Pennies From Heaven (1981) Neo Noir Depression Musical

"A Dreamland of a Noir that is a homage to Classic Hollywood Noir filmed with an Edward "Hopper-esque" Neo Noir color  palette combined with a Busby Berkeley Musical."                                                   (Noirsville)

Directed by Herbert Ross (California Suite). 

Written by Dennis Potter. Cinematography by Gordon Willis (Klute, The Godfather, The Drowning Pool). Music by Ralph Burns and Billy May. Production Design by Philip Harrison, Art Direction by Bernie Cutler, Fred Tuch, Seymour Klate, Set Decoration by Garrett Lewis. 

The film stars Steve Martin as Arthur Parker, Bernadette Peters as Eileen ("Lulu"), Jessica Harper as Joan Parker, Vernel Bagneris as Accordion man, John McMartin as Mr. Warner, John Karlen (Willie Loomis from TV's Dark Shadows) as Detective, Jay Garner as Banker, Robert Fitch as Al, Tommy Rall as Ed, Eliska Krupka as blind girl, Christopher Walken as Tom, Raleigh Bond as Mr. Barrett, Nancy Parsons as The Old Whore, Duke Stroud as Counterman, Will Hare as Father Everson.

Steve Martin as Arthur Parker

Jessica Harper as Joan Parker

Bernadette Peters as Eileen 

This is a cool off the wall American Neo Noir riff on the Golden Age Mexican "Cabaretera" Noir. The Cabaretera would usually have a Noir Femme or Femme Fatale who through misadventure or accident ends up working in a Mexican brothel / cabaret. The Cabaretera mixes music and misfortune. The female performers in the cabaret are also the higher priced ladies of the evening, performing their "other" various talents in the rooms upstairs. 

What usually sets these films apart from say Hollywood Noirs set around nightclubs and casinos is that the musical numbers performed in our Hollywood Noir are showcased from say a few seconds to half a minute, then the camera will cut away and focus on the protagonists while the musical number will continue in lower volume in the background. You will even see this with a stripper routine, as few seconds for the yokels in flyover country to get the general idea of the "sin" that is going on but not enough the attract the wrath of the Southern Baptists and the Legion of Decency. 

In a Mexican Golden Age Cabaretera Noir, the songs and dance numbers are usually filmed in their entirety. In this respect they are like American Musicals, the full numbers are filmed. The only similar Classic Hollywood Noir Musicals I can think of are Party Girl, Lady on a Train, and if you stretch it you could count the full ice dances in Suspense. If I remember right A Rage In Harlem had a few numbers (one by Screaming Jay Hawkins BTW) that might fit this, and I'd for sure include for the bowling dream sequence, Neo Noir The Big Lebowski. 

It's a vein of Noir worth more exploring their may be a couple more out there to re-evaluate. Off the top of my head, we should check out the cinematography for both Sweet Charity (based on Nights of Cabiria a Noir Italian Style) and The Rat Race (based on a Garson Kanin play). Both of those stories are somewhat dark and may be contenders too or at least On the Cusp of Noir.

Edward Hopper "Nighthawks at the Diner" homage

What's amusing in Pennies From Heaven is that the actors when they do breakout into song are lip-syncing to the original depression hits.  The numbers are all very well choreographed and the stars do the hoofing in their numbers. 

The sets and locations juxtapose depression grit against glittery art deco opulence, the actors emote despair against hope, and lust against love. 

"Every night she comes

To take me out to dreamland

When I'm with her, I'm the richest

Man in the town

She's a rose, she's the pearl

She's the spin on my world

All the stars make their wishes on her eyes" (Tom Waits)

Its 1934. Someplace. Some "Noirsville" in Chicago. Timewise its smack dab in the middle of The Great Depression. A frustrated Arthur Parker lays awake at night next to his sleeping wife Joan wondering why the fuck his sex life sucks and why life is so drab. 

He's about to head out again. Four days combing the "East Central" sales territory in the Mid West that includes Illinois & Indiana. He's a road warrior. A salesman and a full time dreamer selling sheet music to Record & Music shops. His big hope is to get his foot into Indianapolis. 

His mind is filled with the happy uplifting and care free lyrics of the songs he peddles. He's also horny. 

He tries to get a little morning nookie out of his sleeping wife.  Joan is one of those, brought up by chaste by bible belt church ladies, who taught her that sex for the fun of it, was bad. and that intercourse was only for making babies. Hence, John is married to "Cold Fish" Joan, who unfortunately, is dead in bed as a result.  

