Midway through watching this in class, but so far so good. Ronald Colman is amazing, I think I'll get to him more when I see the full thing and reveal a full review.

A/A-

A Tale of Two Cities is similar to Gone With the Wind in that is story adapted from a well known piece of literature, that places fictional characters in a well known historical event, and Selznick had a hand as the producer in this one and director in Wind. For me however, Cities is a much stronger film, in both its depth, character power, and overall filmmaking, it is in my mind a much higher quality piece of filmmaking, though not quite as fun. There is none of the cheese or overdramatic moments that the other has.

Much of the film's strength lies in Ronald Colman as Sydney Carton. I have never read the Dickens novel so I have no means to compare, but if he wanted to make his character incredibly humanistic, endearing, internally broken, humourous, and tragic all at once, then Colman did the job well. Without having read the book, I'd almost go as far to say that Colman does the character so well in this movie, that the level of life and human that is portrayed on screen is something words in a book just could not capture. Throughout the film the silent expressions on his face, the look of dejection as he sees Charles and Lucy living happy lives that he could never grasp, the reaction he gives when she reveals her engagement, the look on his face as he makes his decision to give his empty life meaning, in nearly every moment in the film he becomes this man. For me personally, the character of Sydney himself, his relationship with the Darnay's, and the inspiration he has to do something more in his life, is ultimatley more interesting than the plot of the film itself, and the film loses a bit of steam when he is not on-screen. He not only gives one of the most internal and human performances I have ever seen, but one of the best for males overall as well. I'm flabbergasted that the academy looked him over for even a nomination, though he later won in the late 40s.

The rest of the cast are all excellent as well, Conway knows what he was doing directing this picture. Elizabeth Allan is mostly given a depth-less role as the pretty wife, however she is sweet and charming enough that it is easy to see why she always makes people around her better. Henry B. Walthall and Blanche Yurka, among an overall near flawless cast, are also standouts. I felt that while the film is all the way from 1935 as the oldest I've ever seen, aside from a few production glitches, holds up pretty well after all this time, the characters and acting and writing is good enough to give it lasting power. The Bastille scene was a bit over the top, particularily with the captions, though it didn't last long. I was surprised at how unflinchingly tragic Dickens gets at the end of the story(I won't spoil it), because of the likability of the characters, this was one story where I inside really wanted a happy ending, but I guess that's what the intention was.

Overall, a very very good movie. It would probably make my top 100.