To celebrate the release of a brand-new 4K restoration of director Carol Reed’s A Kid for Two Farthings, on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 26 February, we are giving away Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!
Starring Celia Johnson, Diana Dors, David Kossoff and Jonathan Ashmore in his sole acting role, the film is packed with memorable supporting characters including the affectionate Mrs Abramowitz (Irene Handl), blowsy fashionista Lady Ruby (Brenda de Banzie) crooked jewellery salesman Ice Berg (Sid James) and finicky tailor Madam Rita (Sydney Tafler).
In the vibrant Petticoat Lane community of East London, amidst the hustle and bustle of the ancient market, small shops and open-air vendors, Joe (Jonathan Ashmore) lives with his mother, Joanne (Celia Johnson) above the Kandinsky tailor shop, where Joanne also works.
Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to make the lives of his impoverished, hard-working neighbours better. Hearing Mr. Kandinsky (David Kossoff) tell a...
Starring Celia Johnson, Diana Dors, David Kossoff and Jonathan Ashmore in his sole acting role, the film is packed with memorable supporting characters including the affectionate Mrs Abramowitz (Irene Handl), blowsy fashionista Lady Ruby (Brenda de Banzie) crooked jewellery salesman Ice Berg (Sid James) and finicky tailor Madam Rita (Sydney Tafler).
In the vibrant Petticoat Lane community of East London, amidst the hustle and bustle of the ancient market, small shops and open-air vendors, Joe (Jonathan Ashmore) lives with his mother, Joanne (Celia Johnson) above the Kandinsky tailor shop, where Joanne also works.
Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to make the lives of his impoverished, hard-working neighbours better. Hearing Mr. Kandinsky (David Kossoff) tell a...
- 2/26/2024
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Showbiz in Soho is artificial, gaudy and vulgar, but Laurence Harvey’s slick promoter-con man thinks he can cheat at the pop music game. Cliff Richard is his new discovery, a teen crooner who digs the bongo drums. Wolf Mankowitz’s portrait of talent, glitz, and double-dealing in music and TV showbiz also stars Sylvia Syms as a Soho stripper and Yolande Donlan as a singing star trying to make a comeback. The disc contains director Val Guest’s uncut original version.
Expresso Bongo
Blu-ray
Cohen / Kino Lorber
1959 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 111 106 min. / Street Date January 18, 2022 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laurence Harvey, Sylvia Syms, Yolande Donlan, Cliff Richard, Meier Tzelniker, Ambrosine Phillpotts, Eric Pohlmann, Gilbert Harding, Hermione Baddeley, Reginald Beckwith, Avis Bunnage, Sally Geeson, Kenneth Griffith, Burt Kwouk, Wilfrid Lawson, Patricia Lewis, Barry Lowe, Martin Miller, Susan Hampshire, Peter Myers, Lisa Peake, The Shadows.
Cinematography: John Wilcox
Art Director:...
Expresso Bongo
Blu-ray
Cohen / Kino Lorber
1959 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 111 106 min. / Street Date January 18, 2022 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laurence Harvey, Sylvia Syms, Yolande Donlan, Cliff Richard, Meier Tzelniker, Ambrosine Phillpotts, Eric Pohlmann, Gilbert Harding, Hermione Baddeley, Reginald Beckwith, Avis Bunnage, Sally Geeson, Kenneth Griffith, Burt Kwouk, Wilfrid Lawson, Patricia Lewis, Barry Lowe, Martin Miller, Susan Hampshire, Peter Myers, Lisa Peake, The Shadows.
Cinematography: John Wilcox
Art Director:...
- 3/5/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Top stars Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida earn their keep in Carol Reed’s powerful tale of ambition and excellence performing forty feet above a circus arena. The best circus movie ever is also among Reed’s most exciting, best directed movies, a solid show all around.
Trapeze
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Gina Lollobrigida, Katy Jurado, Thomas Gomez, Sidney James, Johnny Puleo.
Cinematography: Robert Krasker
Costume Design: Veniero Colasanti
Editorial Supervisor: Bert Batt
Production Design: Rino Mondelli
Dialogue Coach: Harriet White Medin
Original Music: Malcolm Arnold
Written by James R. Webb & Liam O’Brien from a novel by Max Catto
Produced by James Hill, Harold Hecht, Burt Lancaster
Directed by Carol Reed
For a long time it seemed that Carol Reed had been canonized for The Third Man, Odd Man Out and...
Trapeze
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Gina Lollobrigida, Katy Jurado, Thomas Gomez, Sidney James, Johnny Puleo.
