Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1936

The Contenders:

Anthony Adverse
Dodsworth
The Great Ziegfeld (winner)
Libeled Lady
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Romeo and Juliet
San Francisco
The Story of Louis Pasteur
A Tale of Two Cities
Three Smart Girls

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite

Film: A Tale of Two Cities
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I don’t like the writing of Charles Dickens. I think it’s clearly evident that Dickens was paid by the word. Sure, some of the stories are pretty good, but they’re all so overwritten and based on coincidence that I just can’t get through them. That being the case, I can’t say I was thrilled with getting A Tale of Two Cities in the mail. In fact, I’ve gotten it twice in the last week; the first copy I got was cracked. I knew the basic story going in, just not the specific details.

The story starts before the French Revolution with the release of Dr. Manette (Henry B. Walthall) from the Bastille. His daughter Lucie (Elizabeth Allan) goes to him and finds a broken man in desperate need of rehabilitation. Since Lucie has lived without her father for the 18 years of his incarceration in England, she takes him there. Sharing the boat ride with her is Charles Darnay (Donald Woods), a young and idealistic French nobleman who has renounced his title. Darnay is the nephew of the detestable Marquis St. Evremonde (Basil Rathbone). Just so you know he’s detestable, he runs down a child in his carriage and then yells at the peasants for getting in his way. As it happens, Evremonde is the man responsible for Manette’s long imprisonment.