Only their hairstyles were the same. Why do they never get the same actor to play both roles? The only thing that detracted from this otherwise excellent adaptation was, that I just didn't find it believable that people thought Dirk Bogarde and Paul Guers looked similar.
shareI've thought about this. I'll try:
Only the French revolutionaries are required to see two men as looking alike. Their mistake is informed by their hatred of the man, and what he stands for (his despicable cousin). As an individual, he has no importance to them. The only person who might want to look hard at "number 23" is Madame Defarge--and I THINK she's just been killed, right? (She doesn't show up for the guillotining). Perhaps she wouldn't notice, either--but I wouldn't count on it.
Killers of masses of people, for whatever reason they're doing it, do not look hard at each individual.
They do not look SO different. They are both young (Bogarde LOOKS young, as usual--he's 37), well dressed, about the same height (um...), and have similar hair styles and coloring; both are slender. And of course Bogarde doesn't stick his face up in the sunshine. Notice that Carton does change coats with Darnay, and the styles are somewhat different.
Or is it just a case of poetic license, and not All That Jazz? (Actually, Darnay has been freed once earlier, because of the similarities in their appearances...so it must be poetic license...)
"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird
I have to say that I did think they looked very similar, and only was able to work out who was who at the beginning from what they were doing. Until the scene at the trial, where both are onscreen together, I thought they were being played by the same man!
You have to remember that they are specifically stated to resemble each other, but for it to be quite obvious at close up they are not the same man (hence the tension in the final scenes when Darnay is trying to escape, and the fact that the girl recognises that Carton is not Darnay). I think the film managed this very successfully, more so than if they had been played by the same man. They are not supposed to be identical!
twistedude - the similarities between Sydney and Charles were supposed to be striking. The similarity helped Charles get aquitted in the English trial. The similarities were often focused on by Sydney because Charles made him realize what his life could have been like had he not wasted it. Finally, at the end, not only did Sydney have to fool the revolutionaries, he also had to fool the other prisoners, some of whom Charles knew. In the book, Sydney travels to the guillotine with a young seamstress who knew Charles from the prison and in the film, I believe he travels with a family friend (Gabelle's daughter). The two characters really ought to be played by the same actor, or else they have to look incredibly similar.
shareThey never looked to similar to me. However the producers decided not to have one actor playing dual roles.
Its that man again!!