A Kid for Two Farthings (film)

A Kid For Two Farthings
DVD Cover Art
Directed by	Carol Reed
Produced by	Carol Reed
Written by	Wolf Mankowitz
Starring	Celia Johnson Diana Dors David Kossoff Joe Robinson
Music by	Benjamin Frankel
Cinematography	Edward Scaife
Edited by	Bert Bates
Distributed by	London Films
Release dates	15 August 1955
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

A Kid For Two Farthings is a 1955 film, directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay was adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his own novel of the same name. The film presumably gets its name from an Aramaic song traditionally sung after the Passover Seder, Chad Gadya ("A Lone Kid"), in which a kid bought for two small coins, "zuzim" in the original, stands in for the Children of Israel.

Plot

In the busy wholesale-retail world of London's East End everyone, it seems, has unattainable dreams. Then a small boy - Joe - buys a unicorn, in fact a sickly little goat, with just one twisted horn in the middle of its forehead. This, he has been led to believe by a local tailor, Kandinsky, will bring everyone good fortune.

The film has a haunting last image, of Kandinsky carrying the tiny body of the "unicorn" to the graveyard, whilst passing in the opposite direction is a Torah-reading Rabbi pushing a horn gramophone, a character that appears in the background several times during the film.

Cast

Celia Johnson as Joanna
Diana Dors as Sonia
David Kossoff as Mr. Kandinsky
Joe Robinson as Sam
Jonathan Ashmore as Joe
Brenda De Banzie as 'Lady' Ruby
Primo Carnera as Python Macklin
Lou Jacobi as Blackie Isaacs
Irene Handl as Mrs. Abramowitz
Danny Green as Bason
Sydney Tafler as Madame Rita
Sid James as Ice Berg
Daphne Anderson as Dora
Harry Baird as Jamaica
Joseph Tomelty as Vagrant
Harold Berens as Oliver

Reception

A Kid for Two Farthings was nominated for a Golden Palm at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.^[1]

Critically, this was one of Carol Reed's least successful films.

The film was the 9th most popular movie at the British box office in 1955, after The Dam Busters, White Christmas, Doctor at Sea, The Colditz Story, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Above Us the Waves, One Good Turn, and Raising a Riot.^[2]

References

↑ "Festival de Cannes: A Kid for Two Farthings". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-01.
↑ 'Dirk Bogarde favourite film actor', The Irish Times (1921-Current File) [Dublin, Ireland] 29 Dec 1955: 9.

External links

Films directed by Carol Reed

It Happened in Paris (with Robert Wyler; 1935)
Midshipman Easy (1935)
Laburnum Grove (1936)
Talk of the Devil (1936)
Who's Your Lady Friend? (1937)
Bank Holiday (1938)
Penny Paradise (1938)
Climbing High (1938)
A Girl Must Live (1939)
The Stars Look Down (1940)
Girl in the News (1940)
Night Train to Munich (1940)
Kipps (1941)
A Letter from Home (1941)
The Young Mr Pitt (1942)
The New Lot (1943)
The Way Ahead (1944)
Odd Man Out (1947)
The Fallen Idol (1948)
The Third Man (1949)
Outcast of the Islands (1951)
The Man Between (1953)
A Kid for Two Farthings (1955)
Trapeze (1956)
The Key (1958)
Our Man in Havana (1959)
The Running Man (1963)
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
Oliver! (1968)
Flap (1970)
Follow Me! (1972)

The films of Alexander Korda

As director

1910s	Watchhouse in the Carpathians (1914) The Duped Journalist (1914) Tutyu and Totyo (1914) Lea Lyon (1915) The Officer's Swordknot (1915) White Nights (1916) The Grandmother (1916) Tales of the Typewriter (1916) The Man with Two Hearts (1916) The One Million Pound Note (1916) Cyclamen (1916) Struggling Hearts (1916) The Laughing Saskia (1916) Miska the Magnate (1916) St. Peter's Umbrella (1917) The Stork Caliph (1917) Magic (1917) Harrison and Barrison (1917) Faun (1918) The Man with the Golden Touch (1918) Mary Ann (1918) Ave Caesar! (1919) White Rose (1919) Yamata (1919) Neither at Home or Abroad (1919) Number 111 (1919)