So, John has to leave for four days on the road with wood in his pants. Hey Hell, "Birds do it, bees do it, Even educated fleas do it. Let's do it, let's fall in love. He isn't getting to do it, and he's falling out of love." But he ain't doing it, and he's falling out of love. He's looking for a girl from Dreamland.

John also dreams of opening a record store and make a living sell vinyl & sheet music. He can do that if Joan uses her inheritance as collateral. Joan is reluctant to dip into it. So another let down for John. John is so depressed he tells Joan don't be surprised if he doesn't come back. 

While driving his 1932 Chevy Confederate across corn stubble fields, John fantasizes about getting okayed for a bank loan for his record store and it turns into a fantasy Busby Berkeley number. 

Jay Garner as Banker

John heads out on his East Central circuit, and hits the stores in the various flyspecks he passes through. He entertains himself by picking up hitchhikers for company in his travels. A starving transient panhandler, with an accordion is one of his pickups. 

Vernel Bagneris as Accordion man

At a diner in Galena, John buys the accordion playing panhandler dinner. This segues into our title musical soft-shoe number "Pennies From Heaven,"  when the whole wall of the diner breaks away.

Pennies From Heaven Sequence

It's in Galena where John meets the girl of his dreams. Eileen. 

Eileen is a cute, ripe, idealistic, young schoolteacher, who also feels a bit of a spark when she looks into Johns eyes. Eileen is stimulated and aroused herself and they both like what each other sees. Of course this triggers another musical number. 

Arthur Parker: [mime singing a song performed by Bing Crosby] Did you ever see a dream dancing? Well, I did, Did you a ever see a dream romancing? Well, I did, Did you ever see heaven right in your arms...

John shows up in the evening at her house. He asked some of her students where she lived. She is startled at first, but a certain building lounging for a man overcomes any standoffishness and she lets him in. John tells he that she is the girl of his dreams. 

He makes up a story about his wife being dead and explains to Eileen that he needs her to stop the "pain." 

Eileen: No, I'm scared. Arthur. I never - I never - Arthur.

Arthur Parker: Oh, Eileen, take the pain away. Oh, please. Take the pain away, Eileen. Please. Please.

Eileen: Oh, I'll try. I'll try. I'll try, Arthur. I'll try. Arthur. Oh! Oh! Poor Arthur. Poor...

Elieen in the throes of passion has her panties ripped off

It doesn't take to long before they are enthusiastically playing hide the sausage on the couch. The next day John has to leave to finish his circuit and go back to Joan. He tells Eileen he'll be back. 

Back in Chicago, Joan, who senses something has changed, is now desperate to keep him "down on the farm" so to speak. That night when John gets home, she tells John that she's put lipstick on her nipples like he asked her to once. He asks her to show them to him. 

Joan Parker: Oh, thank God you've come back.

Arthur Parker: You trying to be funny?

Joan Parker: I thought you'd gone forever.

Arthur Parker: I have. I've gone. What do I get here in that bed of nails?

Joan Parker: I'll try again, Arthur. I'll try harder. I've even - I've even put lipstick on.

Arthur Parker: What do you mean? You always put lipstick on.

Joan Parker: No, I mean, l - I put it on my...

Arthur Parker: What, on your - ? What? On your nipples, Joanie? Have you?

Joan Parker: You said you wanted me to.

Arthur Parker: How'd you know I was coming back tonight?

Joan Parker: I've been putting it on every night, Arthur - hoping, praying that you'd come back to me.

Arthur Parker: Let me see. Show me, angel.

look John lipstick on my areolas

She shyly does. He asks how did she know he was coming back tonight? She tells him that she's been putting lipstick on her nipples every night.

That must have plucked his magic twanger. They make love and John is a new man in the morning. Joan also agrees to invest her inheritance in the record store he wants to open in Chicago down on The Loop. 

He opens the store but as the months go by, business isn't booming so he goes back part time on the road. Eileen in Galena is now pregnant. Her doctor is on the school board, so to avoid a scandal Eileen gets fired.

John shows up again in Galena on the circuit and Eileen tells him she's pregnant. He tells her he really is married. He finds out that Eileen still loves him. 

Eileen: I wanted you, you see.

Arthur Parker: Did you?

Eileen: Oh, yes.

Arthur Parker: And you still do, don't you? You still do.

Eileen: I still do.

Arthur Parker: I never in all my life! I've never heard a woman talk like that! Just like that.

Eileen: It's not decent, is it?

Arthur Parker: God, it's - it's marvelous!

