Synopsis
During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent school teacher.
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Cast
- Steve MartinArthur
- Bernadette PetersEileen
- Jessica HarperJoan
- Vernel BagnerisThe Accordion Man
- John McMartinMr. Warner
- John KarlenThe Detective
- Jay GarnerThe Banker
- Robert FitchAl
- Tommy RallEd
- Eliska KrupkaThe Blind Girl
Recommendations
- 100
TV Guide Magazine
Not for everyone, but those who respond to it will find it unforgettable. - 80
Time Out
Dennis Potter's remarkably intelligent transatlantic adaptation of his BBC serial turns the pitfalls of 'Hollywoodisation' into profit, now stressing the 'pennies' over the 'heavenly' symbolism by specifically locating Arthur Parker's grubby melodrama in the Chicago of the Depression, and culling his liberating daydreams from not only the era's popular music, but its even more culturally resonant musicals, recreated with both MGM opulence and biting Brechtian wit. - 75
The Associated Press
Literal-minded moviegoers will find it easy to hate Pennies from Heaven. But those willing to go along with the device will find the film a source of constant surprise and delight. [14 Dec 1981] - 70
Chicago Reader
This 1981 film drips with a sense of anger and betrayal that seems wildly out of scale to its cause—the discovery (less than original) that musicals don't reproduce social reality. The point is made endlessly, though it's in the film's favor that it's made with seriousness, consideration, and a certain amount of imagination. - 70
The A.V. Club
There's something disconcerting and strained about plastic smiles and speed-fueled peppiness of dancers in old musicals, a forced bonhomie that's borderline creepy. Pennies brilliantly exploits that blatantly artificial pep in queasy, disquieting ways. - 50
Chicago Sun-Times
Pennies from Heaven is dazzling and disappointing in equal measure. It's a musical with an idea, and ideas usually have been deadly to the musical, that most gloriously heedless of movie genres. - 50
The New York Times
Miss Peters is funny and charming lip-synching Helen Kane's I Want to Be Bad, and Mr. Martin is something of a revelation as a danceman. The movie, though, is not easy to respond to. It's chilly without being provocative in any intellectual way. - 50
Christian Science Monitor
The depression drama is undermined by lumpy directing and by a flat performance from Steve Martin, who never approaches the dramatic eloquence he obviously has in mind. [24 Dec 1981, p.22]
