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 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