If you want a faithful, superb and enjoyable adaptation of Vanity Fair watch the BBC version from the 1990s. If you want a superb and enjoyable taster of the story - which looks stunning by the way - watch this. In fact, watch both!

It's not a perfect film: the script is a bit weak, Becky isn't as cruel and conniving as she could be and Amelia isn't as limp and pathetic. You don't quite get the parasitic dynamic between them. Rouben Mamoulian inherited this project half way through production so he wasn't completely in the driving seat. Had he been, this might have been a real masterpiece but nevertheless he still manages to create a superb piece of entertainment. Like he did with sound in his first sound film APPLAUSE just six years earlier he uses colour in this to add an extra dimension like he'd been making colour films all his life.

What else Mamoulian achieves perfectly is the sense of fun that the original novel had. This isn't meant to be a dry, stuffy and serious drama. It's a humorous satire with some silly over the top characters and this film does keep you smiling - Thackeray would be pleased, me thinks.

Squeezing nearly a thousand page novel into an hour and a half movie is quite a challenge. Fortunately this had already been done with a three hour play written in 1899 on which this film is based. To squeeze this even more into a manageable film they decided to simply concentrate on the protagonist: Becky Sharp herself. Such a long and involved story like Vanity Fair is impossible to turn into an hour and a half picture so instead we have an excellent if somewhat toned down biography of Becky Sharp. This is BECKY SHARP, not VANITY FAIR.

The supporting characters, who made it into the final edit therefore had the challenge of conveying their entire story arcs, their whole personalities and back stories into just a couple of scenes. Rouben Mamoulian just about manages to get his actors to convey what's needed without them having to over-act but with such a condensed approach you do however keep asking: so what happens to them next as the story rushes on to its next chapter.

If you're familiar with the story you'll know that as fascinating as she is, Becky is a pretty awful person. She's utterly selfish with no consideration for anyone else, smart, sneaky and conniving - but she knows those traits are what men find attractive. (She was also an inspiration for GONE WITH THE WIND's Scarlet O'Hara.) Miriam Hopkins plays this character absolutely perfectly. Allegedly, according to many of her contemporaries, she was like that in real life so maybe didn't have to act too hard? Whatever the reality was, for us the viewer she's enchantingly fabulous.