Two a Penny


Two a Penny is a 1967 British film, released nationally in 1968, featuring singer Cliff Richard. The film was directed by James F. Collier and produced by Frank R. Jacobson for Billy Graham's film distribution and production company World Wide Pictures. The original story and screenplay was written by Stella Linden.
The cast included Ann Holloway, Dora Bryan, Avril Angers, Geoffrey Bayldon, Peter Barkworth, Mona Washbourne, Earl Cameron, Charles Lloyd-Pack, and Billy Graham himself, filmed at his "London Crusade" in 1967.

Plot

Jamie Hopkins is an art student and frustrated pop star who lives with his mother. She works as a receptionist for Dr. Berman, a psychiatrist who is experimenting with psychedelic drugs. Jamie wants to make money quickly, and begins to work at the doctor's office as a pretence in order to steal drugs.
When his girlfriend Carol is converted to Christianity while attending a crusade led by evangelist Billy Graham, she attempts to show him the error of his ways. Soon after, Jamie is caught stealing from Dr. Berman's drug supply, and attempting to double-cross drug dealer Alec Fitch.
Initially hostile toward his girlfriend's newfound faith, Jamie eventually accepts it.

Cast

Soundtrack album was released on Columbia Records in 1968. The album also credited the Mike Leander Orchestra and was produced by Norrie Paramor.
Track list:

Side A:
  1. Two A Penny
  2. "I'll Love You Forever Today"
  3. "Questions"
  4. "Long Is The Night"
  5. "Lonely Girl"
  6. "And Me "
  7. "Daybreak"
Side B:
  1. "Twist and Shout"
  2. "Celeste"
  3. "Wake Up Wake Up"
  4. "Cloudy"
  5. "Red Rubber Ball"
  6. "Close to Kathy"
  7. "Rattler"

    Reception

The "Billy Graham movies" were an effort to "extend the Billy Graham ministry into a filmic medium." Their standards of success were therefore not the usual Hollywood standards. This film followed one of several formulas, developing a small cult following due to several notable factors, as Peter T. Chattaway writes:

Two a Penny stars Cliff Richard, who I do admire, as well as a number of actors I fondly recognize from other British films ; because it is the only film so far in which dramatic action takes place on the actual platform from which Billy Graham speaks at the London crusade ; because it is the first film in which the title song represents a character’s troubled inner thoughts and not the message of the film; because it ends on an ambiguous note in which the protagonist’s salvation is still kind of up in the air; and for other, smaller reasons besides. Alas, the version on the WWP website is only 65 minutes or so, but I understand a 97-minute version is available on DVD in Britain... Still, even in its bowdlerized form, the film’s merits do come through.