The Pickwick Papers

I saw The Pickwick Papers on television some decades ago as a child and recently encountered a poor colourized version of the film. They should had kept the film in black and white.

This film is adapted from the Dicken's source novel and restricts itself to some of the best sequences from the long tome.

You have the caddish Mr Jingle getting others in all sorts of scrapes including getting Mr Winkle involved in a duel. There are scenes of elopements and nearly elopements again with Mr Jingle trying to get away with the loot.

A misunderstanding leads to a court case involving a supposed broken promise of a marriage leading Dickens to have a swipe at lawyers and a sequence in a debtor's prison which suddenly switches the film from its comic mode to serious social issues of Victorian Britain.

James Hayter is very good as Pickwick, Nigel Patrick is a hoot as Jingle, Harry Fowler is memorable as Weller.

It is not the best adaptation of a Dickens novel from that era being rather low budget but amusing enough.

Splendid adaptation of Dickens at his most hilarious, a kaleidoscopic odyssey around old England with a potpourri of intrigue and adventure squeezed into 100 minutes of virtuoso entertainment of English theatrical art at its best. Every single character is absolutely perfectly Dickensian and convincing as such, and it's a miracle to observe how such an extensive novel of so many characters and complicated intricacies of unexpected turns of events at every corner has been so successfully concentrated in Dickensian essence, which will certainly keep you busy through every minute of it, with even some human pathos to it - the prison scene with Mr. Jingle's change of fortune is perhaps the most impressive part. It's even impossible to say who is the best of all these acting paragons of excellence, but dominating are certainly James Hayter as Mr. Pickwick, Nigel Patrick as Mr. Jingle, James Donald as the besotted Mr. Winkle and Harry Fowler as Sam Weller, the most pleasurable character of them all, but Donald Wolfit crowns them all as Sergeant Buzfuz. It's as superb as a Dickensian entertainment as it was 65 years ago, it hasn't grown one day older but instantly established itself in the timeless zone of cinematic literary classics. It was about 50 years since I last saw it, and although I remembered it well, it was all perfectly fresh again as if it was an entirely new movie. These films cannot age.

I remember this movie with great affection from the days of my childhood when it was broadcast several times on the CBC. When it became available on DVD I had to purchase it if only to mark Dickens bicentennial year of 2012. All the major comic episodes of the novel are covered with the exception of the Eatanswill election and the cricket match between Dingley Dell and All-Muggleston. As noted by another reviewer the movie by necessity omits the rather gloomy moral tales that Dickens chose to insert at intervals. The movie is further enlivened by the presence of a roster of great British character actors - Hattie Jacques, Hermione Gingold and James Hayter as Mr. Pickwick. Canadians will know him best as Mr. Tebbs, the senior salesman in the Mens Department, on the sitcom Are You Being Served. I notice that the actor who played Sam Weller died in January 2012 just a few days before I purchased the DVD - he was the last survivor among core cast.

Pickwick Papers exemplifies the joys of the Dickens film series made by David Lean. While not the best it is thoroughly entertaining and the characters are marvellous. Childhood memories of those familiar faces among the actors who took part and appeared in so many other British classics. Last but not least the most wonderfully rich tones of James Hayter. His was a voice you heard and loved on TV and film and never forgot from the moment he spoke.If you have only heard about this film and never seen it then do you very best to obtain a copy (if possible) for it is in its own way a minor classic. For British TV followers who were children during the fifties another regular and lovable character is Harry Fowler.

James Hayter is most likely remembered in the UK as the voice of Mr Kipling in the TV advertisements, but here he is an excellent Mr Pickwick, the lead character in this adaptation of 'The Pickwick Papers' by Charles Dickens.

Not in the same league as the David Lean-directed 'Great Expectations' and 'Oliver Twist' which preceded it, this film, directed by Noel Langley, is nevertheless not bad. It is entertaining, with an excellent cast ranging through character actors such as James Donald, Hermoines Baddeley and Gingold, Nigel Patrick, and William Hartnell; through to scene stealers like Joyce Grenfell.

It distills rather a wordy novel well, and provides it with the language of cinema to get the point across. Not an expensive production, but with some nice touches, such as Kathleen Harrison's twitchy Rachel; Mr Jingle's deck of cards; the runaway horse; and an early display of outraged bluster from Hattie Jacques, which she would repeat two decades later as a member of the Carry On team.