Pennies from Heaven (1936)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Norman Z. McLeod

Writers:

Katherine Leslie Moore (novel)
William Rankin (story)
(more)

Release Date:

25 November 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Musical

Tagline:

FUN...when Crosby croons himself out of jail and lands on a merry-go-round with the meanest of brats! (original poster)

Plot:

Larry Poole, in prison on a false charge, promise an inmate that when he gets out he will look up and help out a family...

Plot Keywords:

Singer | Welfare | Street Singer | Orphanage | Prison

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Bing Crosby	...	Larry Poole
Madge Evans	...	Susan Sprague
Edith Fellows	...	Patsy Smith
Louis Armstrong	...	Henry
Donald Meek	...	Gramp Smith
John Gallaudet	...	J. C. Hart
William Stack	...	Clarence B. Carmichael
Nana Bryant	...	Miss Howard
Tom Dugan	...	Crowbar Miller (as Tommy Dugan)
Nydia Westman	...	Slavey - Hotel Maid
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Eugene Anderson Jr.	...	Boy (uncredited)
William Anderson	...	Western Union Messenger (uncredited)
Stanley Andrews	...	Detective Stephens (uncredited)
Frank Austin	...	Old Man (uncredited)
Georgie Billings	...	Boy (uncredited)
Stanley Blystone	...	Detective Gilroy (uncredited)
Billy Byrne	...	Boy (uncredited)
George Chandler	...	Waiter (uncredited)
Mickey Daniels	...	Hay Wagon Driver (uncredited)
Frank Darien	...	Chicken Farmer (uncredited)
Harry Depp	...	Union Costume Supply Man (uncredited)
Helen Dickson	...	Nightclub Table Extra (uncredited)
Billy Dooley	...	W. F. Arbuthnot (uncredited)
Budd Fine	...	Prison Guard (uncredited)
Lionel Hampton	...	Band Member (uncredited)
Howard C. Hickman	...	Chaplain (uncredited)
Harry Hollingsworth	...	Prison Guard (uncredited)
Arthur Hoyt	...	Collector of Taxes (uncredited)
Sheldon Jett	...	Nightclub / Dance Extra (uncredited)
Tiny Jones	...	Little Woman at Window (uncredited)
Lew Kelly	...	Sheriff (uncredited)
Gus Leonard	...	Nightclub attendee (uncredited)
Louis Armstrong and His Band	...	Musicians (uncredited)
Margaret Mann	...	White-haired Woman (uncredited)
Edward Peil Sr.	...	Old Man (uncredited)
Russ Powell	...	Coin Tosser (uncredited)
Syd Saylor	...	Sign Painter (uncredited)
Anne Schaefer	...	Lady (uncredited)
Brick Sullivan	...	Smiling Cop in Central Park (uncredited)
Harry Tyler	...	Carnival Concessionaire (uncredited)
Dorothy Vernon	...	Restaurant Patron (uncredited)
Morgan Wallace	...	Restaurant Partner (uncredited)
Charles C. Wilson	...	Warden (uncredited)

Directed by
Norman Z. McLeod

Writing credits
Katherine Leslie Moore		(novel "The Peacock Feather") (as Katharine Leslie Moore)
William Rankin		(story)
Jo Swerling		(screenplay)

Produced by
Emanuel Cohen	....	producer

Original Music by
William Grant Still		(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Robert Pittack		(photographed by)

Film Editing by
John Rawlins

Art Direction by
Stephen Goosson

Makeup Department
Robert J. Schiffer	....	makeup artist (uncredited)

Production Management
Earl Rettig	....	unit manager (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Sam Nelson	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Glenn Rominger	....	sound recordist (uncredited)

Music Department
George Stoll	....	musical director
John Scott Trotter	....	music arranger
Howard Jackson	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Louis Silvers	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)

Other crew
Norman Blackburn	....	technical advisor
Harry Cohn	....	president: Columbia Pictures Corporation of California Ltd.

Production Companies

• Emanuel Cohen Productions (as Major Pictures Corp.)

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1936) (USA) (theatrical) (as Columbia Pictures Corporation of Calif. Ltd.) (copyright owners)
• Columbia Pictures Proprietary (1936) (Australia) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures Proprietary (1936) (New Zealand) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures Proprietary (1936) (Malaysia) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures Corporation (1936) (UK) (theatrical)
• Columbia Films (1936) (France) (theatrical)
• Columbia Films (1936) (Belgium) (theatrical)
• Consorzio Cinematografico (1936) (Italy) (theatrical)
• Columbia Film Aktieselskap (1936) (Denmark) (theatrical)
• Kamera Film Aktieselskap (1936) (Norway) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures de Cuba (1936) (Cuba) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures (1949) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Sony Pictures Television (2004) (USA) (TV)

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #2402) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Filming Locations:

General Service Studios - 1040 N. Las Palmas, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Emanuel Cohen Productions

Trivia:

Louis Armstrong was hired for this movie at Bing Crosby's insistence. Crosby also insisted that Armstrong receive prominent billing, the first time a black actor shared top billing with white actors in a major release film.

Quotes:

Susan Sprague: Are you married?
Larry Poole: No, I'm sane!

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Lady with the Torch (1999)

Soundtrack:

Pennies From Heaven

The Townsend Plan

Bing Crosby was loaned out from Paramount to Columbia for this film and Columbia did no better for him in the way of budget than Paramount. Again relying on Crosby's personality to bring in the box office, if anything Columbia probably spent less money than Paramount on his films.

What they did do was give Crosby a good supporting cast, a role tailor- made for him and a good score of tunes to sing, topped by one of his immortal hits, the title tune Pennies from Heaven. This was the second of 15 movie songs introduced by Bing that were nominated for the Academy Award as best song when that award actually meant something.

Crosby's Larry Poole is a more delineated character than most of the ones he did in the 1930s. He's asked by a prisoner who's on death row to look up the family of a man he murdered and give them the key to an old house that the prisoner owned. He meets up with the family which consists of juvenile Edith Fellows and grandfather Donald Meek. He also tangles with social worker Madge Evans, but in the end all his righted.

In the real world I can't believe that civil servant Evans would ever take up with a vagabond character like Larry Poole, definitely not in this day and age. But if he's played by Bing Crosby, well.........

The film has one other interesting feature. Donald Meek mentions to Crosby a few times that while he's down on his luck now, he expects to come into a regular source of income soon. Finally Bing asks just what is this expected windfall and Meek replies, "The Townsend Plan."

Today's audience would not get that dated bit of humor, but the Townsend Plan was the brainstorm of a Doctor Francis Townsend who was a retired physician who came up with a scheme in which the elderly were to be paid in scrip (in other words money that had to be spent) and then that money would be taxed through the sales which would in turn pay for another month's scrip and so on and so on. At the time of the filming of Pennies from Heaven this plan had a lot of followers in the country which was in a depression.

Of course Townsend never got his plan passed, but a lot of historians credit him with raising such a fuss over what we did with our elderly that the result was Social Security.

One of Bing's best.