woman makes him seem a fool as he is used as the victim for Miss Havisham's revenge.
As the ghostly living walking dead, Margaret Leighton is seemingly even more sinister than Martita Hunt was in her iconic role that is the guidebook of every Miss Havisham in stage and film history. Her insanity isn't as pitysom as it is much more frightening as Hunt used a longing coming from her eyes to glimpse what could have been, while with Leighton's, she seems to simply care less. Robert Morley, James Mason, Rachel Roberts and Anthony Quayle fill out other major parts with mixed success. I really wanted to love this version, but it is probably too lavish for its own good, while a little bit of dirtying it up and giving a grittier viewpoint could have added to the mood that is sadly missing. Not a complete failure, but this would not be the go to version for readers of the book who have never seen it on screen before.