Cinematography: Robert Krasker
Costume Design: Veniero Colasanti
Editorial Supervisor: Bert Batt
Production Design: Rino Mondelli
Dialogue Coach: Harriet White Medin
Original Music: Malcolm Arnold
Written by James R. Webb & Liam O’Brien from a novel by Max Catto
Produced by James Hill, Harold Hecht, Burt Lancaster
Directed by Carol Reed
For a long time it seemed that Carol Reed had been canonized for The Third Man, Odd Man Out and...
- 8/18/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“And On The Eighth Day Bava Created Color.” That’s my sentiment with every new quality restoration of a Mario Bava picture. This amazing new disc of Il Maestro’s teeth-clenched Viking epic delivers stunning action scenes and eye-bending widescreen fantasy visuals. Arrow’s Blu-ray is spiked with a new Tim Lucas commentary.
Erik the Conqueror
Blu-ray + DVD
Arrow Video USA
1961 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (Dyaliscope) / 90 min. / Street Date August 29, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Alice & Ellen Kessler, George Ardisson, Andrea Checchi, Françoise Christophe, Raf Baldassarre, Joe Robinson, Folco Lulli.
Cinematography: Mario Bava, Ubaldo Terzano
Film Editor: Mario Serandrei
Original Music: Roberto Nicolosi
Written by Oreste Biancoli, Mario Bava
Produced by Ferruccio De Martino
Directed by Mario Bava
Far too good to be slammed as a mere imitation of Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings, Mario Bava’s exciting Erik the Conqueror is one of the best of the Italian-made...
Erik the Conqueror
Blu-ray + DVD
Arrow Video USA
1961 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (Dyaliscope) / 90 min. / Street Date August 29, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Alice & Ellen Kessler, George Ardisson, Andrea Checchi, Françoise Christophe, Raf Baldassarre, Joe Robinson, Folco Lulli.
Cinematography: Mario Bava, Ubaldo Terzano
Film Editor: Mario Serandrei
Original Music: Roberto Nicolosi
Written by Oreste Biancoli, Mario Bava
Produced by Ferruccio De Martino
Directed by Mario Bava
Far too good to be slammed as a mere imitation of Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings, Mario Bava’s exciting Erik the Conqueror is one of the best of the Italian-made...
- 9/19/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Joe Robinson, 2004. (Photo copyright Cinema Retro. All rights reserved.)
By Lee Pfeiffer
Joe Robinson, the estimable stuntman, stunt arranger and occasional actor, has passed away in his native England at age 90. Robinson came from a family of wrestlers and he won the European Heavyweight Championship in 1952. Robinson drifted into the film industry initially as an actor, starring in the 1955 movie "A Kid for Two Farthings". Leading man status eluded him but he found a steady career arranging stunts for films and television shows and occasionally acting in them as well. Like many British and American actors, he gravitated to Italy in the early 1960s to appear in some of the "Hercules"-inspired strongman films that were quite popular during that era. He scored small action roles in "Barabbas" and "Ursus" before returning to England, where he had a supporting role in Tony Richardson's classic "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Rnner.
By Lee Pfeiffer
Joe Robinson, the estimable stuntman, stunt arranger and occasional actor, has passed away in his native England at age 90. Robinson came from a family of wrestlers and he won the European Heavyweight Championship in 1952. Robinson drifted into the film industry initially as an actor, starring in the 1955 movie "A Kid for Two Farthings". Leading man status eluded him but he found a steady career arranging stunts for films and television shows and occasionally acting in them as well. Like many British and American actors, he gravitated to Italy in the early 1960s to appear in some of the "Hercules"-inspired strongman films that were quite popular during that era. He scored small action roles in "Barabbas" and "Ursus" before returning to England, where he had a supporting role in Tony Richardson's classic "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Rnner.
- 7/15/2017
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Tiger Joe Robinson, a real-life British judo, karate and wrestling champion who famously engaged Sean Connery in a fierce fight in an elevator in Diamonds Are Forever, has died. He was 90.
Robinson died July 3 after a short illness in Brighton, England, his family announced.
Robinson also jumped in the ring to wrestle the Italian giant Primo Carnera in director Carol Reed's A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), which competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
In Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Robinson, who played a...
Robinson died July 3 after a short illness in Brighton, England, his family announced.
Robinson also jumped in the ring to wrestle the Italian giant Primo Carnera in director Carol Reed's A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), which competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
In Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Robinson, who played a...
