Great Expectations (1946) - Directed by David Lean.

 

Great Expectations - Magwitch & Pip

A great film with a great cast of actors. Great Expectations (1946), directed by David Lean. I don't think there will ever be a film version of Great Expectations that could better David Lean's version.

There's a character in the novel called Dolge Orlick who works at the forge with Joe Gargery but he doesn't feature in the film. The novel is primarily about revenge. Orlick bludgeoned Mrs Gargery because she stopped him getting a half day off work. He leaves her brain damaged. At the end of the novel, he tries to kill Pip at the lime kilns. He thought Joe showed Pip favouritism, resented Pip's inheritance and believed that Pip stood in the way of him courting Biddy, who later marries Joe.

Young Estella, is Miss Havisham's means to exact revenge on the male sex after she was jilted on her wedding day by the fraudster Compeyson. Abel Magwitch detests Compeyson because he betrayed him over crimes they had committed together in order to get a lesser sentence. Years later, Compeyson Informs the authorities that Magwitch who had been transported for life, has returned to England.

Abel Magwitch, who is the father of Estella, becomes Pip's benefactor not just because he helped him as an escaped convict on the marshes, but because he becomes obsessed with turning the blacksmiths boy into a gentleman. This is Magwitch's way of getting his revenge on how society has treated him. He turns a "common labouring boy" into a gentleman using the money that he's made as a successful sheep farmer in Australia.