Pennies From Heaven [Soundtrack, Box set]

Those lucky enough to have watched the telecast of the groundbreaking 1978 BBC-TV miniseries PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, scripted by the late Dennis Potter, legendary maverick of English television screenwriting, will never forget the unorthodox blending of storyline and soundtrack. The plot, centred round lead character Arthur Parker (played with a charm both roguish and vulnerable by Bob Hoskins), a down-on-his-luck sheet music salesman during the Depression, could hardly be more different from the cheery, happiness-is-just-around-the-corner spirit of his musical stock-in-trade, the songs in whose sunny optimism he believes in spite of everything. As Arthur's disintegrating marriage leads him into the arms of an innocent young schoolteacher (a winsome young Cheryl Campbell) whom he seduces - and her resulting pregnancy, and, along the way, a warrant for his arrest for the murder of an orphan girl, Dennis Potter amplifies the mental and emotional states and turning points of his characters by having them break into (lip-synched) relevant song-and-dance numbers, as played and sung by many of the leading (largely English) dance bands and crooners of the period - Ambrose and His Orchestra (whose vocalist Elsie Carlisle manages the rare feat of making poutiness sound irresistible - her rendition of "The Clouds Will Soon Roll By" a guilty pleasure indeed, was one of Potter's "Desert Island Discs"), Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Orchestra, Al Bowlly (whose crooning tenor and rapid rise to radio fame made him England's closest equivalent to Bing Crosby - a career cut short by the German bomb which killed him in London in 1941 during the Blitz), the Vienna-born chanteuse Greta Keller (her cabaret-inflected version of Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon" is at least the equal of any, a pressing for the ages), the New Orleans-born Connee Boswell (who, as part of the Boswell Sisters, helped bring the swingin', black-derived vocal rhythms they learned from the family cook to a mass audience), and a dozen-and-a-half more artists rescued happily from musical oblivion. And unlike the drastically shortened soundtrack (long deleted) from the 1981 Hollywood version of PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (which starred Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters, and which used its musical interludes as lead-ins to lavish, Busby-Berkeley-style set pieces unrelated to Potter's original vision), this thank-Heavens three-disc reissue of the original tracks, with minimal surface noise and culled jointly from the collections of the BBC and veteran British dance-band scholar Sandy Forbes, weighs in at a more-than-generous sixty-nine cuts - and is an absolute godsend for anyone with the slightest affection for the popular standards of the 1930s - especially given its under-$25 list price! (Note: since the label, the Connoisseur Collection, has recently deleted its other Dennis Potter soundtrack - THE SINGING DETECTIVE - due to a combination of low sales and high license fees, the days for this item may be numbered similarly) Note to neophytes: after this year-round Christmas present to yourself, Enjoy - I envy the new world of musical discovery soon to be yours! Scott Lahti

This set will not disappoint Americans who have seen the movie, "Pennies from Heaven". The songs are in character with the film and most enjoyable. This was a pleasent surprise as I was unfamiliar with most of the British artists. The sound quality is excellent, having a minimum of 78 RPM noise, even with headphones. If you like crooners and orchestras buy this CD.

I was fortunate enough to have seen the 1978 BBC-TV mini-series, "Pennies from Heaven" and I didn't miss a single episode. I would have taken time off from work if necessary because I thought it was the most entertaining series I've ever seen. I was afraid to even blink my eyes, it was so mesmerizing. I tried to find out if the mini-series was available on video cassette but I guess it hasn't been released so I had to settle for the next best thing and that's why I ordered the CD with all the songs that were in the series. It's well worth it. I especially like the 2nd and 3rd discs. It makes people remember why songs are written (not to listen to a lot of screaming like you hear from the hard rock musicians).

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