Alternate-reality tales needn't be relegated to futuristic settings or far-out twists of past fate. They can play upon our imaginations in the most basic and immediate ways.
"Pennies From Heaven" (1981), not to be confused with the Bing Crosby film/song of the same name, is a choice example of this, though to compare the movie to anything beyond its BBC foundation is difficult. When it comes to alternate-reality, Great Depression, musical fiction, "Pennies From Heaven" is specialized, which is why it stays a favorite of mine and more so, a movie that I (and others in the know) revisit during times of romanticized melancholia.
The adaptation, like its miniseries counterpart, was written by Dennis Potter, known for weaving popular tunes into his melodramatic narratives. In such instances, performers lip sync (and prance about) to popular music with uplifting and poignant results.
Directed by Herbert Ross, the production headlines Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters (reunited from their comedy smash, "The Jerk") and was intended to take Potter's fanciful formula to more visible heights, but alas, the big-screen version fizzled at the box office: a destined tie-in of sorts, considering the story accepts failure through song and dance.
The movie's naive protagonist, Arthur (Steve Martin) is ideally suited to the concept, as he peddles sheet music and yearns to own a shop of own so that he might peddle even more. Music, to Arthur, is a religion, and he promotes its spiritual worth at every jagged turn.
Alas, Arthur's wife, Joan (Jessica Harper) doesn't appreciate his zeal and as such, evades intimacy with him. When Arthur spots a school teacher named Eileen (Peters), it's love at first sight, and Arthur wastes no time to engage her in an adulterous affair.
Parenthesizing the affair, Arthur befriends a nameless accordionist (Vernal Bagneris), who trips ever further down a rocky road, dragging Arthur into the murder of a blind girl (Eliska Krupka). An investigation ensues, spurred by a steely detective (John Karlen) who makes Arthur his prime suspect.
What unfolds is heartbreaking and bittersweet, since we've come to care for Arthur, despite (and perhaps due to) his everyman foibles. His reveries become our own, and the plot ensures our investment in them, note per note, step by step. (The swell choreography, by the way, springs from Gordon Willis and adds much to the ironic merriment.)
The odds don't favor Arthur' success (or for that matter, any of the story's characters), but the plot weaves its string of glitzy tugs of war to contrast reality from fantasy, hope from hopelessness, leaving one to question which vantage holds the greater weight. (Maybe, just maybe, Arthur's religion is the antidote to life's setbacks, after all.)
There are many examples of such emotional swings throughout, as when a stuffy banker (Jay Garner) rejects Arthur's loan request, inspiring our hero to re-orchestrate his disappointment to the sounds of Sam Browne and the Carlyle Cousins' "Yes, Yes". A similar moment occurs when Eileen visits a seedy bar, only to envision a dangerous seducer (Christopher Walken) in a salacious spurt, synced to Irving Aronson and His Commandeers' "Let's Misbehave". Eileen also transforms a classroom lesson into Phyllis Robins' "Love's Good for Anything That Ails You", with her pupils propelling the lavish dream with Our Gang spunk.
The best and most defining musical installment, however, comes from Vernal Bagneris, who at one point glides from his diner seat into the rain to mime Arthur Tracy's title track, moving with utmost grace to an eventual shower of splashing coinage. While Bagneris' smile conveys contentment, his glint projects prophetic doom, personifying Potter's two-fold plan in ways that no other sequence can.
These segments polish the movie's conflict, linking its situations in ways that don't seem compatible on the surface, but mesh all the same, but isn't that the way of life and/or any accepted reality? It's all a matter of making do with what we're dealt and rationalizing it for the sake of coping.
Because of this, "Pennies From Heaven" continues to gain identifiers, regardless of its decades-past stumble. Its draw isn't at all surprising, for reality comes down to how we perceive it, and as Potter proves, it all rides on the melodious prayers we choose to reshape it.
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