Product Description “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….” Charles Dickens’ tale of love and tumult during the French Revolution comes to the screen in a sumptuous film version by the producer famed for nurturing sprawling literary works: David O. Selznick (David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, Gone with the Wind). Ronald Colman (The Prisoner of Zenda) stars as Sydney Carton ? sardonic, dissolute, a wastrel…and destined to redeem himself in an act of courageous sacrifice. “It’s a far, far better thing I do than I’ve ever done,” Carton muses at that defining moment. This is far, far better filmmaking, too: a Golden Era marvel of uncanny performances top to bottom, eye-filling crowd scenes (the storming of the Bastille, thronged courtrooms, an eerie festival of public execution) and lasting emotional power. Revolution is in the air! Bonus Content: Other: Oscar Nominated Short Audioscopicks 2 Classic Cartoons: Hey, Hey Fever and Honeyland Audio-Only Bonus: Radio Show Adaptation Starring Colman Amazon.com Ronald Colman isn’t even on screen for the most famous lines of his career (“It’s a far, far better thing I do…”), but such is the power of the moment and the performance that everybody remembers it anyway. A Tale of Two Cities was the follow-up for producer David O. Selznick and high-class studio MGM to their hit adaptation of another Charles Dickens novel, David Copperfield. While not scaling the heights of that impeccable production, Tale gives a tight, straightforward reading of Dickens’ story of the French Revolution. Colman plays the drunken romantic Sydney Carton, who pines for the lovely Lucie Manette (Elizabeth Allan) even though she marries former French aristocrat Charles Darnay (Donald Woods). Meanwhile, back in Paris, the Revolution erupts, and Darnay is fated for the guillotine… perhaps. Along with Colman’s expert study in melancholy, the film is crammed with fragrant supporting players, such as Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, and the uniquely unsettling Blanche Yurka as the endlessly-knitting Madame Defarge. In a handful of scenes, Basil Rathbone makes the Marquis de Evremonde the quintessence of clueless privilege (“With what I get from these peasants, I can hardly afford to pay my perfume bill”). Journeyman director Jack Conway doesn’t have the lovely touch that George Cukor brought to Copperfield, but Selznick hired him because “the picture is melodrama, it must have pace and it must ‘pack a wallop.'” It still does. Footnote to film history: Selznick’s assistant, Val Lewton, supervised the Revolutionary montage, and hired director Jacques Tourneur for the job; later they would team up on Lewton’s great run of B-horror pictures, beginning with Cat People. –Robert Horton

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• Factory sealed DVD

The ultimate tale of love, honor and sacrifice during the bloodstained French Revolution is movingly brought to life in this sumptuous production. The dashing Chris Sarandon (The Princess Bride) stars in dual roles as the cynical lawyer Sydney Carton and the disenchanted aristocrat Charles Darnay, both in love with the same woman (Alice Krige, Star Trek: First Contact). Also starring Peter Cushing (Star Wars), this Golden Globe-nominated version of the Charles Dickens classic thrillingly captures all the drama and emotion of one of history’s most explosive eras.

A Masterpiece Theatre Presentation James Wilby, Xavier Deluc, Serena Gordon, John Mills and Anna Massey star in this gripping adaptation of Charles Dickens’ immortal story of love and honor set against the fiery backdrop of the French Revolution. Living in exile in England, beautiful young Lucie Manette is pursued by two suitors: fellow French exile Charles Darnay and dissolute Englishman Sydney Carton. Even though Sydney openly declares that he would make the ultimate sacrifice for her, Lucie chooses Charles, unaware of his secret past and noble heritage. As the French Revolution explodes, Charles heads for Paris to help a former servant in trouble and discovers that the Reign of Terror is far worse than he realized. Anarchy is rife. Justice is no more and Charles is captured by a crowd thirsty for the blood of aristocrats. The guillotine beckons – as does the long-ago promise that Sydney made to his beloved Lucie.

Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities comes to magnificent life in a lavish adaptation of the literary classic set against the backdrop of the French Revolution. Chris Sarandon (The Princess Bride, Fright Night) takes on a dual role as French aristocrat Charles Darnay and London lawyer Sydney Carton: both of whom are in love with the beautiful Lucie (Alice Krige, Ghost Story). As the world around them grows more and more uncertain, one of them will make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love and honor.