A Tale of Two Cities (1958) - film review

In 1775, the banker Jarvis Lorry travels to Paris to be reunited with his old friend, Dr Alexandre Manette, who has been held prisoner in the Bastille for the last eighteen years.  Dr Manette is revived from his near-catatonic state when he sets eyes on his daughter Lucie and the pair leave for England to start a new life together.   Five years later, Lucie’s beau, the Frenchman Charles Darnay, is being tried at the Old Bailey for treason.   His is acquitted through the efforts of his defence lawyer, Sydney Carlton, who exploits his striking likeness to Darnay to demolish the witness testimony against him.  Darnay is in truth the nephew of the Marquis St. Evrémonde, a sadistic aristocrat who abuses his servants and treats peasants like animals.  The Marquis is loathed by many and ends up being murdered by the father of a boy he ran over in his coach.   Meanwhile, Darnay and Lucie have married, to the distress of Carlton, who realises that Lucie is the only woman he can ever love.  In July 1789, with France in the grips of a bloody revolution, Darnay receives an urgent request from one of his former servants to come to his aid.  No sooner has Darnay arrived in Paris than he is arrested and imprisoned.  Identified as a relation of the reviled Marquis St. Evrémonde, Darany is tried and condemned to death by guillotine.  To save Darany and ensure the future happiness of the woman he loves, Carlton takes his place on the scaffold.

This respectable adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities has always been overshadowed by the memorable 1935 film version, starring Ronald Colman, as well as the more recent David Lean Dickens adaptations, Great Expectations (1946) and Olivier Twist (1948).  Although it may lack the sublime artistry and passion of these other great Dickens adaptations, it is an engaging piece which retells the well-known story of revolution, unrequited love and self-sacrifice with understated poignancy.  The main selling points are Dirk Bogarde’s sombre yet humane portrayal of a man desperately looking for meaning in his life and its authentic recreation of revolutionary France.

The film was made by the same team that brought us the popular Doctor films which had made Dirk Bogarde a household name in the 1950s – producer Betty Box and director Ralph Thomas.  Whilst Thomas is clearly not in the league of David Lean, some of his work does bear favourable comparison with his more illustrious contemporary, and his A Tale of Two Cities is arguably one such film.  The film may lack focus and intensity, particularly in its dawdling first half, but it production values are as impressive as any other British film of this period.  

The stark black and white photography and frequent switches between sedate London and turbulent Paris emphasise the dual nature of the Carlton / Darnay persona – two characters linked by a tragic destiny who are in fact two faces of the same coin.   It is a pity that these two characters were not both played by the same actor (this could have been achieved using split-screen photography), particularly as the two actors that were chosen – Dirk Bogarde and Paul Guers – do not even bear a passing resemblance to one another.  

Another weak point is Dorothy Tutin’s lacklustre performance, although this is adequately compensated by some arresting character contributions from Donald Pleasence, Alfie Bass and Rosalie Crutchley (who all appear to be on a day release from a lunatic asylum).  Christopher Lee also puts in a notable turn as a deliciously nasty aristo, his last supporting role before he appeared in Hammer’s Dracula (1958), the film that made him an icon of the horror genre.  

This may not be cinema’s finest Dickens adaptation, but it captures the essence of the original novel admirably, thanks to a fine performance from Bogarde, some atmospheric cinematography and an inspired staging of the story’s tragic climax.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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