A Tale of Two Cities

Lux presents Hollywood. The Lux Radio Theater brings you Orson Wells and Rosemary De Camp in A Tale of Two Cities. Ladies and gentlemen, your guest producer, Mr. Frank Craven. Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

Between the peoples of the English speaking world, fortunately, many strong and common bonds, respect for freedom and democracy, a sense of fair play and a love of tolerance, And to those bonds you may well add a common lot of Dickens.

There are many writers we pay homage to, but none has come as close to our hearts or moved us so thoroughly to tears and laughter as the author of tonight's great story, A Tale of Two Cities.

And I say great, not from my judgment only, but because time in the world have called it so. And Dickens himself expressed the humble hope that posterity would consider it the best thing that he had ever written.

And to him it was an attempt to explain in terms of one man's life and actions, one of the most inexplicable and violent periods of human history, the French reign of terror, when 25 million people armed with torch and sabre bathed Europe in the blood of vengeance.

Here indeed is the material of drama, recorded by a vivid and imaginative writer, and portrayed for us tonight by two stars worthy of this staunch assignment, Orson Welles and Rosemary De Camp. veterans of this stage and of the screen and theater.

Originally most of Charles Dickens' works were published in installments and came to America by sailing vessels. Records tell us of how crowd-thronged the wobs of New York City to receive the latest news of their favorite heroine, a hero.