A Tale of Two Cities (1958 film)
Encyclopedia
A Tale of Two Cities is a 1958 British
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...

 film of the Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 novel A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....

. It starred Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...

 and Dorothy Tutin
Dorothy Tutin
Dame Dorothy Tutin DBE was an English actor of stage, film, and television.An obituary in The Daily Telegraph described her as "one of the most enchanting, accomplished and intelligent leading ladies on the post-war British stage...

, and was directed by Ralph Thomas
Ralph Thomas
Ralph Thomas was an English film director, born in Hull. He is perhaps best known for directing the Doctor series of films....

.

Cast

  • Dirk Bogarde
    Dirk Bogarde
    Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...

     as Sydney Carton
  • Dorothy Tutin
    Dorothy Tutin
    Dame Dorothy Tutin DBE was an English actor of stage, film, and television.An obituary in The Daily Telegraph described her as "one of the most enchanting, accomplished and intelligent leading ladies on the post-war British stage...

     as Lucie Manette
  • Paul Guers
    Paul Guers
    Paul Guers is a French film actor. He appeared in 70 films between 1955 and 1996. He starred in the 1963 film Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance.He was born in Tours, France.-Selected filmography:* A Tale of Two Cities...

     as Charles Darnay
  • Marie Versini as Marie Gabelle
  • Ian Bannen
    Ian Bannen
    Ian Bannen was a Scottish character actor and occasional leading man.-Early life and career:Bannen was born in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, the son of Clare and John James Bannen, a lawyer. Bannen served in the British Army after attending St Aloysius' College, Glasgow and Ratcliffe College,...

     as Gabelle
  • Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....

     as Jarvis Lorry
  • Stephen Murray as Dr. Manette
  • Athene Seyler
    Athene Seyler
    Athene Seyler, CBE was an English actress.Although better known as a stage actress, she first appeared on the stage in 1909 and made her film debut in 1921, and became known for playing slightly dotty old ladies....

     as Miss Pross
  • Alfie Bass
    Alfie Bass
    Alfred Bass was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; their parents had fled persecution in Russia...

     as Jerry Cruncher
  • Ernest Clark
    Ernest Clark
    Ernest Clark was a British actor of stage, television and film.-Early life:Clark was the son of a master builder in Maida Vale, and was educated nearby at St Marylebone Grammar School. After leaving school he became a reporter on a local newspaper in Croydon...

     as Stryver
  • Rosalie Crutchley
    Rosalie Crutchley
    Rosalie Crutchley was an English actress. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music, Crutchley was best known for her television performances, but had a long and successful career in the theatre and in films, making her stage debut at least as early as 1932 and her screen debut in 1947...

     as Madame Defarge
  • Freda Jackson
    Freda Jackson
    Freda Maud Jackson was an English stage actress who also worked in film and TV. Born in Nottingham, she was famous for her stage role as the cruel landlady Mrs. Voray in the play No Room at the Inn in the mid-1940s; she appeared in the film adaptation of 1948...

     as The Vengeance
  • Duncan Lamont
    Duncan Lamont
    Duncan William Ferguson Lamont was a British actor. Born in Lisbon, Portugal, but brought up in Scotland, he had a long and successful career in film and television, appearing in a variety of high-profile productions....

     as Ernest Defarge
  • Christopher Lee
    Christopher Lee
    Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

     as Marquis St. Evremonde
  • Leo McKern
    Leo McKern
    Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO was an Australian-born British actor who appeared in numerous British and Australian television programmes and movies, and more than 200 stage roles.-Early life:...

     as Attorney General-Old Bailey
  • Donald Pleasence
    Donald Pleasence
    Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...

     as John Barsad

Production

Ralph Thomas insisted on the film being shot in black and white as he felt the book was written in black and white.The film was shot in the Loire Valley
Loire Valley
The Loire Valley , spanning , is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France. Its area comprises approximately . It is referred to as the Cradle of the French Language, and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, and artichoke, asparagus, and...

 in France with several thousand American soldiers posted nearby in Orleans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...

used as extras.

Faithfulness

Largely accurate to the novel with a few sub plots removed and the story of Doctor Manette's imprisonment moved to the beginning of the film. The other change was the ending as Carton's prophetic words were difficult to film instead he focuses on the near future seeing his companion go to her death and saying "I want to weep but I must not lest they think it is my self I weep for and who would weep for Sydney Carton? Until recently nobody in the whole world but someone will weep for me now that alone redeems a wasted life, wasted but for this final moment it is a far far better thing that I do than I have ever done it is a far far better rest that I go to then I have ever known."
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