Tout l'or du ciel

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."

This film has so many good things in it and so much talent worked so very hard on it that it's just baffling to me that so much of it doesn't work. I love '30s and '40s musicals, and I saw this film in 1981, and I've seen it about 10 times more on DVD. I like a lot of it, but somehow it's just not a very good movie, and I still can't figure out why.

The music is good. The musical numbers are creatively shot and well-executed; the Walken number alone took weeks to film. The sets, costumes, photography, and color are beautiful and give the film a real Depression feel. Clearly, no expense was spared. The actors give it their all. The re-creations of photos and paintings (including "Nighthawks" which is actually from WW2) are breathtaking. They must have been very hard to set up, light, and shoot. But, in keeping with the film's low-key style, they're not lingered on at all, and if you look away you can miss them.

Is the problem Steve Martin? This choice caused some controversy in 1981. He lacked film experience and he might not have been the ideal choice, although it's hard to guess what other leading man could have done that vaudeville stuff in 1981. Martin, at least, doesn't obviously fall down on the job; the verdict is still out. But Peters, who even apart from this film seems to belong to the '30s, holds up her end of things.

Maybe it's the script and the way the film is conceived. If the idea is to realize what these '30s drudges fantasize about-- and to do it in a '30s-musical style, as if they imagine themselves the heroes of musicals-- then there has to be something to the drudges that makes us care what they fantasize about. But there isn't enough to these people. They're drawn as thin types; yet the material is played very slowly, as if they were supposed to turn into real people at some point. They never do, and so by the end it all peters out (no pun intended). I also thought the subplot with the young girl was a maudlin absurdity, right out of a Mary Pickford tear-jerker.

Perhaps the real problem can be traced back to the origins of the project. It plays almost like an English musical made in an American style, and it doesn't work very well. The humor in the book is too tedious, too black, and too obsessed with tit jokes to be American. And the musical numbers are too slick, loud, and overproduced to be English. The filmmakers couldn't find a way to make these two parts fit together. And so they are just jammed together over and over again. One is constantly aware of the bad fit. It just doesn't come together, but in the various parts there are still more than enough reasons to see it.

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 ****

I saw "Pennies from Heaven" in the theater and I've seen it several times since. It has always been an unsatisfying watch. It's just too downbeat. Director Herbert Ross and company deserve an E for effort but the movie doesn't work as well as it should. Steve Martin's character is just too unlikable. The misery he spreads is just too much. The movie does look great. The set design and costumes are terrific. The musical numbers are very good. "Pennies from Heaven" jerks the audience from one extreme to another. It's often an uncomfortable movie to watch.

It's 1934 Chicago. Sheet music salesman Arthur Parker (Steve Martin) can't get any love from his wife Joan (Jessica Harper) both in the bedroom and in the bank book. She wants to keep her inheritance for a rainy day but he wants to use it for his business. He befriends penniless hitchhiking Accordion Man. He falls for school teacher Eileen (Bernadette Peters) and they have a short affair as he lies to her about being a widow telling her to "take the pain away". His wife Joan entices him back with sex and money. Eileen is fired for being pregnant out of wedlock. Arthur meets a blind girl calling her beautiful. Later the Accordion Man rapes her and kills her. A desperate Eileen falls into the arms of Tom the pimp (Christopher Walken).

This is a sad depressing movie juxtaposed by the bright shiny surreal song and dance show. The story is such a downer. Arthur is a horrible person. Eileen is an innocent that is destroyed. There is a horrible crime. Yet this is a fantasy with dance reminiscent of the 30s except darker. It's a very odd mix and is almost experimental in its nature. It's definitely not a comedy.