Solid Snake

So....I got that Mel Brooks set w/ 9 movies. Got to Silent Movie and I saw a woman that I hadn't seen in a while. Couldn't remember from where but I remember her. Her name is Bernadette Peters. Started to investigate on her a bit in terms of filmography. I can't remember in anything off her filmography. But I know her face. So I looked at some of her works. One took my attention, Pennies from Heaven. Read up on it and Youtubed it..and uh...wow.

This is what I got:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0skp37HRROQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And I also got this:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/raoHt0AD-dQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'd like to know wtf you guys thought about this thing. Looks to be really damn good off of those 2 scenes I saw and I'm like in love w/ Peters' look. Steve Martin doing serious, Walking dancing..when he was younger, etc etc. I await to see this film soon.

Jules Winfield

I love it. I think musical fans might get a bigger kick out of it but I remember nothing but good things. I liked the contrast between the musical scenes and the non-musical ones. Time for a rewatch.

CharlieK

'Pennies from Heaven' is one of my favorites. The contrast between the rousing, lavish musical numbers and the utterly depressing story is breathtaking. I think it's one of Steve Martin's best roles as he is really able to sell this amoral man who has these big dreams he will never, ever be able to accomplish because he's an idiot. Still, when you're in these musical numbers you almost want him to obtain his dreams because they're so much fun, but then the music ends, and you realize what a complete asshole he is. I can completely see why this movie was a flop, but I'm so happy it got made.

hasslein

Bernadette Peters is really hot. Still. The only thing I didn't care for in Pennies from Heaven was the fact she wasn't singing the songs in the movie, and she can really sing.

She looked great in Vigilante Force & Pink Cadillac.... and the Jerk...

Mabuse

It was an infamous flop and I've yet to see it. Is the DVD out of print?

davidh777

Haven't seen Pennies from Heaven in years but I'm a big Bernadette fan from her Broadway work. She's a real beauty in the classic sense.

gmanca

She was awesome in the Betty Boop lip-syncing number in this movie.

I would say the movie needed better direction as much of it was based around some really great set pieces/numbers but the stories and various secondary characters never connected in the inbetween space.

Numanoid

I remember this coming out when I was a kid. It was a vanity project of Steve Martin's, as I recall, and as Mabuse pointed out, it was a huge flop. Martin came off The Jerk, into this, and audiences were bewildered at the film's serious tone. They were expecting another zany Martin farce. It was a critical success, though.

It's based on an earlier BBC miniseries by Dennis Potter, who also did The Singing Detective, which has a similar escapist fantasy world within it.

Ash Ketchum

Steve Martin is a big collector of the painter Edward Hopper. He narrates a film on Hopper from the National Gallery of Art and points out the Hopper connection in PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (scenes were designed to resemble Hopper paintings), with clips from it.

Here's an example:



P.S. Bernadette Peters has a fun part in THE LONGEST YARD (1974).

Solid Snake

Holy shit...that's amazingly awesome.

DeputyDave

I just saw this last night. I had put it in my Netflix queue because of this thread and forgot about it.

Wow. What a bleak and depressing movie with ... great fun lip-synching musical numbers. I loved the movie but kept saying to myself, "how in the hell was this ever made?"

Mabuse

On TCM when they show movies late at night it's called TCM After Hours or something like that and they show these dreary noirish clips from "old" movies. I realized recently that all the shots are actually from just two films Kubrick's Killers Kiss and Pennies From Heaven NOT from some vintage noir that TCM seems to be implying. It's pretty interesting.

Geofferson

Never seen this movie, but am also a fan of Edward Hopper's work. I'll have to check this out.

DeputyDave

Well worth it. The first song really through me off. I guess I wasn't expecting such blatent lip synching (the original period singers female voice coming out of Steve Martin) but by the time I got to the "Pennies From Heaven" song I was completely caught up in the movie. It reminded me a bit of Chicago (with the fantasy songs, period, local, and theme) but much better and much darker.

Cellar Door

I prefer Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in The Jerk.

dino88

There's not much that can top that. Best comedy ever?

DeputyDave

I don't think that's completely fair. Pennies wasn't even remotely a comedy (although maybe people see it out of context, I have a friend who thinks Fargo was funny as hell). Steve Martin didn't have his dramatic acting chops yet but Bernadette Peters was incredible.

Mondo Kane

This comes on late tonight on TCM. DVR time!