A Kid for Two Farthings [DVD] [1955]

Carol Reed's A Kid for Two Farthings (1955) never made it to laserdisc, but Home Vision Entertainment has restored this much-loved fantasy-drama to availability on DVD. Based on the novel by Wolf Mankowitz, the movie is a mixture of neo-realism and fantasy. Part location shot and part studio creation, the setting centered on Petticoat Lane in London's East End in England's optimistic, but unsettled, postwar period -- the color shooting makes the movie a bit unusual for its subject and setting, but it holds up extremely well. The color and detail here look better than they did in various '80s videotape incarnations, even if it doesn't quite rival the work done restoring such similar vintage films as Laurence Olivier's Richard III or David Lean's Summertime. Nor was the movie ever really intended to look quite as good as those other efforts from London Films. There are some visual treats here, to be sure, principally in the guise of British blonde bombshell Diana Dors (England's answer to Marilyn Monroe), and the cast also includes Celia Johnson and future James Bond villain Joe Robinson (Diamonds Are Forever). The latter, in a plot-point central to the story, plays a body-builder turned wrestler. The audio is very cleanly mastered, giving full play to Ben Frankel's highly expressive score and allowing the myriad working-class and immigrant dialects to come through sharply. The 22 chapter markers (exceptionally well chosen and well labeled) also show an unusual degree of care for a 90-minute movie. The disc itself is programmed very simply, with the menu opening automatically on start-up and the "play" option in the default position.