Review

Du Pont Show of the Month: Weaving through a French chateau, London's Old Bailey, a revolutionary Paris square with guillotine, and some 30 other sets, cutting from love duets to orgies of hate, CBS gave Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities a revival that all but burst out of the TV screen. The play roiled with revolutionary turmoil, rang with Dickensian speeches by such able players as Denholm Elliott in the role of Charles Darnay, Rosemary Harris as his wife, Eric Portman as Dr. Manette and Agnes Moorehead, who played Madame Defarge as if the revolution depended on it. But Tale was the finest hour-and-a-half for Director Robert Mulligan, 33, especially in his mob scenes, and Scottish Actor James Donald, 40, who portrayed the cynical Sydney Carton with insight and intensity. A veteran of the Old Vic stage and British movies (White Corridors, Brandy for the Parson), Donald was believable to the story's very last coincidence. As he moved toward the guillotine, he gave a freshly eloquent reading of a famed old line: "It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before." Chances are, it was.

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