Pennies From Heaven (1981) [VHS]

>**Starring: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Jessica Harper, Vernel Bagneris, John McMartin, Christopher Walken
Taken from the Sleeve:

...The time is 1934. The place is Chicago. The U.S. is shoulder-deep in the Great Depression. Everyone is searching for the other side of the rainbow, seeking a little bit of the stuff with which dreams are made.

'Pennies From Heaven' converns the yearnings, the mishaps, and the adventures of a sheet music salesman as he tries to make the lyrics of the song he carries in his briefcase become relaity. His efforts are offset by a life marked with failure, lust, deceit and injustice. yet, for brief moments his dreams and the dreams of those closest to him do come true. In his mind people and places are transformed from the bitter grimness of the day into moments of fantasy, filled with lavish musical numbers. Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters, joined with producer-directore Herbert Ross in this most original musical drama inspired by the award-winning BBC television production which was created by playwright Dennis Potter.

Do I need to go through the plot? The TV series is so well-known, it hardly seems worth it, but for anyone left on the planet unacquainted with it, the central character, Arthur, is a sheet music salesman in 1930s Depression America with a frigid wife and big dreams. The songs he sells express the dreams. He falls in love with a Chapel Girl with an abusive family, who is liberated by being Loved... The affair is doomed, and fatal.

Steve Martin is no Bob Hoskins; he has problems with doing Desperation, and he has no cutting edge. Yet I still think this Big-Budget remake of the legendary TV series is better than the original.

Why? Two reasons, really. First, the TV version did go on a bit, now didn't it? You felt Potter was padding the story beyond its natural length to fit the format. Secondly, all the songs and routines in the TV series were amateurish, under-rehearsed, stuck mainly in meagre backgrounds. In other words, The fantasies never took flight, they were earthbound.

And it's important they should fly, because the higher they go, the harder the fall in real life. And these fly the highest - Busby Berkely and Fred Astaire, in glorious colour. There's other trickery in the film too beyond the reach of 70s telly, but it's trickery that tells the truth about character and situation.

Does the glitz overwhelm the story? Not for me. It enhances it. Because we never lose sight of whose fantasies these are; they express who they are; so Eileen (Bernadette Peters) in her first solo number expresses all her repressed sexuality which Arthur is about to release. The bump back to reality is bigger and more hurtful. And I defy anyone not to have a lump in their throat during the final number - a sure test that we're still with the characters.

Steve Martin proves an ace dancer and has a fair stab as an actor, shedding his Jerk image but still wanting to be liked by the audience slightly too much. Bernadette Peters brings her Broadway skills to the part of Eileen, as well as her own personal strangeness. And Dennis Potter preserves all the essentials of his original series in a wonderfully economical, Oscar-nominated script.

This is a film which gets better with each viewing, and with the passage of time. Derided at the time of its release, it is now definitely a cult film and almost a classic.

It's in the middle of the Depression and sad sack Arthur is a traveling sheet music salesman. He dreams of the love and happiness he finds in the songs, and he longs for his wife to give him love and sex. Arthur and the other characters break into lip synching popular songs of the period to illustrate their feelings. He meets a repressed but adventurous school teacher, and depression really sets in for the viewer.

The movie is based on the strange and wonderful Dennis Potter BBC television show from 1978. In the Herbert Ross version, Steve Martin plays Arthur, Bernadette Peters the school marm and Jessica Walters the wife.

The movie has some great moments, but for me those moments are all wrapped up in the big production numbers. These are elaborate song productions with the stars dancing and lip synching. The numbers are huge Busby Berkeley fantasies in vivid color with lavish sets and costumes. And they completely overwhelm what interest there might be in the sad little story of Arthur. That's only part of the problem. At this point in his movie career, I don't think Martin had the skill or the confidence to portray yearning (as he did excellently in Roxanne). That lack of sympathy for Arthur really undercuts the story. I can't help but contrast his performance with Bob Hoskins in the original BBC production. Hoskins is so instantly likable that he automatically gives greater depth to the role.

But, ah, the musical numbers. They're great. Vernel Bagneris does a terrific shuffling dance in the rain to Pennies from Heaven. Christopher Walken is a wonder as a sleazy pimp doing a strip and tap routine while lip synching to Let's Misbehave. And the dance number in the bank with Martin and, I think, an actor named Jay Garner, is a lot of fun. Garner plays a fat, complacent, middle aged banker who turns Martin down for a loan...but then in Arthur's fantasy they break into lip sync song and dance while the banker showers Arthur with money. Garner nearly steals the scene.

Martin must have really wanted to do this movie; it shows in the terrific dance routines he handles with skill and enthusiasm. The movie itself, for me, just doesn't come off. If you like big Hollywood production numbers, though, get the disc and fast forward to them. That's what I've done after the first time I saw the movie on VHS. The Walken number alone is worth the price of the DVD. I gave it four stars because of the musical numbers.