"Outcast of the Islands" (1952), based on a novel by Joseph Conrad, is often thought to mark the start of his creative decline. "The Man Between" (1953) is dismissed as a rehash of "The Third Man". It "makes no startling impact, such as we have learned to expect from its director, on either the mind or the heart", complained Virginia Graham in "The Spectator". While the fable "A Kid for Two Farthings" (1955), Reed's first colour film, set in the East End of London, has been claimed as one of very few authentic cinematic depictions of an Anglo-Jewish community, it suffers from the stereotyping of Jews and is no more than a "whimsical curiosity" according to Michael Brooke. It was the last film Reed made for Korda's London Films; the producer died at the beginning of 1956.