You see them here in a 1938 film of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities: Lucie Manette and Sydney Carton . That is the young Ronald Coleman playing Carton and I don’t remember who is playing Lucie. It doesn’t matter because she is a stick anyway. She is very pretty if you like a blank face and 1930′s penciled eyebrows.
For strong female acting, take a look at Madame Defarge.
The two cities of Dickens’ tale are London and Paris. The Paris of this film is not airbrushed but strong, violent, overly dramatic. The London is quaint, with carolers in the street and gentility beyond belief. For that reason, the film comes alive, becomes “Hollywood,” only when the scene moves to Paris.
The mob storms the Bastille.
I decided to see this film (again) after recently reading A Tale of Two Cities (again) and being impressed by Dickens’ adroit handling of narrative in the manner of a tale. In the opening scenes I had to adjust to the rather stagey acting and mugging, a holdover from silent film days. It works rather well from the beginning for Carton’s dissolute character. In fact, as a drunk, I find him rather restrained. It turns up the heat wonderfully when the mob gets going in Paris. Here, in contrast to the dignified trial shown earlier in London, the jurors demand the deaths of innocent people.
Dickens hated injustice and the humiliations of poverty, whether in England or France, but he hated the mob and the terror more. The movie does too.
Posted by SilverSeason 