- 7/10/2017
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Each week, the fine folks at Fandor add a number of films to their Criterion Picks area, which will then be available to subscribers for the following twelve days. This week, the Criterion Picks focus on nine films where some of the most famous directors in the Criterion Collection first directed a feature in color.
Saturate yourself in the vivid stylings of some of our favorite directors, wielding a whole new spectrum of expression for the very first time.
Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.
Dodes’ka-den, the Japanese Drama by Akira Kurosawa
The unforgettable Dodes’Ka-den was made at a tumultuous moment in Kurosawa’s life. And all of his hopes, fears and artistic passion are on fervent display in this, his gloriously shot first color film.
Equinox Flower, the Japanese Drama by Yasujirô Ozu
Later in his career, Yasujiro Ozu started becoming...
Saturate yourself in the vivid stylings of some of our favorite directors, wielding a whole new spectrum of expression for the very first time.
Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.
Dodes’ka-den, the Japanese Drama by Akira Kurosawa
The unforgettable Dodes’Ka-den was made at a tumultuous moment in Kurosawa’s life. And all of his hopes, fears and artistic passion are on fervent display in this, his gloriously shot first color film.
Equinox Flower, the Japanese Drama by Yasujirô Ozu
Later in his career, Yasujiro Ozu started becoming...
- 1/26/2016
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Small Creatures is the micro-budgeted first time feature from director Martin Wallace and concerns a group of teenage boys living in an estate outside of Liverpool; their bleak lives, disinterest in education and eventual, inevitable descent into drugs and gang violence. Very much in the tradition of recent films like Fish Tank and This Is England but without the same sense of social realism or grit, it is nonetheless a well produced little drama with some fine performances by young actors even if the heavy use of visual metaphors puts it more in line with 'nice-fantasy-realist' films. It's less 'Kes' and more 'A Kid for Two Farthings', so to speak. [Continued ...]...
- 7/24/2012
- QuietEarth.us
Man behind early Bond films was seen 'security risk' and BBC warned against giving him staff job
Wolf Mankowitz, one of the men behind the early James Bond films, was suspected of being a communist agent, according to MI5 files released today.
Mankowitz, who died in 1998 aged 73, introduced the Bond producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to one another. He was also involved in writing the script for Dr No and wrote the screenplay for the 1966 spoof Casino Royale.
He was one of the most successful British screenwriters of the 1950s with A Kid for Two Farthings and Expresso Bongo, a music industry satire starring Cliff Richard. The security service file released at the National Archives today shows that for more than a decade after the second world war, Mankowitz was in MI5's sights as a possible communist agent.
The file includes covert surveillance photographs of Mankowitz showing him...
Wolf Mankowitz, one of the men behind the early James Bond films, was suspected of being a communist agent, according to MI5 files released today.
Mankowitz, who died in 1998 aged 73, introduced the Bond producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to one another. He was also involved in writing the script for Dr No and wrote the screenplay for the 1966 spoof Casino Royale.
He was one of the most successful British screenwriters of the 1950s with A Kid for Two Farthings and Expresso Bongo, a music industry satire starring Cliff Richard. The security service file released at the National Archives today shows that for more than a decade after the second world war, Mankowitz was in MI5's sights as a possible communist agent.
The file includes covert surveillance photographs of Mankowitz showing him...
- 8/25/2010
- by Alan Travis
- The Guardian - Film News
Diana Dors may be famous for all those flirty, saucy one-liners, but she had a sharp, knowing wit of her own, and was more serious an actor than she gets credit for
The early 50s is remembered as an era smeared with boredom, with Billy Cotton on the wireless and rationed gruel for dinner. In such a country, the beauty and easy charm of Diana Dors must have seemed like an insult to many people.
Dors is frequently referenced as Britain's "answer" to Marilyn Monroe, but a brace of Dors's films – My Wife's Lodger (1952) and Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? from 1953 – set for DVD release by the BFI – show a vibrant and underrated star with a decidedly English sass. Aside from her role as a convicted murderer in Yield to the Night, it is usually assumed that her acting talent was wasted on fripperies, yet she also had hefty roles in another prison drama,...
The early 50s is remembered as an era smeared with boredom, with Billy Cotton on the wireless and rationed gruel for dinner. In such a country, the beauty and easy charm of Diana Dors must have seemed like an insult to many people.
Dors is frequently referenced as Britain's "answer" to Marilyn Monroe, but a brace of Dors's films – My Wife's Lodger (1952) and Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? from 1953 – set for DVD release by the BFI – show a vibrant and underrated star with a decidedly English sass. Aside from her role as a convicted murderer in Yield to the Night, it is usually assumed that her acting talent was wasted on fripperies, yet she also had hefty roles in another prison drama,...
