IMDb user comments for
Pennies from Heaven (1981) More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 5:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Index

42 comments in total

---

22 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Spactacular; possibly the most underrated film of the last 20 years, 7 May 2006

Author: robb_772 from United States

An Americanized adaptation of the six-part 1978 British miniseries, underrated director Herbert Ross' brilliant PENNIES FROM HEAVEN was a huge commercial flop in US when originally released. Audiences of 1981 did not seem to understand the concept of a depression-era musical, where the actors lip-synch to original recording from the in 1930s in elaborate fantasies that are far removed from the actual world in which they inhabit. Though extremely unconventional, this device is absolutely heart-wrenching as the dreariness of the real world breaks away to the brightly-colored, perpetually optimistic fantasy land that only lives in the lyrics of popular songs. It is the eternal agony of the dreamer that is expressed; the cold reality that leaves us destined to reach for the sky, but doomed to walk the earth.

This leaves the film's cast with a difficult task, as they must not only contend with their dramatic art, but also be well versed in a variety of demanding dances and highly disciplined choreography. Comedian Steve Martin is far from the first choice to portray the downtrodden protagonist in any film, but the actor acquits himself expertly in both the film's demanding dance and drama. Mousy Jessica Harper delves into her eternally repressed character so deeply that one is never certain where one stops and the other begins; a triumph of form for any thespian. Renowned dancer Vernel Bagneris is mesmerizing as the film's most ambiguous character, and his density-defying dance to Arthur Tracy's heartbreaking rendition of the title song is one of my favorite moments in any film.

Even more impressive is tough guy actor Christopher Walken's then-unexpected prowess on the dance floor, as he delivers a riotously funny and surprisingly sexy striptease to Irving Aaronson's "Let's Misbehave." In this sequence, Walken pulls off the difficult hat trick of satisfying both seasoned viewers and film neophytes, while still managing to leave both groups wanting more. Best of all, however, is the lovely Bernadette Peters in a superb, Golden Globe award-winning performance. Never before has Peters' slightly tarnished Kewpie-doll personae been better utilized, and the actress' transformation from repressed schoolmarm to hardened prostitute feels both stunningly and horrifyingly real.

Herbert Ross and his creative team manage to bind all of the pieces together into one seamless collage of lost hope, forced optimism, and never-ending desperation. Gordon Willis' cinematography is never less than completely awe-inspiring, and the combined efforts of top-drawer art and set direction and Bob Mackie's seemingly authentic period costumes helps cement the look and feel of desolate decade that the film represents. Over all films in every genre, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN would be a likely contender to receive my vote for the single most underrated film masterpiece of the last twenty years. It exudes all of the contradictory joy and heartbreak that the movies offer, and serves it all up in one stunning presentation.

---

19 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
The more I see it, 12 November 2004

Author: Pamsanalyst from New Jersey

the more I am amazed. It is the film that Chicago could have been were it not for its irony. I never saw the BBC original, but fondly remember Potter's "The Singing Detective." I can understand that Hoskin's Cockney optimism would fit Pennies' lead character to a tee, but Martin gives us a hint of the fragility of the song pusher's world, like Willy Loman, out there on a shoeshine, and for Martin, a song.

The film is innovative and definitely not your father's musical, and the songs, done up not in 1981 over-orchestration but in that tinny sound of early vinyl, just blow me away. After I saw it, I went searching for Follow the Fleet just to see 'Face the Music' in reel time.

This film will not be everyone's cup of tea. It is one of those movies that I say works best when you begin with "Once upon a time."

---

19 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Ahead of its time, 3 August 2004
Author: djfoster from Philadelphia

When Herb Ross opened "Pennies From Heaven" during Christmas of 1981 it met with harsh press and public indifference. Many concluded the musical was dead.

But "Pennies," like Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz" released two years before, is a key transitional work that juxtaposed the cynicism of the '70s to the exhilaration and escapist fantasy of its buoyant Depression era score.

