A Tale of Two Cities

Everything is perfect, nothing is wrong and everything is right. The hallmark achievement of Hollywood. Period. A beautiful story of human nature, love, loss and redemption with some of the finest acting anywhere. Edna May Oliver is particularly delightful.

I was really grateful to be able to watch this high quality old picture. Character development was better than Dicken's own version.. I agree it was faster paced. I had to read it for a class and didn't have the time to fuss with its confusing circles. After seeing the movie I was encouraged to read the novel and loved the whole experience. I enjoyed watching the trouble they used to go to in set design in these old movies. It seems more authentic in some ways than our CG created sets.

Worth a view for the Ronald Coleman performance, he's always splendid but here gets to play a drunk and does it well (unlike so many others). Little else to recommend it, certainly not the script, which even softened the ending with salvation and a comely little seamstress for sex. Blanche Yurka is noteworthy as Mme Defarge and Basil Rathbone gets a few good lines as the dastardly Marquis. Elaborate courtroom sets and some pretty amazing crowd scenes if you like that sort of stuff. Would like to see this remade with someone believable as Lucy and some French flavor.

I had to read this book for school, and when I watched the movie, all the confusing or unclear parts of the book made sense to me. In my opinion, this movie is way better than the book, too, because it moves at a much faster pace.