Masterful Cinema

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I saw this in Britain (Blackpool of all places) in black-and-white on a disturbed television in 1963, but I could never forget the film. 50 years later I can see it again on the computer, but !N COLOUR! which was sensational, and the magic of the very simple and ordinary story appeared in full splendor. This is a fascinating and successful effort to catch the magic of life at the bottom, it's a poor family that can't afford anything, not even a cracked wedding ring, and still a small boy's sense of magic, helped on by an old Jewish tailor of singular psychological insight, brings this family to a kind of realization of all their dreams - except one. It's simply a presentation of how magic can work on even the most basic levels. To this comes the overwhelming charm of the street life of East End with a picturesque gallery of originals without end, so you could easily see this film many times and each time find new treasures; and the great acting of all the protagonists, Diana Dors, 'Britain's only blonde bomb-shell' stealing every scene she appears in, and Celia Johnson good as always, while the two characters you will remember with the greatest pleasure undoubtedly will be David Kossoff as Mr Kandinsky the old tailor, and the boy Joe, played by Jonathan Ashmore - I've never seen him again. Primo Camera as the monstrous Python and Danny Green as Bully Bason add another kind of charm and spice to the stew and enrich the colorful gallery with burlesque and sometimes awesome brutality. Finally poetry is added to it by the endearing music of Benjamin Frankel, veiling it all in lovability. This was Carol Reed's first color film and will remain a priceless gem of poetry-in-the-gutter for all times.

What a bunch of moaners. It would seem obvious to me that the mother and her son were middle class down on their luck.( note - disappeared dad) Hundreds of thousands of people found their lives turned upside down during and just after the war. Mine was. Yes, perhaps it would have been better in black and white, but can't you just suspend critical faculty just enough to enjoy the story. Nobody noticed Barbara Windsor, even uglier then than she is now. Gerald Kersh is a blast from the past. His novel 'Fowlers End' is a marvellous depiction of life amongst 'ordinary' folk between the wars.I am 70, but I cried like a babby,watching this last week

This has just been shown on the UK's Channel 4 series of Carol Reed films. I watched it having read the reviews here on IMDb. It is a lovely uncomplicated tale of a little boy in the east end of London. Were he any other age he would be an annoying brat. He is in that 6 month time of innocent acceptance of the world around him and wishing good for everyone. The cast is well picked and work nicely together. The story is secondary to the time capsule of Joe's memories which he can cherish in adulthood. It would be great to know how Jonathan Ashmore looks back on the film. I believe he never made another. There must be hundreds of childhood tales in every city. This is a particularly nice telling of one of them.

Carol Reed is one of the few directors whose work I fervently wish to explore exhaustively in the near future. I made this decision on the basis of his post-War masterpiece 'The Third Man (1949),' perhaps one of the top ten films ever made, and my resources are currently strained in the frantic search for 'Odd Man Out (1947)' and 'The Fallen Idol (1948),' of which most speak with only the utmost praise. In the meantime, I managed to tape 'A Kid for Two Farthings (1955)' on late-night television, and, though it is one of Reed's more obscure offerings, I must say that I quite enjoyed it. Distinctly British in tone, the film is a gentle and warm-hearted fantasy film, depicted through adult eyes and designed to appeal both to children and to those who once were. Set in lower-class London, the story revolves around a bright young boy, Joe (Jonathan Ashmore), who uses his pocket-money to purchase what he believes to be an infant unicorn. Reed, even with what is relatively light fair, expertly captures the warmth and spirit of the working-class community.In the hustle-and-bustle of London, a weary mother (Celia Johnson) takes care of her young son, Joe, waiting tiredly for the next letter from her husband, who is trying to make a living in the African colonies. Her neighbour Mr. Kandinsky (David Kossoff) runs a not-so-profitable tailor shop, and yearns above all else for a steam presser to make things easier for his aching bones. Mr. Kadinsky's diligent bodybuilding assistant Sam (Joe Robinson) has spent the last four years engaged to beautiful blonde Sonia (Diana Dors), but his meagre income has continually delayed their marriage; to raise the funds, he challenges a massive wrestler (Primo Carnera) to a professional bout in the ring. One day, when Joe is sent out to buy himself a puppy, he instead happens upon a runtish kid goat with a single paltry horn protruding from its forehead. Having remembered Mr. Kadinsky's tale about the magic powers of a unicorn, he immediately purchases the pathetic little creature, and so sets about improving the lives of his family and loved ones by drawing upon the wish-granting abilities of his newfound companion.By the end of the film, Joe's young "unicorn" becomes a beaming symbol of hope for the story's main characters, and (arguably) triggers an unexpected upsurge in fortunes for the lower-class battlers. Strictly speaking, the story contains nothing that might be considered implausible in true life, but Edward Scaife's vivid Technicolor photography, particularly at night, highlights the artificiality of the shooting locations and studio sets, reinforcing the film's foundations in fantasy. David Kossoff provides the film's best performance as the wizened Jewish tailor, and Jonathan Ashmore is very enjoyable in the main role; his perfect elocution may conflict with his supposed lower-class upbringing, but it also makes his every word an absolute delight. 'A Kid for Two Farthings' is most certainly an outing in fantasy, only it distinguishes its fairytale by reflecting upon it from the nostalgic perspective of an adult, emphasising the importance of make-believe in the development of young minds in difficult times, and also perhaps suggesting that, even in adults, a lit bit of child-minded optimism doesn't go amiss.