Steve Martin ran the risk of alienating his fan base by trading in the "Wild and Crazy" guy for the brooding, unfaithful Arthur Parker. But he's a revelation. And what a dancer!

It was no surprise when audiences stayed away.

By all means watch it today, particularly on the new widescreen DVD release. You'll walk away with a greater appreciation of Christopher Walken, Bernadette Peters and especially Steve Martin.

It makes it so much harder to watch this major talent wasting himself in such tripe as "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Bringing Down the House."

---

21 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Diamond in the rough, 23 June 2003
Author: roseofsharon from San Francisco, California

If you are truly interested in seeing this film, please read the review written by Pauline Kael, who with her unique voice, says everything I am about to try to say, perfectly. This may not be a movie for everybody. First, you may have to have some patience for musicals. And secondly, you may have to have patience for complex people and their problems. I have watched this movie with two friends, and the first yawned everytime the actors opened their mouths to lip sync the beautiful and strange Depression era songs. The second found the role played by Steve Martin heartbreaking, and could not watch the entire film. But I think this movie can be extremely rewarding, and have found myself watching it a least once a year for the past few years. I think the Depression makes an excellent back round in this bittersweet story of blind optimism, and this movie greatly inspires my imagination. I imagine the whole U.S. as it was in the early part of the century, filled with millions of dreamers, greedy for sex and love and money, just like people are now, only now most people have a shot at a least one of those things, and during the depression, beautiful and hopelessly empty dreams were everywhere, as poverty crushed lives right and left. Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters are as connected and magical together as they are in the Jerk. In fact, everything I love about The Jerk is what I love about Pennies From Heaven. Some of the musical sequences are breathtaking, particularly a dance number performed by Christopher Walken ! And the subtle beauty of the last song sung by Steve Martin, I don't know how to describe it. In closing, this movie is not for everybody. But I know I am not the only person out there who will see this movie as the unique gift that it is. Please give it a shot.

---

13 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
25 years later the crowd is ready., 6 February 2005

Author: ptb-8 from Australia

I am glad I don't live in Frostbite Falls because I might shiver at the thought of such a complex and clever film as PENNIES FROM HEAVEN. Made with a massive 1980 budget of $22 million and all of it up there on the screen, this genuine masterwork is one of the great unappreciated and misunderstood films of its day. The biggest hurdle the film could not overcome (then) was the casting of comedy stars in Art Deco darkness. Steve Martin had just scored a bullseye in the wild comedy THE JERK. For mainstream audiences to even then turn around and slightly embrace the sad loneliness of PENNIES' aching melancholy is impossible. PENNIES' failed and was consigned to misfire history. Today in 2005 this film deserves to stand with CHICAGO or even MOULIN ROUGE in its sly dark new century crowd pleaser theatrics. It is a film for this century and if audiences today have the chance to appreciate and applaud it's brilliant creative slant and dramatic spectacle, it will be a success. Possibly in the same ironic fantasy manner of THE PIRATE or YOLANDA AND THE THIEF, or LADY IN THE DARK of the 40s, ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER from 1955, maybe THE BOYFRIEND of the 70s and even the original 1988 HAIRSPRAY by John Waters, PENNIES' belongs to that rare style of musical spectacle: the emotional fantasy with a dark satire core. Truly great.

---

11 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Excellent adaptation of the BBC classic, 7 June 2005

Author: dancingmike from Baltimore, MD

Much has already been written here saying positive things about Pennies From Heaven, but the best reason for the excellence of the film lies in the fact that the screenplay was written by Dennis Potter. I give the film a 9 and the BBC series a 10+++. There is so much more to this story than can be told in a single film.

Potter wrote what I consider the two most brilliant series ever on television, Pennies From Heaven starring Bob Hoskins and The Singing Detective starring Michael Gambon. Both were dark films with more than their share of irony. Potter interjected popular music of the eras into the story lines in their original versions lip-synced by the actors. These films aren't for casual viewers. You need to keep your brain attached and operating all the time, so smart is Potter's writing. Those of us who make the effort are rewarded with stories of sheer genius.

