> A Kid for Two Farthings was director Carol Reed's first color film. He shot it in Eastmancolor, which was a rival process to the more popular Technicolor. It was also Reed's last film for producer Alexander Korda's London Films, which had produced the classics The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).

> Reed wanted to make A Kid for Two Farthings as authentic as possible, and so he shot at many locations around London, including the East End, Aldgate, Petticoat Lane, Broadgate, and St. Paul's Cathedral, Ludgate Hill. Interiors were shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey. Shepperton was the same studios where Reed had shot The Third Man and where he would later shoot the musical Oliver! (1968).

>Wolf Mankowitz's 1953 novel, A Kid for Two Farthings was based on his own life as a child growing up in London's East End Jewish community. The title gets its name from Chad Gadya, a traditional Passover song, whose lyrics include "One little goat which my father bought for two zuzim."

> A farthing was a British coin worth 1/4th of a penny. The farthing was discontinued in 1961.

>When A Kid for Two Farthings made its debut in London in May 1955 and in New York in April 1956, the critics were not overly enthusiastic. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times thought the film was slow, but that Jonathan Ashmore was "an appealing lad--a little posey, perhaps; a little precious, but a none-the-less heart-warming kid. Celia Johnson as his mother and David Kossoff as the tailor are touching, too." However, Crowther was not impressed with Diana Dors, who he called "about as sensitive as Marilyn Monroe, whom she terrifyingly resembles; and Joe Robinson, who plays Sam, looks and acts as though he'd be happier on a police horse than riding the poignant myth of a unicorn."

> Although this was Carol Reed's least successful film, A Kid for Two Farthings was the ninth most popular film at the British box office in 1955, and was nominated for a Golden Palm at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.