The New Pictures

Great Expectations (Rank; Universal-International) is one more proof that the movies can make a fine, thoroughly intelligent translation of a literary classic. In Henry V, Laurence Olivier and his British associates showed for the first time how beautifully Shakespeare can be brought to the screen. In Great Expectations, Britain's Director David Lean (rhymes with keen) and associates have done just as handsomely by Charles Dickens.

The makers of Great Expectations had a magnificent story to begin with, and characters almost as magically compelling, in their peculiar way, as Shakespeare's. Yet both characters and story were plainly hard to bring to full life on the screen. The story is about young Pip (John Mills), a blacksmith's apprentice, who in childhood befriends an escaped convict, Magwitch (Finlay Currie), and a rich, decaying recluse, Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt).When Pip is still a very young man, he is snatched from poverty into Great Expectations. Miss Havisham's subtle attorney Jaggers (F. L. Sullivan) holds a fortune in trust for him, the gift of an anonymous benefactor. Pip sets out for London to learn to be a gentleman. He shares lodgings with a rickety, charming young man named Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness),and learns, instead, to be a snob. As he helps his old criminal friend to escape arrest and rescues Miss Havisham's ward, the beautiful Estella (Valerie Hobson), from a psychological trap, the noble and weaker sides of Pip's nature so con-.tend that he emerges a true man.

Rife as it is with florid incident and outrageous coincidence, this yarn is hardly credible on a purely "realistic" basis. But it has about it a great deal of the strange and thrilling logic of a fairy tale, a poem or a dream. It is even an allegory though not a rigid one.

The chief miracle of this film--and there are many small ones--is that its makers realized that a dream must be presented, even at its weirdest moments, matter-of-factly and on its own terms. So they never once make it too easy for the audience, either by "explaining," or by approaching unbelievable moments cautiously, or by showing any sly amusement or apology over a detail that is odd or out-of-date.

The opening scenes, haunted with grimly exaggerated sounds of wind, in the desolate mid-marsh graveyard where Pip first meets the convict, are an achievement in romantic terror; the vast, dark,dust-ridden rooms in which Miss Havisham holds court in her rotting wedding dress are presented with the same belief-compelling recklessness.

Whenever it seems natural, Dickens' weird characters are lighted up with contemporary understanding: Pip's furiously cruel sister, for instance, becomes entirely plausible as a rampant neurotic. But the good old larger-than-life characters--Jaggers, Miss Havisham, and the glittering, cruel Estella--are presented with such a grandly bland air that they become believable, and unforgettable, by the force of their own peculiarity. The whole movie is a triumphant example of what can be achieved in film by tact, taste, and keen literary intelligence.

In both casting and composition, there is a good deal of intelligent derivation from Dickens' inspired illustrators, Cruikshank and "Phiz" (Alec Guinness as Pocket is a Cruikshank in the flesh). Besides the principal actors, all of whom are excellent, the most notable (and equally good) are Bernard Miles--another living Cruikshank--as the blacksmith, Anthony Wager as the boy Pip, O. B. Clarence as a deaf-&-daft gaffer, and 17-year-old Jean Simmons as Estella in her teens.

Great Expectations is one more tribute to J. Arthur Rank's talent as a movie mogul--a talent which appears to consist, most importantly, in furnishing gifted people with the wherewithal and then leaving them severely alone (TIME, May 19). The film (the first English movie to play Manhattan's Music Hall since Clouds Oner Europe, in the cloudy year 1939) will probably fulfill its sponsors' great expectations--both financially and critically. Certainly most Dickensians will love it. And countless people who can't take Dickens are likely to hurry back to that author with a new understanding. Those who don't care about Dickens one way or the other will enjoy it purely as a movie. For Great Expectations is not, in any bad sense, a "classic"; it gives off no unpleasant odor of culture worship. A classic in the living sense of that abused word, it is a beautiful and satisfying movie.

In Which They Served. The men who made Great Expectations, one of the more talented teams now making movies, have already collaborated on four Noel Coward productions. The trio that first worked together on Coward's In Which We Serve: Anthony Havelock-Allan (associate producer), Ronald Neame (cameraman), and David Lean, who was then only 23, as cutter and codirector. The three got along so well together that in 1942 they decided to form their own production unit, Cineguild. On Coward's suggestion they next adapted This Happy Breed, writing their own screenplay with occasional help from Coward. After doing Blithe Spirit, they felt sure enough of themselves to go on their own.

For their first independent production (under J. Arthur Rank), they stuck to their highly successful formula; their adaptation of Coward's one-acter, Brief Encounter, was one of the top critical successes of the year -- in both Britain and the U.S. They decided to make Great Expectations for two reasons: 1) it was about time to try something besides Noel Coward's work, and 2) Lean had read through the complete works of Dickens in search of movie material.

They have proved pretty conclusively that they are fine picture makers -- with or without Coward. Without a flop to their discredit so far, the trio has Rank's fondest blessings. Cineguild's next job: Oliver Twist.

Honeymoon (RKO Radio) provides a grown-up role for Shirley Temple (who in private life is now a settled matron of 18). In the film, Shirley goes to Mexico City to meet, marry and spend a honeymoon with G.I. Guy Madison, who is on leave from the Canal Zone. They have a hard time finding each other and, tied up by legal complications, an even harder time getting married. The hardest time of all is had by Franchot Tone, a U.S. consulate workhorse who is repeatedly required to help them out. In the course of getting helped, Miss Temple transfers her attentions briefly to Mr. Tone, and nearly wrecks his romance with Mexican Socialite Lina Romay.

Honeymoon has its entertaining moments, but something goes wrong with the farcical frenzy the leading players are supposed to whip up. The character Miss Temple plays is presented as if she were just too terribly cute, whereas she is actually playing a spoiled brat who has yet to learn that the world is not her oyster. Mr. Madison, pouting perpetually, matches her for infantilism and bad manners, point for point; and they talk a jive dialect in which one of the most intelligible words is "jeepers." Those who find such types attractive will get a lot of laughs. In spite of the handicaps. Miss Temple plays her sinister assignment adroitly and, now that she's getting to be a big girl, looks quite all right in a bathing suit.

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