The jump from England in the BBC mini-series to the US in the films works better than I would have imagined. I give all the credit to the producers who had the good sense to have Potter do the screenplays for both films. They are translated to a similar mood and setting and the music is well integrated. I think the adaptation of The Singing Detective is more like the BBC version because the numbers aren't so overproduced as in Pennies From Heaven. On the other hand, the cast of Pennies is a powerhouse of musical talent with Bernadette Peters and Christopher Walken and the surprisingly good Steve Martin. With lesser talent in both the writing and acting the big production numbers would have overwhelmed the story.

Watch the US films first and then follow them up with the BBC versions. Make the intellectual investment and reap your rewards. These BBC series are brilliant. If you need more mental stimulation after these two series have boosted your IQ, try to hunt down Lipstick On Your Collar. This is a later Dennis Potter BBC series based on what turned out to be the "final straw" in the fall of the British Empire, the loss of Egypt and the Suez Canal to a considerably out manned and out gunned Egyptian army. This, too, could work as a film (obviously not translated to the US), but only if Dennis Potter could be reincarnated to do the screenplay.

---

4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
It rains on its own parade..., 21 October 2007

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Heavy-going, off-putting Depression-era musical (set to old recordings of the 1930s) is quite elaborate and usually looks good, but is filled with ciphers. Steve Martin, in a fair dramatic acting turn, plays a sex-obsessed sheet-music salesman in Chicago with no conscience who cheats on his frigid wife with a schoolteacher, later becoming involved in a murder investigation. Unfortunately for Martin, this character is such a crude, lascivious lout, we don't really care about his fate or whether or not his teacher-girlfriend (now a prostitute) leaves him. Jessica Harper (as the cold-fish wife) is every married man's nightmare: the bride-turned-shrew; Bernadette Peters is somewhat more sympathetic as the lover, and gets to utilize her natural Kewpie doll-ness to fantastic effect in the musical numbers. But, for the most part, "Pennies From Heaven" is peopled with low-lifes. The extravagant showstoppers, fantasy sequences designed like mini Busby Berkeley movies, are breathlessly intricate and exciting to watch, but they provide little emotional subtext for what's happening in the real world (I don't know if original creator Dennis Potter meant it or not, but the material plays like "Up the Sandbox" with music). Herbert Ross directed with a heavy hand, though he does get some fine moments from his cast, especially Christopher Walken as a hoofing pimp. An expensive remake of a British mini-series starring Bob Hoskins, the movie ultimately feels a bit claustrophobic and sluggish, and has an unsatisfying wrap-up to its reedy-thin plot. **1/2 from ****

---

8 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Solving the Musical Problem, 9 August 2004

Author: marcslope

One reason musicals have been going out of style for the past

30-odd years is that audiences simply don't buy the escapism and

optimism that permeated the genre in its heyday. This lavish and

biting 1981 work solves the problem brilliantly by using the upbeat

nature of '30s popular song ironically. The production numbers,

and there are many, are toe-tapping, feel-good entities that play in

devastating counterpoint to the somber narrative. The production

design is amazing, Martin a surprisingly sympathetic Everyman

with some rough edges, Peters perfection, Walken amazing in his

one scene (imagine what a brilliant Pal Joey he would have

made). But then, everybody in this movie seems to be performing

at his peak: Even Marvin Hamlisch, whose musical scoring is

usually so soppy and obvious, comes through. A salute, too, to

Herbert Ross and his wife, Nora Kaye, for employing so many

wonderful stage-trained dancers who seldom got a chance to

shine on film: Robert Fitch, Vernel Bagneris, and Tommy Rall, who

was so splendid in the movie of "Kiss Me, Kate." As far as I'm

concerned, the movie's a masterpiece -- but nobody went to see it,

and Ross reacted by making nothing but safe, mainstream

entertainment for the rest of his life. At least this one shows the

audacity and power of which he was capable.