- 6/10/2010
- by Bob Stanley
- The Guardian - Film News
Character actor and comedian who specialised in Jewish roles
Portly, balding, twinkly-eyed and sporting a moustache, Lou Jacobi, who has died aged 95, believed that he "had the look of everybody's favourite Uncle Max". Although Jacobi had been acting since he was 12, he was the sort of character actor that one could never imagine being young. He was born in the Jewish section of Toronto, Canada, and started performing as a child in the Yiddish theatre in a play called The Rabbi and the Priest, in which he was a violin prodigy. He went on to specialise in Jewish roles, both comic and dramatic, lending them that particular intonation and body language of which he was a master.
In the 1940s, Jacobi worked as a stand- up comic at holiday resorts in Muskoka, north of Toronto, a vacation spot popular with Jewish holidaymakers. He was also cast in Spring Thaw (1949), which...
Portly, balding, twinkly-eyed and sporting a moustache, Lou Jacobi, who has died aged 95, believed that he "had the look of everybody's favourite Uncle Max". Although Jacobi had been acting since he was 12, he was the sort of character actor that one could never imagine being young. He was born in the Jewish section of Toronto, Canada, and started performing as a child in the Yiddish theatre in a play called The Rabbi and the Priest, in which he was a violin prodigy. He went on to specialise in Jewish roles, both comic and dramatic, lending them that particular intonation and body language of which he was a master.
In the 1940s, Jacobi worked as a stand- up comic at holiday resorts in Muskoka, north of Toronto, a vacation spot popular with Jewish holidaymakers. He was also cast in Spring Thaw (1949), which...
- 11/16/2009
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Leading character actor Lou Jacobi appeared in numerous productions on stage, film and television during his long career including several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
He was born Louis Jacobovitch in Toronto, Canada, on December 28, 1913. He performed on stage from his youth and began his film career in England in the 1950s. One of his early film roles was as Blackie Isaacs in the 1956 fantasy A Kid for Two Farthings, about a young boy and the sickly, one-horned goat he believes is a magical unicorn.
He made his Broadway debut in the acclaimed drama The Diary of Anne Frank in 1955 as Hans Van Daan, and reprised the role in the 1959 film version. Jacobi was also seen in the 1966 spy spoof The Last of the Secret Agents? with comics Marty Allen and Steve Rossi. He was also featured in Woody Allen’s comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex...
He was born Louis Jacobovitch in Toronto, Canada, on December 28, 1913. He performed on stage from his youth and began his film career in England in the 1950s. One of his early film roles was as Blackie Isaacs in the 1956 fantasy A Kid for Two Farthings, about a young boy and the sickly, one-horned goat he believes is a magical unicorn.
He made his Broadway debut in the acclaimed drama The Diary of Anne Frank in 1955 as Hans Van Daan, and reprised the role in the 1959 film version. Jacobi was also seen in the 1966 spy spoof The Last of the Secret Agents? with comics Marty Allen and Steve Rossi. He was also featured in Woody Allen’s comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex...
- 11/7/2009
- by Harris Lentz
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
PARIS -- Oliver Stone's World Trade Center will have a 20-minute preview screening in the Cannes Classics section of the Festival de Cannes, organizers announced Wednesday. The teaser, a world premiere, will unspool after the showing of a new print of Stone's Platoon. The director and principal members of the cast are expected on the Croisette for the screening. The Cannes Classics section, which screens restored copies of classic films as well as documentaries about cinema, will pay tribute this year to the late Carol Reed. Put together by Granada International in conjunction with the British Film Institute, the tribute will screen four of the Oscar-winning director's classic movies: The Fallen Idol, Odd Man Out, The Way Ahead and A Kid for Two Farthings.
PARIS -- Oliver Stone's World Trade Center will have a 20-minute preview screening in the Cannes Classics section of the Festival de Cannes, organizers announced Wednesday. The teaser, a world premiere, will unspool after the showing of a new print of Stone's Platoon. The director and principal members of the cast are expected on the Croisette for the screening. The Cannes Classics section, which screens restored copies of classic films as well as documentaries about cinema, will pay tribute this year to the late Carol Reed. Put together by Granada International in conjunction with the British Film Institute, the tribute will screen four of the Oscar-winning director's classic movies: The Fallen Idol, Odd Man Out, The Way Ahead and A Kid for Two Farthings.
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