A Tale of Two Cities (1980 film) Cards. 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
A Tale of Two Cities Round" and led to talk of plagiarism. Other sources are "" by Thomas Carlyle (especially important for the novel's rhetoric and symbolism); "Zanoni" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton; "The Castle Spector" by Matthew Lewis; "Travels in France" by Arthur Young; and "Tableau de Paris" by Louis-Sébastien Mercier. Dickens also used material from an account of imprisonment during the Terror by Beaumarchais, and records of the trial of a French spy published in "The Annual Register". The 45-chapter novel was published in 31 weekly instalments in Dickens's new literary periodical titled "All the Year Round". From April 1859 to November 1859, Dickens also