The title is a reference to the traditional Passover song, "Chad Gadya", which begins "One little goat which my father bought for two zuzim".

Then a small boy – Joe – buys a unicorn, in fact a sickly little goat, with just one twisted horn in the middle of its forehead.

The film has a haunting last image, of Kandinsky carrying the tiny body of the "unicorn" to the graveyard, whilst passing in the opposite direction is a Torah-reading Rabbi pushing a horn gramophone, a character that appears in the background several times during the film.

[6] The New York Times called Diana Dors's casting "a surprise choice" because "she has made no films of consequence before and has usually been thought of as a kind of junior Marilyn Monroe.

But Carol managed to make the whole thing without a single reference to the character's background or religion at any point.

[12] According to the Monthly Film Herald The film was the 9th most popular movie at the British box office in 1955, after The Dam Busters, White Christmas, Doctor at Sea, The Colditz Story, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Above Us the Waves, One Good Turn, and Raising a Riot.

The film's popularity helped exhibitors vote Diana Dors the 9th most popular British star in British films (after Dirk Bogarde, John Mills, Norman Wisdom, Alastair Sim, Kenneth More, Jack Hawkins, Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave, and in front of Alec Guinness.