• The Tom Walsingham Mysteries
  • Clara who?
  • Stories
  • Contact

Scribblings

~ Clara Giuliani, storyteller

Scribblings

Tag Archives: July 14th

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

14 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Silents

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, French Revolution, July 14th, silent films

Oh yes, July 14th and all that… And since we were discussing Dickens, and mentioned A Tale of Two Cities, I thought I’d put here a very, very old and very compressed silent version of Sydney Carton’s story:

Yes – the whole tale in little more than twenty minutes… Well, it was thirty minutes, originally – because this 1911 ATotC was released as a three-reeler*, but only this two-reel version survives. Still, who knows, maybe the complete one will turn up someday… These things keep happening, don’t they?

Meanwhile, it is always fascinating to see how screenwriters worked back then, with the need to cram several hundred pages of plot and characters into a handful of minutes. True, sometimes they relied on a reasonable certainty that their audiences already knew the story – and this might well be one such case – but we can’t tell for sure, because we still miss one third of the adaptation as it was originally conceived by Eugene Mullin.

For one thing, who knows whether the half-hour version would still have one little title card informing us that it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…?

___________________________________

* Three weekly one-reel installments, actually – and wouldn’t Dickens have loved that!

Seek and Find

♠ THE TOM WALSINGHAM MYSTERIES

Available on Amazon
Available on Amazon

The Copperfield Review’s first anthology – containing Gentleman in Velvet

Recent Posts

  • January Blues
  • Guest-posting at The Writing Desk
  • The kids
  • All those words!
  • One of those weeks…

Popular Scribblings

  • Turnus
  • Raising a bit of hell
  • Tales of the Mermaid Tavern
  • John Ballard, SJ
  • He Was Born with a Gift of Laughter...
  • Londons

Categories

  • Books
  • Eccentricities
  • History
  • Lostintranslation
  • Poetry
  • Scribbling
  • Silents
  • Stories
  • Theatre
  • Things
  • Uncategorized

Enter your email address to get a messenger on horseback... er, an email will reach you by email when a new Scribbling is out.

Join 1,698 other subscribers

RSS Feeds

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

No Blog’s an Island

Sapere Books

 

IBA

International Bloggers' Association

I tweet on Twitter

And I pin on Pinterest

Senza Errori di Stumpa – my Italian blog

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Scribblings
    • Join 311 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Scribblings
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar