Our high school teachers were fond of telling us that movies were no substitute for reading a good book, yet they'd surely have rushed to show A Tale of Two Cities class. It's one of several 'quality' productions by David O. Selznick that follow the original texts with the kind of fidelity shown in a Classics Illustrated comic book.

A Tale of Two Cities the book is divided into three major sections, Recalled to Life, The Golden Thread and The Track of a Storm. There's a great deal of plot here along with Dickens' signature web of interrelated characters. Charles Danay's true identity is hidden from most of the characters for quite some time, and the fierce Madame Defarge turns out to have a direct connection to the Evrémonde family as well. Although a wealth of detail is naturally missing, only a few of the book's major plot points are skipped. For instance, knave-turned-good guy Barsad is revealed to be Solomon Pross, Miss Pross's long-lost brother. Any more 'family surprises' and the characters would have to start comparing birthmarks.

Selznick gives the film a marvelous cast. Ronald Colman is the embodiment of Sydney Carton's disillusion. The only complaint with the writing is that Carton must twice telegraph his character arc by telling Lucie that he's willing to lay down his life for her and those she loves. Although the scenes are straight out of the book, in the compressed film they make Carton seem like a guy looking for an excuse to die. Carton has no inner conflict with his sacrifice. He merely stares with a melancholy satisfaction as he's shunted to the scaffold, and even affords himself the luxury of comforting a fellow condemned innocent played by Isabel Jewell (The Seventh Victim). The movie stays with Carton, withholding any reassuring return to the beneficiaries of his generosity -- an unusually mature ending for a studio film. The film's final Bible quote may play as a censor imposition, but comes straight from the book.

Carton is not the only main character in the book, and the movie robs Charles Danay slightly by not giving him a chance to object to Carton's dungeon swaperoo scheme. Almost everyone else benefits greatly from the adaptation. Elizabeth Allan must have taken her role in Mark of the Vampire as a trade-off for getting this plum assignment. Edna May Oliver is able to spice up a normally clichéd part by taking the offensive in the film's only fight scene. Basil Rathbone is properly hiss-able; after his coach runs down a little boy he reprimands the Paris rabble for risking injury to his horses. The interesting Blanche Yurka (Queen of the Mob) is a zealot with a heavy self-justification to murder every 'aristo' she can find. Lucille LaVerne is the much-imitated character called "The Vengeance," a toothless hag cackling insanely at every mention of the guillotine.

This is one of the MGM pictures that solidified David O. Selznick's reputation as a class-act producer. Although it only received two Academy nominations (the studio was probably too busy promoting Thalberg productions) it was considered a total success. Conrad Nervig earned his best editing nomination in the powerful second-unit storming of the Bastille sequence. To supervise that set piece Selznick assigned a young associate Val Lewton, who chose short-subject director Jacques Tourneur to direct. The association did both of them a lot of good, especially when Selznick generously awarded them screen credit.

Selznick's own artistic contribution can be gauged by his florid, silent-movie style inter-titles, still in use in 1935. Only David O. could fill a screen with dancing French aristocrats and then cover that with a text phrase reading, "But the approaching footsteps of a bitter people found no echo in the mincing measures of the minuet."

Warners' DVD of A Tale of Two Cities is a good encoding of a cleaned-up film element of acceptable quality. 1935 film stocks weren't the best for duplication but the picture holds up well. For extras, the disc includes a 2-D copy of what was originally a 3-D novelty short called Audioscopiks, a pair of color Harman-Ising cartoons featuring Bosko and some singing bees, a trailer and a Lux radio adaptation introduced by C.B. DeMille and starring Ronald Colman.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
A Tale of Two Cities rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Very Good +
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Short Audioscopiks, Cartoons: Hey, Hey Fever and Honeyland, Lux Radio Theater radio show adaptation starring Ronald Colman, Trailer
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: October 15, 2006