Critical Reception
Andre Sennwald wrote in the New York Times of December 26, 1935: "Having given us "David Copperfield," Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer now heaps up more Dickensian magic with a prodigally stirring production of "A Tale of Two Cities"...For more than two hours it crowds the screen with beauty and excitement, sparing nothing in its recital of the Englishmen who were caught up in the blood and terror of the French Revolution...The drama achieves a crisis of extraordinary effectiveness at the guillotine, leaving the audience quivering under its emotional sledge-hammer blows...Ronald Colman gives his ablest performance in years as Sydney Carton and a score of excellent players are at their best in it...Only Donald Woods's Darnay is inferior, an unpleasant study in juvenile virtue. It struck me, too, that Blanche Yurka was guilty of tearing an emotion to tatters in the rôle of Madame Defarge...you can be sure that "A Tale of Two Cities" will cause a vast rearranging of ten-best lists.
Read more about this topic: A Tale Of Two Cities (1935 film)
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