A Tale of Two Cities (1958 film) A Tale of Two Cities (1958 film) A Tale of Two Cities is a 1958 British film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Dirk Bogarde and Dorothy Tutin. It is a period drama based on parts of Charles Dickens' novel "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859). Sydney Carton, a drunken English lawyer, discovers that Charles Darnay, a man he once defended, is a French aristocrat trying to escape the French Revolution. While he envies the man over the love of a woman, Lucie Manette, his conscience is pricked and he resolves to help him escape the guillotine. Ralph Thomas insisted
A Tale of Two Cities Thonemann, and appears to have been promulgated by poor reference checking on Wikipedia. As with other contenders for the title, such as "Don Quixote" and "Three Musketeers", available sales figures are not reliable, or indeed, for such public domain works, not available. Many of Dickens's characters are "flat", not "round", in the novelist E. M. Forster's famous terms, meaning roughly that they have only one mood. For example, the Marquis is unremittingly wicked and relishes being so; Lucie is perfectly loving and supportive. As a corollary, Dickens often gives these characters verbal tics or visual quirks such as the dints