Films and Filming – Mar 1958
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Directed by Ralph Thomas. Produced by Betty E. Box. Screenplay by T. E. B. Clarke. Photography, Ernest Steward. Art director, Carmen Dillon. Music, Richard Addinsell. Rank Film Distributors. British. Cert. U. 117 mins.
Sydney Carton, DIRK BOGARDE ; Lucie Manette, DOROTHY TUTIN ; Jarvis Lorry, CECIL PARKER; Miss Pross, ATHENE SEYLER ; Marquis St. Evremonde, CHRISTOPHER LEE ; Ernest Defarge, DUNCAN LAMONT ; Madame Defarge, ROSALIE CRUTCHLEY ; Charles Darnay, PAUL GUERS ; Dr. Manette, STEPHEN MURRAY; Jerry Cruncher, ALFIE BASS ; John Barsad, DONALD PLEASENCE; The Vengeance, FREDA JACKSON.
A TOUR of the tumbrils and the guillotines of the French Revolution with Orczy or Dickens is, if one is honest, far more entertaining than a heavy slice of Carlyle. One has affectionate memories, too, of M-G-M’s 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities, directed by Jack Conway. There was a spectacular set-piece of the storming of the Bastille, a delightful crinoline heroine in Elizabeth Allan and, above all, a de-moustached Ronald Colman, self-sacrificing and implacable, staring soulfully up to heaven before doing ” the far, far better thing “. For once Hollywood production values were put to excellent purpose ; the result was stimulating, certainly faithful enough to the spirit of the original.
“I set myself the task of making a picturesque story with characters true to nature…” The remark is Dickens’ own and probably supplies the answer to just what is wrong with this new British version. Written and directed by talents new to Dickens, it is anything but picturesque; it is a straightforward, completely respectable adaptation, scrupulously (often wearying) reverent to the novel’s construction, and presented with the rather colourless urbanity of a Sunday night radio serial. There is an overall impression of lifelessness, of painful anxiety to do right by Dickens at all costs.
Dirk Bogarde tackles the crusading lovesick Carton with a certain boyish charm, little subtlety and insufficient dignity. To gain sympathy for some Dickens heroines is notoriously difficult; but I would question the choice of Dorothy Tutin for Lucie Manette- mannerisms of a contemporary Jolie laide here somewhat disconcert. Faced with the bloodless, poker-faced playing of Paul Guers as the quixotic Darnay, one gladly welcomes the theatrical rantings of Rosalie Crutchley, enjoying herself hugely as the unspeakable Madame Defarge.
Location shooting in Bourges and Valencey was extensive (and presumably costly) yet the film seems oddly parsimonious in evoking the mood of eighteenth-century France. Episodes designed to show the plight of a starving people before their revolution are abrupt and cursory. Even the assault on the Bastille – repetitive scenes of running, panting extras with superimposed close-ups of cannon mouths and beating drums – fails to supply much beyond a mild excitement.
One regrets too that the death of Madame Defarge at the hands of Lucy’s companion, Miss Pross – surely, by the way, one of the most ridiculously splendid bits of Dickens melodrama – should be dismissed here merely by an off-screen pistol shot.
This one example does serve to crystallise the film’s attitude as a whole: a consistent desire to understate the action, to avoid even the slightest risk of excess. Such caution one may respect, even admire …. ultimately though it means a disservice to Dickens and certain death to drama.
RUPERT BUTLER