1920s	The Prince and the Pauper (1920) Masters of the Sea (1922) A Vanished World (1922) Samson and Delilah (1922) The Unknown Tomorrow (1923) Everybody's Woman (1924) Tragedy in the House of Habsburg (1924) Dancing Mad (1925) Madame Wants No Children (1926) A Modern Dubarry (1927) The Stolen Bride (1927) The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927) Yellow Lily (1928) Night Watch (1928) Love and the Devil (1929) The Squall (1929) Her Private Life (1929)

1930s	Lilies of the Field (1930) Women Everywhere (1930) The Princess and the Plumber (1930) The Men Around Lucy (1931) Rive gauche (1931) Marius (1931) Längtan till havet (1931) The Golden Anchor (1932) Service for Ladies (1932) Wedding Rehearsal (1932) The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) La dame de chez Maxim's (1933) The Girl from Maxim's (1933) The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) Rembrandt (1936)

1940s	That Hamilton Woman (1941) Perfect Strangers (1945) An Ideal Husband (1947)

As producer only

1930s	Women Who Play (1932) Men of Tomorrow (1932) That Night in London (1932) Strange Evidence (1933) Counsel's Opinion (1933) Cash (1933) Catherine the Great (1934) The Private Life of the Gannets (1934) (short) The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) Things Are Looking Up (1935) Sanders of the River (1935) Wharves and Strays (1935) (short) The Ghost Goes West (1935) Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty (1936) (short) The Fox Hunt (1936) Things to Come (1936) I Stand Condemned (1936) Men Are Not Gods (1936) Forget Me Not (1936) The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936) Fire Over England (1937) I, Claudius (1937) (unfinished) Dark Journey (1937) Elephant Boy (1937) Farewell Again (1937) Storm in a Teacup (1937) Action for Slander (1937) Knight Without Armour (1937) The Squeaker (1937) Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1937) Paradise for Two (1937) The Divorce of Lady X (1938) The Drum (1938) South Riding (1938) The Challenge (1938) Prison Without Bars (1938) Q Planes (1939) The Four Feathers (1939) The Rebel Son (1939) The Spy in Black (1939) The Lion Has Wings (1939) Over the Moon (1939)

1940s	21 Days (1940) Conquest of the Air (1940) The Thief of Bagdad (1940) Old Bill and Son (1941) Lydia (1941) To Be or Not to Be (1942) Jungle Book (1942) The Biter Bit (1943) (short) The Shop at Sly Corner (1947) A Man about the House (1947) Mine Own Executioner (1947) Night Beat (1948) Anna Karenina (1948) The Winslow Boy (1948) The Fallen Idol (1948) Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) That Dangerous Age (1949) The Last Days of Dolwyn (1949) Saints and Sinners (1949) The Third Man (1949)

1950s	The Cure for Love (1950) The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950) The Angel with the Trumpet (1950) The Bridge of Time (1950) (short documentary) My Daughter Joy (1950) State Secret (1950) The Wooden Horse (1950) Seven Days to Noon (1950) Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951) The Wonder Kid (1951) Mr. Denning Drives North (1952) Outcast of the Islands (1952) Home at Seven (1952) Who Goes There! (1952) Cry. the Beloved Country (1952) Edinburgh (1952) (short documentary) Road to Canterbury (1952) (short documentary) The Sound Barrier (1952) The Holly and the Ivy (1952) The Ringer (1953) Folly to Be Wise (1953) Twice Upon a Time (1953) The Captain's Paradise (1953) The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953) The Man Between (1953) The Heart of the Matter (1954) Hobson's Choice (1954) The Belles of St Trinian's (1954) The Teckman Mystery (1954) The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955) Three Cases of Murder (1955) A Kid for Two Farthings (1955) The Deep Blue Sea (1955) Summertime (1955) Storm Over the Nile (1955) Richard III (1955) Smiley (1956)

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