A Kid for Two Farthings (film)
| A Kid For Two Farthings | |
|---|---|
DVD Cover Art
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| 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 |
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Release dates
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15 August 1955 |
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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.
Contents
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.[citation needed]
The film was the 9th most popular movie at the British box office in 1955.[2]
References
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- Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). A Kid for Two Farthings at IMDb
- A Kid for Two Farthings at the TCM Movie Database
- A Kid for Two Farthings at AllMovie
- Crowther, Bosley. "Screen: Whimsical Tale; 'Kid for Two Farthings' Arrives at Plaza," The New York Times, Wednesday, 18 April 1956.
- Pages with reference errors
- Use dmy dates from August 2012
- Use British English from August 2012
- English-language films
- Articles with unsourced statements from February 2016
- 1950s drama films
- 1955 films
- 1950s fantasy films
- British drama films
- British films
- Films based on British novels
- Films directed by Carol Reed
- London Films films
- Films set in London
