Moviecut—A Kid for Two Farthings

source: A Kid for Two Farthings

I had gone through a lot of dark and lonely streets walking through early 50s film, when I asked a librarian if she knew of a film that would help me to feel not so much happy as not being ashamed of being human. She got this film for me. It is one of those flicks you find very rarely that makes you think you could feel the spirit of a different country in a different time. I was in England in the 1950s and the first real opening of hope after the war was starting to show itself in the poorest part of the country. Everyone was ready for a new life, or to find life inside themselves again, and this film really brought it out to me. I would say this is one of the best films I stumbled on in the last ten years, maybe even one of the top ten. I even learned the nursery song the title is based on. It is a treat that anyone that still wants to think of having a soul might hope to see. Watch it with my best wishes. And find some Turkish Delights to go with it.

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.

The casting for "A Kid for Two Farthings" is extremely unusual. It stars a European Champion wrestler (Joe Robinson), an ex-Heavyweight Champion boxer (Primo Carnera), a British blonde bombshell (Diana Dors) and stars a little boy (Jonathan Ashmore)! Strange...but it all works in the film. The film centers on a little boy and the folks in his neighborhood in London. The boy, Joe (Ashmore), is quite young and impressionable. So, when he's told that unicorns are real and have magical power, he's excited when he sees a one-horned goat and thinks it is a unicorn! And, through the story, the little boy thinks that he's using the 'unicorn' to brighten the lives of the people around him! It's all a rather cute little fantasy film from the famed director, Carol Reed (director of the classic "The Third Man"). Although this film is in color, part of my wishes Reed had stuck with black & white. That is because "The Third Man" is possibly the most beautifully filmed black & white film of all time. But in 1955, color was becoming more common and expected so I do understand his decision. So is it any good? Yes...which didn't surprise me given Reed was in charge. The film has many wonderful little vignettes and you really grow to like the characters because the writing is quite good. I also thought it funny that Joe Robinson played a body builder who knew nothing about wrestling...considering he was European champion in real life! Well worth seeing and surprisingly underrated.

This doesn't quite work on any level with an eclectic cast shoehorned together and giving the impression that all they want to do is get it over with, pick up their wedge and go home. The only thing that could induce me to sit through a schmaltz fest like this was Celia Johnson in the lead role. Clearly Reed had seen her as Ethel Gibbon in Coward's superb This Happy Breed and noted how well she was able to bring off a cockney despite being one of nature's aristocrats. What Reed overlooked, of course, was that he is no David Lean and Mankowitz is no Coward so that poor Miss Johnson is left floundering. What Diana Dors is doing in the same film as Celia Johnson we'll never know. Even badly miscast Celia Johnson is value for money but that's the only thing this has going for it.

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.

Wow, I can't believe reviews saying the boy was a bad actor. He is perfectly natural and adorable. Also, the color was magnificent, gritty, yet vibrant. Black and white would not have added anything to the colorful market days and red neon nights. This is a real gem and I highly recommend seeing it. I'm confused why it's considered a fantasy though, since nothing happens that couldn't happen in real life. This film really gives you a sense of place and time, and you feel you know these people and that they are real and a tight knit loving community so different from modern times. There is so much wit, wordplay and attention to detail. It's the little things that make it so nice, like the man watching ballet on the TV while the wrestling match is going on. This film is compelling and utterly charming. I highly recommend it.

Carol Reed's A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS offers a broad mix of filmmaking techniques and different kinds of genre intermingling into one successful whole. It mixes together a bunch of different sub-plots in its portrayal of life in London's bustling East End, and most of them are very successful. It helps that a seasoned cast of performers are around to bring their characters to life in a realistic way. The title refers to a child character and his quest to buy a unicorn to bring his family and friends luck. He ends up with a goat instead. The kid's performance and dialogue are a bit annoying at times, but there are fun moments like the bit where he chases his new pet through the bustling market. The goat is endearing and the small tragedy of the climax really hits home. Elsewhere, we get a realistic romance between Diana Dors and her beau, the underrated wrestler-turned-actor Joe Robinson, who gives the best performance I've seen from him. Another plot strand has David Kossoff's hard-pressed worker struggling to make ends meet, while the larger-than-life Primo Carnera is a delight as the hulking villain of the piece. This film's wrestling scenes are well staged and there's always a familiar face, like Sid James or Irene Handl, to bring colour to the background. I thought it was a great little film overall, one that brims with life and character.

I thought Primo Carnera did a good job here. His English is very good and he finally has a chance to do some acting. Probably the only chance to see Carnera, in color, as a normal person, and not as some freak of nature playing some other freak of nature.