With John Mills, Bernard Miles (a perfect Joe Gargery), Finlay Currie, Jean Simmons - who slightly disappointingly becomes Valerie Hobson, Francis L. Sullivan, Alec Guinness (his debut), Tony Wager (young Pip), Eileen Erskine (Biddy; and Vi in This Happy Breed) and Martita Hunt as Mrs - I mean of course Miss - Havisham.
A far more cinematic event that you might expect with very clever use of sound; and I had greatly underestimated the music of Walter Goehr (whose few credits include Hitchcock's Spellbound)*.
Wonderfully lit by Guy Green, including remarkable, memorable shots of the coast and St Mary's Marshes, Rochester, after Krasker was fired for not being up to the task. Lean also suggested the kids should be shot in wide 35 and 24mm lenses, then longer (50 and 75mm) when they were adults, giving the effect of making the sets look much bigger. Lean was also complimentary about John Bryan's forced perspective set designs. (This info from Chapter 18 of Kevin Brownlow's house-sized book on Lean.)
With many clever touches, such as the experimental scene before Pip collapses, and much humour (young Pip's fight with Herbert Pocket!)
As well edited as you'd expect though as credited editor Jack Harris complained to Kay Walsh he wasn't contributing anything we can deduce that Lean was all over it (Brownlow again).
* No they don't, that would be a different Spellbound altogether, a 1941 British film about spiritualism.
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