Word: magwitch
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...young English gentleman he has "made" by sending money from abroad. Does that premise sound familiar? It will to those who have read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and remember Pip's turmoil when he learns that his elevation in society has been financed by the fearsome felon Abel Magwitch. The novel being described here, however, is Peter Carey's Jack Maggs (Knopf; 306 pages; $24). What the dickens is Dickens' plot doing in Carey's new fiction...
...surrounded by Pip, the haughty Estella, the lawyer Jaggers, the convict Magwitch, Miss Havisham could be the kind of flamboyant character, drawn with simple, sharp lines, on which operas thrive. Mozart used a similar virago, the Queen of the Night, in The Magic Flute. But Pip, Estella and Jaggers (Magwitch is left out entirely) appear and disappear, little more than shadows crossing Miss Havisham's feverish brain...
...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...
...mystery story, about the convict Magwitch and his life-long feud with the blackguard who stole his wife, is blurred by the fact that Magwitch never seems quite sure whether he is villain or hero. In addition to this, the characters have names like Pocket, Jaggers, Gargery and Pumblechook. In spite of all these eccentricities. Great Expectations is superb cinema entertainment. It should go a long way toward enlarging even further the prestige of Charles Dickens who has lately become the most fashionable author in Hollywood...
Expertly condensed by Gladys Unger and directed by Stuart Walker, the task of preserving the vitality of Great Expectations rests principally on the cast. Most memorable contributions to a gallery of 19th Century human oddities are made by Henry Hull, as monkey-faced Magwitch; Florence Reed, as monstrous old Miss Havisham; Jane Wyatt as cold-hearted Estella. Good shot: Magwitch eating cold porkpie in a graveyard...
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