Pennies from Heaven (1981) on Netflix
R19811h 48mDramaMusicalRomance
Chicago, 1934. Sheet music salesman Arthur Parker dreams of living inside the songs he sells, but his business is failing. On his travels he meets Eileen Everson, a schoolteacher.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb6.5/106,903 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Depression-era Chicago, Arthur Parker travels the region selling sheet music, a job that pays badly and keeps him away from a marriage to Joan that satisfies neither of them. Joan sees sex as something dirty and wants a husband who provides. Arthur dreams of money for a record store of his own and, more than that, of a life as bright as the songs he sells; in his daydreams he and the people around him lip-sync and dance to popular tunes of the period. On the road he notices Eileen Everson, a shy junior school music teacher, and falls for her at once. He tells her he is not married, and they begin a relationship.
Cast
- Robert Fitchas Al
- Eliska Krupkaas The Blind Girl
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Pennies from Heaven (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had Dennis Potter rewrite the script 13 times and made him buy back his copyright from the BBC for over $100,000, then blocked broadcast of the BBC's original 1978 serial for 10 years; the BBC finally rebroadcast it in February 1990.
- Bob Hoskins and Cheryl Campbell, the stars of the 1978 BBC serial, were not considered for the film; producer Kenith Trodd said they were "terribly upset" and still blamed him and Dennis Potter.
- Pennies from Heaven was Steve Martin's first dramatic film role; he trained for eight months to learn tap dancing, while Christopher Walken, who had trained as a dancer in his youth, used those skills in the film.
- Four paintings are recreated as tableaux vivants: Reginald Marsh's Hudson Bay Fur Company and 20 Cent Movie, and Edward Hopper's New York Movie and Nighthawks, all New York scenes even though the film is set in Chicago.
