Get ready to record or watch on this rainy day the 1946 film David Leanโs Great Expectations @BBCTwo 10.20 am.
There are so many reasons to add this great film to your viewing.
David Lean had seen a stage play version of Charles Dickens novel and brought it to film directing it and was one of the writers.
Part of the set was built at Denham Studios, where my father worked after being demobbed and worked with David Lean at the studios.
The cast list is a glorious role call of British stars, John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Bernard Miles, Finlay Currie, Jean Simmons and two of my favourites, Alec Guinness who is supreme as Herbert Pockets, and the wonderful Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham. Both unsurpassed by any production of Dickenโs masterpiece since, in my opinion.
Both Guinness and Hunt came from the stage to reprise their roles on film.
In a poll it came 5th in the top 100 great British films.
David Lean is a titan of film. My uncle John worked with him and my dad too. They both told of a perfectionist who knew what he wanted and would wait for the right weather to achieve it. He was the very best at what he did, he had no rivals - they both agreed.