Picturegoer (Jul-Dec 1936)

Basil Rathhone as the Marquis St. Evremonde in the hands of his barber. Jack Conway, looking rather agitated, is seen reflected in the mirror directing the scene. An example of the scenes which lend an atmosphere of realism to the spectacular, revolutionary sequences in the picture. {continued from previous page) "Following this decision we found that our problem was not so great. There are only two places in the picture in which the resemblance really matters; one in the Old Bailey Trial; the other in the substitution at the prison in the final sequence. " I am hopeful that Dickensians will find our handling of these two scenes satisfactory, and will forgive us the change which we made for the sake of realism. We feel somewhat sustained in this decision by the history of A Tale of Two Cities in the ' legitimate ' theatre. Without exception, Carton and Damay have been played on the stage by two different actors. " Fidelity In Detail The Old Bailey sequence referred to by Mr. Selznick, wjis reproduced just as it looked in 1765. To the cobwebs in the comer and the cracks in the plaster, the setting was said to be an absolute copy of the Old Bailey that existed in the days when even the most minor offences against the law were punishable by death. Ancient books, some with sketches by contemporary artists and others with minute descriptions of the court as it existed almost two centuries ago, were used by M.-G.-M. art directors to create the setting. One of the dramatic scenes of the spectacular picture is enacted in this setting. It is the trial of Charles Damay, played by Donald Woods, for high treason and his brilliantly successful defence by the nonchalant Sydney Carton, created by Ronald Colman. Colman Sums Up Reams have been written in description, analysis and eulogy of the character of the immortal Sydney Carton, but it took Ronald Colman to reduce these reams to one pungent sentence. Carton, he maintains, is literature's outstanding example of the popular phrase, "Be yourself ! " "He never was anything else than entirely natural," the star says. " It was impossible for Carton to make compromises with others, with himself or with the problems of life. He w«is the most unheroic of heroes, but he had the fundamental fortitude to walk to the guillotine with a grin on his face because he was strong enough to be himself. "He lacked utterly any desire to court popularity although he was a man of brilliant talents. Indeed, he lived his life without a thought for the impression he was making on those around him. And it was this trait of character that, in my opinion, has made him live vividly for almost a century." An Unusual Event It was just this keen interest in the story of Sydney Carton that prompted Colman to break a habit of a professional lifetime. Recognised as the screen's shyest star, he had never been known to visit a film set when he was not actually working on a scene until he started on A Tale of Two Cities. Then, however, he became an interested observer of every scene of the picture as it was being filmed. His friends were astonished, for this was not at all like the Ronald Colman they knew, who usually when he is not actually working on the set is out on the tennis courts or reading in the seclusion of his own home. However, he admitted that no picture he had ever made had so intrigued him. "Some years ago," he said, "I told a fan magazine interviewer that I would like to play Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities above all other characters I knew. I have repeated that statement often since then and I still feel the same way about it." And that is surely as excellent a reason as any for Ronald to break a long-established custom ! To Go Into Details A Tale of Two Cities was actually before the cameras and microphones for five consecutive months. * * • Apart from stars and featured players, forty-nine thousand, two hundred and eight men, women and children were employed as actors and actresses. « • • Six thousand, two hundred and seventy-three persons appeared in a single scene— the storming of the Bastille. "They were photographed simultaneously by fifteen cameras, their voices recorded by twenty-seven microphones, and their actions guided by fiftyfour assistants under the guidance of Director Jack Conway. • « * Nine different settings each utilised the services of more than one thousand extra players, and twelve others more than five hundred extras each. * * * Sixty-seven tailors and seamstresses worked for eight weeks and three days preparing eight thousand, two huntlred and sixteen costumes especially designed and created for the principals and minor players. * * • Lumber used in the construction of the sets totalled 7,645,300 board feet, or enough to build the entire residential section of an average town of ten thousand inhabitants. • * • The nails used would make a pile eighty feet square and twentytwo feet high. • • • Enough electrical energy passed through the .studio meters to illuminate the sets to light every lamp in a fair-sized city between dusk and dawn every night for seven months. By contrast, one scene, a close-up of Colman, was filmed by the light of a single candle.