Review of A Tale of Two Cities

This well-mounted and visually interesting silent version of the Dickens novel is a good effort, but, of course, it pales before the 1935 version starring Ronald Colman. As a silent film it suffers from too many title cards -- an artifact, no doubt, of the fondness for the book. One searches for nice things to say about this movie, but they all have to be qualified as "For 1917." Good set design for 1917. Good composition for 1917 and so forth. Still, the acting is good, the story is there and if you want to see what was good in 1917, you can take a look at this. Or you could just stick with the 1935 version and I won't fault you.