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 modern readers), Carton disreputable but magnetic. One can only suspect whose psychological persona it is that Carton and Darnay together embody (if they do), but it is often thought to be the psyche of Dickens himself. Dickens might have been quite aware that between them, Carton and Darnay shared his own initials, a frequent property of his characters. However, he denied it when asked. The novel takes place primarily in London and Paris in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It spans a time period of roughly thirty-six years, with the (chronologically) first events taking place in December 1757