A Tale of Two Cities is a 1935 film directed by Jack Conway.
It is, of course, an adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel A Tale of Two Cities. The story opens in 1775. A Miss Lucie Manette, a French exile living in England, receives word that her father Dr. Alexandre Manette is not dead, but has been smuggled out of the Bastille after being imprisoned for 18 years. Lucie goes to France, collects her father, and takes him back to England. On the way she meets Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat but a forward-thinking one who believes in political reform and decent treatment for the peasantry.
Lucie and Charles don't have much time to date because after he returns to England he is arrested as a spy, on trumped-up bogus charges arranged by his horribly evil uncle, the Marquis St. Evremonde (Basil Rathbone). Charles is facing the gallows but he gets off due to the help of a clever lawyer, Sydney Carton (Ronald Colman). Sydney is smart and competent but is also an alcoholic and has wasted much of his life. Sydney falls in love with Lucie but she has eyes only for Charles, and they are married.
Years pass, Lucie and Charles have a baby, and Sydney manages to clean himself up a little bit. Then in 1789, the starving peasants of France rise up in the French Revolution. What starts out as high ideals devolves into the bloody Reign of Terror
. Charles stupidly returns to France to help a friend, is arrested, and soon faces beheading simply because he's an aristocrat. Sydney must come up with a daring plan to save Charles once again.
Unlike most adaptations of the novel, this version of A Tale of Two Cities does not use Identical Stranger, as Ronald Colman refused to play Charles as well as Sydney.note
Tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Sydney, who is always happy for a chance to drink and pretty much always is drunk unless he has to be in court. Later, the platonic affection of Lucie inspires him to cut down on the booze.
- Anaphora: Naturally, the movie opens with Charles Dickens' famous opening line."It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: The story of Dr. Manette's fatal manuscript is told in court by Madame Defarge herself. Shakespearean actress Blanche Yurka nails it with disheveled, half-crazed fury, styled rather for the stage than screen.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: They really are. The Marquis doesn't give a crap when his coach runs over a child, and the other aristocrats would rather bring in foreign troops to oppress the people, than give them bread.
- The Artifact: Jerry Cruncher being a graverobber. In the book Cruncher robs the grave of Roger Cly, and discovers that the grave only has rocks and Cly faked his death. In this movie, it's a random gag in which Cruncher's wife is horrified and his son mocks him.
- As You Know: Lucie tells Mr. Lorry that her father died "17 years ago", which Mr. Lorry already knows.
- Bittersweet Ending: Charles is saved to live a happy life with Lucie and their daughter, but only because Sydney Carton sacrificed himself instead.
- Blue Blood: The Marquis and all the other aristocrats, who face a reckoning.
- Breakout Character: Sydney Carton actually is absent for large stretches of the novel. This film, like most adaptations, makes him into the protagonist.
- The Cassandra: M. Gabelle. Gabelle was servant to the Marquis St. Evremonde, who was murdered by the Jacquerie. He tells a group of rich, lazy aristocrats that they need to do something to improve the lives of the people, lest the people rise up and do to them what they did to the Marquis. The aristocrats blow him off and decide to bring in mercenaries to crush resistance.
- Death of a Child: The Marquis's coach runs over a child as it barrels through the slums. When he realizes what has happened, the Marquis complains that his horses might have been hurt.
- Defector from Decadence: Charles St. Evremonde, who is so disgusted by his evil asshole of an uncle, and all the other rich pig aristocrats, that he goes to England, changes his name to Charles Darnay, and goes to work in a bank.
- Did I Mention It's Christmas?: Subverted. Due to its December premiere, the film contains a Christmas scene where Lucie Manette invites carousing Sydney to Christmas Mass. The invitation causes Sydney to get an epiphany that maybe he can salvage his life. The song “Adeste Fideles” becomes the film’s main theme.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Gabelle, after getting tricked into writing a letter to Darnay, gets stabbed by Gaspard.
- Dies Wide Open: There's even a zoom into Madame Defarge's staring eyes, after she loses the Gun Struggle with Miss Pross.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Revolution goes from an overthrow of tyranny to anarchic bloodthirsty violence. The mob kills not just aristocrats, but untold thousands of innocents, like M. Gabelle who sympathized with them, and the innocent seamstress that is beheaded right before Sydney at the end.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Sydney Carton, bravely facing the guillotine.
- Fainting: Lucie does when she finds out that her father is actually alive in France.
