INSPIRED BY A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Film

Among the renditions of A Tale of Two Cities—including three silent movies, Ralph Thomas’s 1958 British production, and a version televised in 1980—Jack Conway’s 1935 film is best remembered. The lavish production stars Ronald Colman as the alcoholic antihero Sydney Carton, Elizabeth Allan as Lucie Manette, and Basil Rathbone as Darnay’s despotic uncle, the Marquis. Conway’s film bristles with dramatic tension: the love triangle created when both Carton and Darnay fall in love with Lucie, the terror caused by the continuous falling of the guillotine, and the intense trial scenes. Lush with historical costumes and sets, the film adheres closely to Dickens’s original. A Tale of Two Cities was nominated for two Oscars in 1936: Outstanding Production (Best Film) and Best Editing. Its producer, movie mogul David O. Selznick, also produced David Copperfield, released the same year. Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, and Basil Rathbone had supporting roles in both adaptations.

A Far Better Rest

“To-day they guillotined Danton; and with him died the fragile dream of Clemency, and all my hopes and prayers. For if Danton the Colossus has succumbed to the Terror, this ravenous Goddess who has devoured or corrupted the best of France, what chance has any of us?” So begins Susanne Alleyn’s debut novel, A Far Better Rest (New York: Soho Press, 2000). Written in eighteenth-century language and told from Sydney Carton’s point of view, the novel takes its title from the last line of A Tale of Two Cities: “ ‘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.’ ”

In Dickens’s classic, Carton disappears in London and is absent from much of the novel’s action, returning in Paris to bring the story to its tragic conclusion. A Far Better Rest, which takes place while Carton awaits his fate at the guillotine’s blade, fills in the missing chronology of his actions. Written as Carton’s impassioned journal, the novel chronicles his devotion to Lucie Manette, his public life in French politics, his struggle with alcoholism, and his heroic rescue of Charles Darnay. Rich in historical detail (in Paris, Carton studies alongside the revolutionaries Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins), Alleyn’s novel presents an intimate account of the French Revolution, in contrast to Dickens’s sweeping epic.

The Jackal

It opens with the famous first line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” but otherwise the rock opera The Jackal, by Melbourne composer-lyricist Desmond J. Flannery, diverges markedly from Dickens’s novel. The Jackal takes its title from the fifth chapter in the second book of A Tale of Two Cities. It focuses on the relationship between the eminent lawyer Mr. Stryver and his disenchanted assistant Sydney Carton. Flannery sets this tense, power-shifting partnership against operatic and classical compositions as well as hard-edged, guitar-driven music. The Jackal is clearly influenced by Flannery’s tenure in the West End’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the 1980s and bears similarities similar to the popular musical Les Misérables. Characteristic of its larger-than-life genre, it has qualities of a 1960s or ’70s musical that oddly, instead of dating it as either anachronistic or topically limited, create a contemporary feel. Flannery has produced an album recording of The Jackal that features a twenty-three member, Broadway seasoned ensemble. He hopes to mount a full stage production.