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
Against a Dark Background in the tank, self-identifying with the Lazy Gun and the destruction that it brings to everything it encounters. "Against a Dark Background" was rewritten from an original work of 1975. Banks said that it was the last of his old material that he had to rewrite. Banks wrote an epilogue to the book that did not appear with the published text, but is available separately online. "Against a Dark Background", Iain M. Banks, London: Orbit, 1993, (UK) (US) Against a Dark Background Against a Dark Background is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in