Whatever their shifting status in the minds of the public — and school children forced to study them –the best proof of Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens’ enduring popularity is their durability on the silver screen. Every few decades, each of these masters of plot, character and witty dialogue are revived in a run of films that covers each writer’s Greatest Hits.

Suddenly, somebody rediscovers what delights their best works remain and a remake is attempted. And then others take up the mantle and much of this or that writer’s canon is revisited in new big screen versions.

Dickens is particularly susceptible to this, as we’re never more than a couple of years between fresh takes on “A Christmas Carol,” “Great Expectations” or “Oliver Twist.”

But perhaps his greatest tribute was paid in a 1940s and ’50s run that included definitive versions of “Great Expectations” and “Oliver Twist” by the great David Lean, the most beloved “Christmas Carol” of them all, starring Alistair Sim,” and a delightful 1952 version of Dickens’ first novel, “The Pickwick Papers.”

Lean was an acclaimed editor relatively new to directing when he made his Dickens classics, two of the most visually-striking period pieces of the monochromatic cinema. Noel Langley was a screenwriter whose credits included adapting “The Wizard of Oz” and the best “Christmas Carol” of them all. Langley is a fine example of why we list “writer” first in describing someone as a “writer/director.” His “Pickwick Papers” is period-sharp, with Oscar-nominated costumes, but hardly the eye-popping enterprise that every Lean film was. Filmed indoors and on backlots and a few select country locations, it’s a tad drab looking, to be honest.

But the man loved the language, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a Dickens adaptation that plays as witty and chatty as Langley’s “Pickwick.” And a sharp cast vamps up the broad, colorful and colorfully-named characters which instantly became Dickens’ trademark in this, his debut novel.

Character player Nigel Patrick — later seen in “Raintree County,” “Battle of Britain” and already famous thanks to “The Browning Version” — dazzles as Mr. Jingle, a “roaming actor,” confidence man and amusing scoundrel, a fast-talker who talks so fast that he leaves unnecessary words out of his boundless, breathless patter.

Consider the way his Jingle weasels his way into the affections of a dizzy “spinster” (Kathleen Harrison) who has just been scandalously seen in the arms of a man without a chaperone to maintain decorum.

“Miss Wardle… forgive intrusion... no time for ceremony… all is discovered! Come to warn you… dreadful danger… tender my services… prevent hub-bub… other hand… think it an insult… leave room.“

Then he makes his own dubious case with a torrent of lies in sentence fragment form.

“A worship from first… devoted slave… in a torment… sleepless nights… fortune of my own…”

Poor Miss Wardle, to say nothing of her would-be paramour, portly “romantic” Mr. Tupman (Alexander Gauge) never stand a chance.

Jingle is not the first “character” our quartet of “Pickwick (Travel) Club” members encounter on their “adventures” “exploring” 1830s Britain. But he becomes an instant thorn in the side of oh-so-proper Pickwick (James Hayter of “Tom Brown’s School Days” and “The Crimson Pirate”), introverted Winkle (James Arnold of “The Great Escape” and “Bridge on the River Kwai”), Tupman and perpetually perplexed Snodgrass (Lionel Murton).

Their quite commonplace travels and “studies” of the human condition are wholly-upended by the dashing, confident, fast-talking scoundrel, “rogue” and “blackguard” who takes them, assorted womenfolk and others for a merry ride.

Mistaken identities, misunderstood intentions and Jingle’s manipulations get our hapless travelers into glove-slapping duels, “breech of promise” lawsuits and the like. It’s as if one can’t check into a friendly inn, dress for a costume fete or hire a horse and carriage without mishap, and without Jingle somehow showing up to “save the day” and eventually make everything much worse.

Fops, twits, schemers, widows and wiseguys abound, and in its best scenes, many of them out of doors, “Pickwick Papers” proceeds at a prance.

Character actress queens Hermione Gingold and Hermione Baddeley make a rare appearance in the same picture together, Donald Wolfit, Harry Fowler, William Hartnett, Noel Purcell and Gerald Campion — a manservant made to look the spitting image of silent star Fatty Arbuckle — impress with broad turns and wildly eccentric facial (eyebrow) hair.

Dickens was just starting his serial-magazine-story-to-novel career, and while not every complication he invented for this crew was a dazzler, populating the scenes with a Jingle, Fogg, Buzfuz, Slammer and Nupkins all but ensured that the characters would be as funny as their names.

The middle acts are eaten up with court intrigues that tend to slow the picture to a crawl. But the colorful characters and punny, stacatto wordplay suggest this less-filmed novel is ripe for a remake. Something period perfect but with a modern “This is Britain Today” cast and feel like the recent Dev Patel “David Copperfield” seems in order for the perfect Dickens “adventure” and “exploration” of British character and the twee eccentrics who make it what it is.

Rating: TV-PG, “Approved”

Cast: James Hayter, James Arnold, Nigel Patrick, Joyce Grenfell, Hermione Gingold, Hermione Baddelely, Alexander Gauge, Lionel Murton, Donald Wolfit and Harry Fowler.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Noel Langley, based on the novel by Charles Dickens. An Arteflm release on Tubi, Amazon, etc.

Running time: 1:49