The Pickwick Papers – 1952 | 109mins | Comedy, Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

INoel Langley’s Academy Award-nominated comedy drama is a rare treat, boasting a stellar ensemble cast all giving wonderfully memorable performances and bringing Charles Dickens carefully sketched characters to life. Langley rein’s in Dickens’s sprawling novel without sacrificing much of its jaunty good nature.

Set in mid-19th century London, the story follows the episodic comic adventures of the Pickwick Club, four staid gentlemen embarking on a grand tour of Victorian England in an effort to study human nature in an impartial and scientific manner. The wealthy bachelors of the gentleman’s club are Tupman (Alexander Gauge), Winkle (James Donald) and Snodgrass (Lionel Murton), led by their chairmen Samuel Pickwick (John Hayter). In next to no time they encounter the suave rogue Mr. Jingle (Nigel Patrick), who embroils the naïve quartet in numerous nefarious misadventures and misunderstandings of his own making.

One such mix-up results in Mr. Pickwick facing a court trial for reneging on a marriage proposal to Mrs. Bardell (Hermione Baddeley), when the jury find him guilty and hand down a £750 fine he refuses to pay and voluntarily enters a debtor’s prison. In prison Pickwick maintains his invulnerable air of innocence and soon stumbles upon some old acquaintances; Mrs Bardell who has failed to pay her crooked barristers, Mr. Jingle whose luck has finally run out and his trusty valet Sam (Harry Fowler).