A Tale of Two Cities (1980 film) A Tale of Two Cities (1980 film) A Tale of Two Cities is a 1980 American made-for-television historical drama film directed by Jim Goddard and starring Chris Sarandon, who plays dual roles as two characters who are in love with the same woman. It is based on the Charles Dickens novel of the same name set in the French Revolution. Dickens' London-lawyer hero (Chris Sarandon) makes the ultimate sacrifice for the woman he loves in Paris during the Reign of Terror. Producer Norman Rosemont specialised in adaptations of classic novels. Most of the $5 million budget came from Hallmark Greeting
A Tale of Two Cities republished the chapters as eight monthly sections in green covers. All but three of Dickens's previous novels had appeared only as monthly instalments. The first weekly instalment of "A Tale of Two Cities" ran in the first issue of "All the Year Round" on 30 April 1859. The last ran thirty weeks later, on 26 November. "A Tale of Two Cities" has been cited as one of the best-selling novels of all time. It has been stated to have sold 200 million copies since its first publication, though this figure has been dismissed as "pure fiction" by Oxford University's Peter