A Tale of Two Cities: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, December 25, 1935

New York Times, December 26, 1935

Ronald Colman in 'A Tale of Two Cites,' at the Capitol – 'If You Could Only Cook.'

By ANDRE SENNWALD

Having given us "David Copperfield," Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer now heaps up more Dickensian magic with a prodigally stirring production of "A Tale of Two Cities," which opened at the Capitol Theatre yesterday. For more than two hours it crowds the screen with beauty and excitement, sparing nothing in its recital of the Englishmen who were caught up in the blood and terror of the French Revolution and of Sydney Carton, who gave his life for his friends.

The drama achieves a crisis of extraordinary effectiveness at the guillotine, leaving the audience quivering under its emotional sledge-hammer blows. As Sydney Carton faces the knife the camera climbs slowly upward, over the condemned man, the whirring death machine and the clamorous multitudes, and at last is contemplating the clean, open sky. In that moment of release from ugliness and horror, with just the square of heaven on the screen, the theatre fills with the voice of Sydney Carton as he speaks those brave, great words: "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

Produced in the studio's most lavish and careful mood, the film errs, if at all, on the side of plenty. It impresses me as rather too long for comfortable cinema-going. It has everything, which means that it leaves almost nothing to the imagination. But among much that is not strictly essential there are peaks of incident which set your heart pounding and fire your blood. W. P. Lipscomb and S. N. Behrman have made Dickens their Bible in writing the screen play. Ronald Colman gives his ablest performance in years as Sydney Carton and a score of excellent players are at their best in it. Shrewdly the studio has selected another actor to play Charles Darnay, resisting the temptation to make a dual rôle of the two parts.

You should not have to be reminded how Sydney Carton was a debauched and lonely barrister of London, whose love for the fragile Lucie Manette was the one holy thing in his mournful life. She cared for him as a friend, but married Charles Darnay, the nephew of the Marquis St. Evremonde, the most hated aristocrat in France. Darnay had come to England to live because he could not endure his uncle's cruelty to the peasantry.

When the Revolution came, so fierce was the popular hatred for the name of Evremonde that all who bore it were murdered, the innocent with the guilty. Young Darnay was tricked into returning to Paris and promptly condemned. Then Sydney Carton, unwilling to see his beloved Lucie and her little girl in pain, redeemed his wasted life by taking the doomed man's place. All this while Madame de Farge, the fanatical wife of the wine merchant, knitted fiercely and counted the heads of the aristocrats as they tumbled into the basket.

There are memorable episodes: the starving populace rioting for the meat that is being fed to Evremonde's dogs, Darnay's mock trial before the bloody tribunal and the impassioned plea of Dr. Manette for the life of his son-in-law, and, finally, the magnificent re-enactment of the fall of the Bastille. One episode, though, falls into sheer burlesque, and that is when Madame de Farge and Miss Pross engage in a struggle to the death, proving once more that women have no dignity in battle.

E. E. Clive is brilliantly funny in his brief appearance as the bored and cynical English judge. This bit will be talked about everywhere among those who see the film. Elizabeth Allan is breathlessly lovely as Lucie Manette, and the prim and gallant Miss Pross is made to order for Edna May Oliver. Basil Rathbone is a very model of cold hauteur as the cruel Evremonde. Walter Catlett, abandoning his slapsticks for the moment, is surprisingly good as the crafty and treacherous informer.

Then there are, among still others, Henry B. Walthall as old Manette, Reginald Owen as the pompous Stryver (looking as if he were born to wear these costumes), Isabel Jewell in a touching bit as the doomed seamstress and Lucille Laverne as the cackling madwoman. Only Donald Woods's Darnay is inferior, an unpleasant study in juvenile virtue. It struck me, too, that Blanche Yurka was guilty of tearing an emotion to tatters in the rôle of Madame de Farge. Sometimes she was nearer the ridiculous than the sublime, notably in her hissing and overwrought appeal to the tribunal. But you can be sure that "A Tale of Two Cities" will cause a vast rearranging of ten-best lists.

A Tale of Two Cities: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, December 25, 1935