Film Locations in Great Expectations (1946)

[tony_lavelle]

Great Expectations (1946 film) - Wikipedia

Just watched this excellent old black and white film on TV (Dir: David Lean) and thought I recognised the locations on the Medway.

Dickens based Joe Gargery's house on the forge in the village of Chalk, near Gravesend, Kent – a replica was erected on St Mary's Marshes on the Isle of Grain on the Thames Estuary. Pip and Herbert Pocket arrange to meet Magwitch and help him escape at Chatham Docks where slip 8 was used for the scene as well as exterior shots of the prison hulk ships. The River Medway and the adjacent St Mary's Marshes appear in scenes where Pip and his friend, Herbert Pocket, row their boat to a small inn whilst waiting for the paddle steamer to arrive. The ship used in the film was called Empress, dating from the latter half of the nineteenth century and owned by Cosens & Co Ltd of Weymouth. She was brought down to the River Medway for the shoot. "New masts were stepped-in with square rigging and dummy sails, the funnel was lengthened and the paddle-boxes enlarged until it looked exactly right." The company was based at Rochester, and stayed for six weeks at the Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel – the Blue Boar in Dickens' novel. The unit for the location work for the film was based on a derelict naval fort on Darnett Ness Island in the River Medway.

 

[Bouba]

Yes, I watched the film (for the umpteenth time)….so well done with characters who looked as if Dickens was writing about them. The attention to detail is extraordinary especially when you consider it was made so soon after the end of the war

 

[tillergirl]

Meant to watch it, missed it. Sorry not to miss that.

 

[oldgit]

Assume everybody knows about this ?

screenarchive.brighton.ac.uk/detail/763

 

[Misterbreeze]

Fascinating, thank you for that.

 

[savageseadog]

One of the truly great films. That opening scene in the graveyard is one of the great moments in cinema.

 

[Bouba]

Has anyone seen my favorite film....Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death ?

 

[savageseadog]

Has anyone seen my favorite film....Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death ?

Another truly great film.

As an aside, the American release is titled "Stairway to Heaven"

 

[Yorkshire Exile]

Another truly great film.

As an aside, the American release is titled "Stairway to Heaven"

Yes, A Matter of Life and Death is probably my favourite film, so surrealy British middle class yet in style decades ahead of its time. As for Stairway to Heaven, I hope it didn't inspire Led Zeppelin.

 

[Bouba]

In one of the opening scenes in A Matter of Life and Death....David Niven, playing a bomber pilot about to meet certain death, recites the first verse of the amazing A Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage .....written by Sir Walter Raleigh just before his own execution

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given,
Whilst my soul, like a white palmer,
Travels to the land of heaven;
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains;
And there I’ll kiss
The bowl of bliss,
And drink my eternal fill
On every milken hill.
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after it will ne’er thirst more;
And by the happy blissful way
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have shook off their gowns of clay,
And go apparelled fresh like me.
I’ll bring them first
To slake their thirst,
And then to taste those nectar suckets,
At the clear wells
Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we
Are fill’d with immortality,
Then the holy paths we’ll travel,
Strew’d with rubies thick as gravel,
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral, and pearl bowers.

From thence to heaven’s bribeless hall
Where no corrupted voices brawl,
No conscience molten into gold,
Nor forg’d accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferr’d, nor vain-spent journey,
For there Christ is the king’s attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees.
When the grand twelve million jury
Of our sins and sinful fury,
’Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder,
Thou movest salvation even for alms,
Not with a bribed lawyer’s palms.
And this is my eternal plea
To him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
Seeing my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread,
Set on my soul an everlasting head.
Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

 

[savageseadog]

I've often wondered how the families of deceased airmen reacted to the film and particularly the scene of the dead man on the beach. I know that Britain was home of the stiff upper lip but.........

 

[LittleSister]

I've often wondered how the families of deceased airmen reacted to the film and particularly the scene of the dead man on the beach. I know that Britain was home of the stiff upper lip but.........

People were much more familiar with death in those days, both in general and with dead bodies, especially of servicemen, about the place.

No doubt the families of deceased airmen would have been emotionally affected, but I imagine not at all in the rather queasily romanticised way that would be the norm today.

Powell and Pressburger were, of course, very much in tune with the hopes and fears of the population at the time, and adept at playing on them while staying the right side of decorum.

p.s. Part of Powell & Presburgers' company's 'manifesto' was 'No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.'