A Kid for Two Farthings (film)

Infobox_Film
name = A Kid For Two Farthings


caption = Cover of the film novelisation
director = Carol Reed
producer = Carol Reed
writer = Wolf Mankowitz
starring = Celia Johnson
Diana Dors
David Kossoff
Joe Robinson
music = Benjamin Frankel |
cinematography = Edward Scaife
editing = A.S. Bates
distributor = London Films
released = August 15,1955 (UK)
runtime = 96 min.
language = English
budget =
imdb_id = 0048250|

"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.

In the busy wholesale-retail world of London's garment district. everyone, it seems, has unattainable dreams. Then a small boy - Joe - finds 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.

Critically, this was one of Carol Reed's least successful films, however the rich ensemble cast, and the interweaving of harsh reality and fantasy remains a potent mix. The character of Kandinsky in particular is seen to embody the plight of surviving European Jews ten years after the Second World War. His mythologizing about a race of unicorns with magic powers that were destroyed everywhere but may still exist in some far-off country, can be seen as analogous to the holocaust.

"A Kid for Two Farthings" was nominated for a Golden Palm in 1955 at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film has a haunting last image, of Kandinsky carrying a tiny body to the graveyard, whilst passing in the opposite direction is a Torah-reading Rabbi.

Cast

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