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Post by wmcclain on Jun 16, 2019 11:05:52 GMT
A Tale of Two Cities (1935), directed by Jack Conway. A clever but drunken and dissolute barrister, redeemed by his love for a good woman. Tragically, she loves another, but that won't stop him from giving his life to save her husband from the guillotine. It amazes me we do not see more films made from this book. We get the Scarlet Pimpernel more often than Sydney Carton, which is perhaps understandable: action fantasy beats a story of love and ultimate sacrifice. Despite the cast of thousands, historical sweep, realistic sets and costumes and sturdy supporting cast, one thing brings this movie to life: the essential Ronald Colman. Maybe that's why we don't see new versions -- he is irreplaceable. The depth and sensitivity of his performance is remarkable. Watch him watching Lucie. See him sitting in church with her on a snowy Christmas Eve, out of place but thinking, wondering if there is a way back. He awaits execution, afraid but undeterred. Note how he cares for the poor little seamstress who will die with him. It's a gift to him: having someone to care for takes his mind off of his own trouble. That's a thought. Dickens shows us the horrors of the extremes: first of the callous brutality and injustice of the Ancien Régime, but then of the revolutionary mass bloodletting of The Terror. (Yes, that is what its members called the new regime). And what, by comparison, would occupy the safe, sensible center? Why, that would be England: stuffy and muddling through, but basically decent and never going too far wrong. Only in Dickens: one of the English characters is a comical grave robber. Basil Rathbone is an eminently stabbable aristocrat. Fritz Leiber, father of the SF/fantasy writer, is his assassin. Horsey Edna May Oliver pits English rectitude and gumption against the insane revolutionary zeal of Madame DeFarge, would-be child killer. The lighting and shadows seem better here than in other films of the era. Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur are both credited as "arranger: revolutionary sequences". How true.
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Post by claudius on Jun 16, 2019 11:46:29 GMT
I've been celebrating the 160th Anniversary of its serial publishing. So far I've watched the 1911 and 1917 silent versions as well as the 1958 version. Next will be the 1980 and 1989 BBC-TV Serials, and the 1980 TV Movie, and then this one for December. But the 1935 version is definitely the best. Released in December 1935, it is something of a pseudo-Christmas film. The Holiday is used as Carton's ephiphany setting, with Adeste Fideles (an anachronism to be sure) as a theme music piece. Since I first saw it on Christmas Eve 1991 it has been something of a XMAS film to me, and therefore a perennial for 20 years. Colman is perfect, even though he reluctantly had to shave his moustache and did refuse to play both Carton and Darnay (To be sure, the 1958 and 1989 versions both skipped that point). And what a cast! Claude Gillingwater's Lorry, Edna Mae Oliver's Miss Pross, Basil Rathbone's Marquis St. Evermonde, H.B. Warner's Gaspard, and Blanche Yurka's Madame Defarge. Check out Lucille LaVerne trying out for the Wicked Queen's Old Hag disguise for Disney's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS!
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Post by OldAussie on Jun 16, 2019 22:55:06 GMT
love love love this movie. Love Colman in it and Blanche Yurka is sensational.
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Post by petrolino on Jun 21, 2019 18:44:35 GMT
Sounds good, I'll keep an eye out for it, thanks.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Jun 21, 2019 21:23:25 GMT
I watched that movie about 15-16 years ago, and as far as i remember it was a very good movie.
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