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.

An epically long Novel, Vanity Fair is here somehow truncated into less than an hour and a half. Made in 1935 it was the first film produced in full technicolour and it does look beautifully striking. There are also some first rate cinematic shots such as an overhead view of whirling couples on a ballroom dancefloor or a bugler standing beneath a red lantern, engulfed in its light. Silhouettes play an important part, too, most notably in the looming shadow of the Emperor Napoleon after the battle of Waterloo. To place it in its time, we have cameos from William Faversham as The Duke of Wellington and Olaf Hytten as the Prince Regent. But the leading, fictional characters are the ones that the film preoccupies us with. Miriam Hopkins in the eponymous role gives us a sparky effervescent Becky Sharp with more than a hint of brassiness and it is her 'show' with many of the novels other principal characters not getting much of a look in. Those that do make an impact are Cedric Hardwicke as a cold fish of a lecher, Lord Steyne and particularly, Nigel Bruce who gives a wonderfully amusing and endearing portrait of Joseph Sedley, the boobus Brittanicus type of role he went on to specialise in. The film is wonderful to look at and is intermittently engaging and amusing but sometimes grates on the nerves- subtle it ain't and everything, be it emotion or comedy, is overbaked.

This gorgeous film, the first full length Technicolor feature, does a fine job of capturing the spirit of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair", but the story is so rushed and condensed that it registers more as a series of incidents, rather than a flowing narrative. The only character that really registers is Becky herself - but what a character she is! Thanks mostly to its production values, the movie is very enjoyable, if not completely satisfying. Hopefully watching it will inspire more people to read the sprawling yet immensely entertaining book.