Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.
Production
Miss Havisham's rotting wedding feast set is gloriously unhinged.
Acting
Florence Reed's Havisham: unhinged, immobile, devastating.
Director
Stuart Walker
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was the first sound version of Great Expectations, produced by Universal in just 26 days on a shoestring budget. Dickens adaptations were studio filler then.
Miss Havisham became cinema's patron saint of jilted women—every 'crazy ex' trope owes her the wedding dress.
US
