A Kid for Two Farthings

A Kid for Two Farthings (1955)

Joe is a young boy who lives with his mother, Joanna, in working-class London. The two reside above the tailor shop of Mr. Kandinsky, who likes to tell Joe stories. When Kandinsky informs Joe that a unicorn can grant wishes, the hopeful lad ends up buying a baby goat with one tiny horn, believing it to be a real unicorn. Undaunted by his rough surroundings, Joe sets about to prove that wishes can come true.

Date of release
1955-08-15
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (31)
Runtime
1h 36m
Genres
Drama
Director
Carol Reed

Casting

Interesting facts

A Kid For Two Farthings is a 1955 British comedy-drama film directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay was adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his 1953 novel of the same name. The title is a reference to the traditional Passover song, "Chad Gadya", which begins "One little goat which my father bought for two zuzim". At the end of the film, Mr. Kandinsky softly sings fragments of an English translation of the song.

Production

Film rights to the novel were purchased by Carol Reed, who had made another film featuring a child protagonist, The Fallen Idol, a few years previously. After making The Man Between, Reed wanted to do something smaller scale.

Finance came in part from the Woolf Brothers. The movie was one of four films the Woolfs financed for Korda via Lloyds bank, being worth more than £1 million (the others were Storm Over the Nile, Richard III and Summertime).

The role of the six-year old went to Jonathan Ashmore. It was one of a number of British films around this time with a child protagonist.

The New York Times called the casting of Diana Dors "a surprise choice" because "she has made no films of consequence before and has usually been thought of as a kind of junior Marilyn Monroe."

Filming started in June 1954. It took place at the studio and on location at Petticoat Lane in London. It was Carol Reed's first movie in colour.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended