Curl up to a classic film during the writer's strike

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

By Mike Bressler

“A Tale of Two Cities,” MGM, 1935

  Dickens’s classic is a story of love and forgiveness. It is a story of vengeance, redemption and sacrifice set in the social turmoil and bloodshed of the French Revolution. It is not easy to make a movie of any Dickens’s classics - let alone one as involved as this one - but writers W.P. Lipscomb and S.N. Behrman and director Jack Conway have crafted an excellent adaptation that skims two hours and deserves to be considered one of the finest movies ever made.

  The film opens in England when Lucy Mannette - played by Elizabeth Allen -  discovers to her surprise,that her father is alive and being held captive in the infamous
Bastille prison in France. Lucy rushes to Paris and is befriended by Charles Darnay - played by Donald Woods -  a nephew of the notorious aristocrat Marquis St. Everymonde and a man despised by the French peasantry. Disgusted by his family’s wealth gained at the expense of the poor, Darnay denounces his heritage and travels to England to fall in love with Lucy. When falsely accused of treason, Darnay enlists Sydney Carton - played by Ronald Colman - as his lawyer.

  Colman delivers the performance of his career as the tormented and cynical yet brilliant Carton, a man who despises the human race for its weaknesses and hides his pain in drink and raucous living. Then he meets Lucy. He sees in her all that is innocent, pure and good. When Lucy marries Darnay, Carton falls back to his old ways but his love for her never dies. Meanwhile, in France, the revolution entangles them all in a web of treachery and deceit.

The European stage actress Blanche Yurka gives a terrifying and unforgettable performance as Madame DuFarge, a terribly wronged woman whose humanity was destroyed by Everymonde. When her time of revenge comes, her thirst for blood cannot be quenched and she demands death by guillotine for the guilty as well as the innocent. Her speech in court at the trial of Carton is one of the great performances of film history.

  “A Tale of Two Cities” never hurries, and never rushes through the story. Instead the story ferments slowly into a bitter wine. Conway captures the rage, anarchy, and excesses that have come to symbolize the French Revolution. This movie is not about bloodshed and hatred, but about love and being saved.

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Curl up to a classic film during the writer's strike | Planet JH News Article: Movie Reviews

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