Great Expectations (1946)

In the 1946 movie version of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, Pip is accosted by an escaped convict in a graveyard and brings him food and drink. The convict returns the favor, upon his arrest by Her Majesty's soldiers, by declaring that it was he who stole a meat pie and a dram of brandy from the blacksmith's house. Then Miss Haversham starts inviting Pip to "play" in her huge mansion (all but deserted, and with a Haunted House look completed with cobwebs). There he meets a proud, insulting but pretty girl whose company the lady encourages him to keep. This lasts until Pip turns 14 and begins his apprenticeship with Joe the blacksmith.

When he is 20, Pip is summoned to London to become a gentleman of "great expectations" by an unknown benefactor. At first he is stunned with gratitude, but within a year he comes to realize: "... in trying to become a gentleman, I had succeeded in becoming a snob." A meeting with Joe is awkward, and Pip reflects, "There no are no swindlers in this world to compare with the self-swindler." (see Denial)