---

3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
The state of the movie musical: All is not lost!, 7 January 2000

Author: shrine-2

Has it been over a decade since a really good movie musical has come out? "Evita" is an extended music video; and "The Bodyguard" is a stale idea from the seventies that Whitney Houston was expected to salvage with her singing. When you look back, the movie musical of recent note has taken shelter in the imagination of the animated film industry. (Disney put out almost all of the them.) But for a good musical with real actors, I can only remember movies like Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense" which is more a concert movie than a musical; "Bizet's Carmen" which is more filmed opera; and "Amadeus," and that's going back more than fifteen years.

Where are the talents that could create new musical happenings in the movies? I'm not a fan of hip-hop or rap, and there's probably enough music videos playing the stuff to fill miles of film. But its place in big screen movies is ancillary--part of the score, or a director's afterthought. If there is a movie musical that suggests what possibilities the right people with a good idea and the talent can draw from the tradition, it's "Pennies from Heaven."

This is a stunning work of movie art. To find musical numbers this evocative, you need to go back to something like "Top Hat." It's a supernal pleasure just recalling Vernel Bagneris slow-dancing in a shower of scintillating tokens or how surprised I was at the dexterity of Christopher Walken's hoofing or how close to Steve Martin's Arthur I felt when he opens his mouth and out pops Connie Boswell's haunting refrain.

I cannot deny that I find the "reality" Dennis Potter has created jarring, and by the time, Arthur paints rings around his revolted wife Joan's nipples, you feel director Herbert Ross ("Goodbye, Mr. Chips") should have spared Joan--and us--this indignity with a more discreet camera setup. If their point is to slap us back to reality after a wonderful flight of fancy, it needs to be more pointed and funnier. It's not, and some people find the lurid aspects of Potter's creations insulting. It may explain why this movie was a flop at the box office. Maybe it was too coarse and too precious all at once.

But when Ken Adams can pull together some of the most serviceably beautiful sets ever to grace a movie; when Bob Mackie pulls out all reserves and furnishes the cast with some of the most sumptuous costumes they'll ever wear; when Marvin Hamlisch makes bright, smart choices of music memorabilia; when the incomparable Gordon Willis creates the kinds of visions that leave you glued to the screen; why quibble? The state of the musical may be to some on its last breath, but with "Pennies from Heaven" to look back on, it seems to be saying "All is not lost." If the right people come together, there are wonderful things to imagine on the horizon.

---

8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Loved The Hilarious, Innovative Musical Numbers; Hated The Depressing Story, 10 January 2007

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

Man, did I love the musical numbers in this film.....but hated the story. I wound up taping just the music segments out of this film and making myself a neat little half-hour video of fantastic song-and-dance numbers.

The dance numbers are 1920s-1930s material except you get 1980s color and special-effects (and loose sexual mores). Actually, these are more like put- ons of those routines, including Busby Berkeley extravaganzas. Added to the routines are humor. I just laughed out loud at the absurdity of them, which included having the actors lip-sync to the old-time singers.

The dance routines are all totally different and very entertaining, from the opening bank skit, to the kids in the classroom to Christopher Walken's striptease to Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters imitating Astaire & Rogers. The dancing is good and the songs are great: catchy and fun.

Story-wise, Martin ("Arthur Parker") plays a boorish, profane, lying and just plain unlikeable character. Are we supposed to root for him? Maybe we are to root for Peters, who plays "Lulu," the school teacher-turned- prostitute (sounds like real-life these days with all the female teacher sex scandals). Hey, I like Martin in a lot of films. He can be a very entertaining guy, but the character he plays in here.....well, you can have him and this very cynical and depressing story. No thanks.

It's no surprise to me it bombed at the box office. Too bad, because with a more appealing story a lot more people would have been treated to the great musical numbers in this movie.

---

---

Page 1 of 5:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Amazon.com summary
Ratings	Awards	External reviews
Plot keywords	Main details	Your user comments
Your vote history