- A Foggy Day in London Town: It's foggy when Lucy, Charles, and Dr. Manette get back to England. It helps set the scene but it also veers into Ominous Fog as the two crooks the Marquis has sent to frame his nephew are watching.
- Foreshadowing: Sydney, ruminating about how jealous he is of Charles for being handsome and sober and loved by Lucie, wishes that he could "change places with him." That of course is what happens in the end when Sydney takes Charles's place in the prison and is executed in his stead.
- Gorgeous Period Dress: A lot of frilly dresses and for that matter frilly suits, as the film shows the ornately dressed aristocracy of pre-Revolution France.
- Grapes of Luxury: A sybaritic French aristocrat munches on grapes as M. Gabelle warns him and some other fancy aristocrats that they have to start treating the people better. Just to make it worse, the fat aristocrat has a pet monkey, and he feeds the monkey grapes.
- Gun Struggle: How the fight between Madame Defarge and Miss Pross ends in this version: she pulls a gun from the folds of her dress, they struggle for a bit, and the gun gets turned on Madame Defarge and fired.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: The seamstress that that dies with Sydney has blonde hair, emphasizing her innocent purity.
- Hate Sink: The Marquis St. Evremonde, who runs over a child with his carriage, sneers with contempt at the idea that poor people shouldn't starve to death, and tries to have his nephew convicted of espionage and executed solely because Charles pisses him off.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sydney Carton takes Charles Darnay's place in the prison cell and is executed in his stead.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Sydney Carton, to his boss, Stryker the solicitor. It becomes clear in court that Stryker is completely clueless and relies solely on Sydney, who's a drunk but also a very good lawyer, to feed him questions.
- I Was Never Here: "No one saw a coach leave here, understand?", says Ernest Defarge, as the coach bearing Dr. Manette trundles away.
- Love Triangle: Charles, Lucie, and Sydney. Sydney cleans up his act solely due to his love for Lucie. She for his part takes a liking to him and there's a suggestion that if they'd met first or if Sydney hadn't been such a drunkard when they first met that things might have worked out differently.
- Match Cut:
- From the wheel of the Dover mail truck, to a dog running on a wheel, which is turning a spit, which is roasting a pig.
- From the Marquis St. Evremonde's crest on Madame Defarge's little blanket hit list, to his crest on his coach as he barrels through the Paris slums.
- Missing Mom: The fate of Lucie's mother isn't even mentioned.
- Oh, Crap!: Carton and Miss Pross realise that the Defarges, having seen little Lucie as Darnay's child, will want to have her killed too.
- "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: The camera pans up to the clouds over Paris as Carton's voiceover delivers the "It is a far, far better thing I do" ending.
- Repeat After Me: Carton's considerably less competent boss Stryver rises to question Barsad in court. Carton scribbles a note saying "No questions now. Later on if you're not too silly we'll land him." Stryver then blurts out "No questions now, later on if you're not too silly—" before catching himself.
- Reign of Terror: The trope namer, as the Revolution descends into an orgy of violence.
- Sins of Our Fathers: The Defarges go after Charles Darnay simply because he's an Evremonde.
- Storming the Castle: The storming of the Bastille by an angry mob, which is the start of the revolution.
- A Storm Is Coming: There's thunder and lightning outside as Lucie and Sydney talk about life, with him making a thinly disguised Anguished Declaration of Love and her basically choosing to pretend she doesn't understand. Then Sydney looks down from the balcony and says "Look at the crowd rushing to escape the storm." Lucie says that she sometimes imagines the thunder as the "echoes of all the footsteps coming into my father's life, and mine." Cut to the French Revolution in the next scene.
- Smug Straight Edge: Charles Darnay's disapproval of Sydney Carton's drinking problem leads Sydney to say "You are smug, Mr. Darnay, when you ask why people drink." Sydney goes on to say he drinks so he can tolerate people like Charles. (Later, to himself, he admits that the real reason he dislikes Charles is that Charles reminds him of what he could have been if not for his drinking.)
- Spared by the Adaptation: Gaspard.
- Time Skip: A five-year time skip between Lucy and Charles's marriage and the third act, the French Revolution.
- Too Dumb to Live: Charles's rash decision to go back to France alone while the Terror is raging gets him a date with the guillotine.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Torch-wielding mobs march through Paris as the titles talk about how the Revolution descended into mindless violence.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Dr. Manette is able to get Charles off the hook at his trial in France, despite the latter being an aristocrat. Now everyone can live happily ever after, right? Wrong. Madam Defarge uncovers some papers Manette wrote over 18 years prior denouncing Charles's family, thereby sentencing him to death.