That sparks John to tell Eileen about a story he had heard about a couple who slipped an elevator operator a twenty-dollar bill to stop the elevator between floors and turn his back to them. 

Arthur Parker: In a band, this man and woman singer, they...

Eileen:  Arthur, what has this got to do with being married?

Arthur Parker Just a minute. A minute. At the hotel where they were playing, see, they gave the elevator operator a $20 bill to stop the elevator between floors and turn his back.

Eileen:  Do people do things like that?

Arthur Parker Like what, Eileen?

Eileen:  Make love in an elevator.

Arthur Parker You mean, like kissing, do you?

Eileen:  Oh, is that all?

Arthur Parker Oh, Eileen! Eileen! That's a good girl! You knew what I was talking about. Would you ever do that? What they did?

Eileen: Between which floors, Arthur? 

[mime singing a song performed by Helen Kane]This segues into another musical number

Eileen:  If it's naughty to rouge your lips, Shake your shoulders and shake your hips, Let a lady confess, I want to be bad!

This segues into another musical number. They again make love. He gives her the record store address if she needs anything and then takes off again.

Eileen leaves town because she is now a "soiled dove." However, her three advantages are that she is beautiful, desirable, and that her affair with John awakened her libido, so she likes sex. So in desperation she turns to trading her body for food to and selling her body for money to live on. She, thought that she would feel horrible, but after the first twelve, she enjoyed the sex enough to make it all bearable. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. 

Eileen probably gets schooled by the local talents that walks the streets. They probably tell her that she either needs needs to get herself a pimp or find a whorehouse. She's goes to the dive bar where Tom the pimp hangs out and makes a deal. 

Tommy the Pimp number

She is attracted to Tommy's sleazy sexiness. She she'll turn out and put out for him, and he'll stake her to an abortion.

Meanwhile John is again doing some circuit selling on the road. He stops the car along a short cut he takes. he wants to stretch his legs and smoke his last cigarette near a shady railroad underpass. He crumples the empty pack and drops it in the dirt along the track. 

The blind girl sequence

You're beautiful and I love you

He turns and meets a beautiful blind girl walking through it. John tells her that she is beautiful and he loves her, that seems to be his standard pickup line now. How Noir of him? 

He offers to help her to where she is going but she thanks him and tells him she's fine. She walks past him and the tossed cigarette pack and out of his life.

On his way back through his shortcut on the way back to Chicago the area by the underpass (where he met blind girl) is full of police. John turns around to avoid the area but a suspicious cop takes down his license. It's probably standard procedure, because they know that one of possible M.O.'s of these kinds of crimes is that a certain percentage of the perps always return to the scene of the crime. Akin to an arsonist liking to watch his fires.

Back in Chicago, John meet's Eileen again. She's turning tricks under the el near a diner on The Loop. Her "pro" name is "Lulu."

Eileen now known as Lulu is turning a trick under the el in The Loop

She sees John watching her

They are both still in love with each other. Later, in the diner He tells her that he had to sell his old car to make ends meet, and his shop is out of business and for sale. He takes her to the shop and they again rekindle the romance.

After the diner, John takes her to the shop and they again rekindle the romance. They decide to chuck everything and run away together. 

Eileen has enough money to buy a used car and they take off. When John asks what they will do for money Eileen aka "LuLu" tells him she's turn a few tricks when they need it. How Noir of her?

It all goes even more Noirsville when, just coincidentally, the blind girl that John had met by the railroad underpass, got raped and killed by the same accordion playing panhandler he picked up. The police collecting evidence from the scene of the crime find the cigarette pack. The license plate number is tracked back to John and John's fingerprints are found on that discarded cigarette pack along where the police identify the dead girls shoe prints in the clay. 

"The bottom part of my undergarments"

John Karlen as CPD Detective

And last but not least Joan tells the police about how strange Arthur acted after one of his sales trips and all about Arthur's various kinks, i.e., how he made her put lipstick on "the points of her bosoms," and how he requested for her not to wear the "bottom" part of her undergarments. 

Noirsville

Arthur Parker: Where are you going?

Eileen: Are the seams on my stockings straight?

Arthur Parker:  You got terrific legs, baby.

Eileen:  Let's hope so.

Arthur Parker:  Hey, what are you gonna do?

Eileen:  Get some dough!

This is a fun little movie with a few homages to probably musicals I never watch (there is an obvious Fred Astaire - Ginger Rodgers number) the other numbers I have no idea about, and there are a few recreations of Edward Hopper paintings. I forgot all about them being in it, until I noticed two this last viewing, Nighthawks at the Diner, and New York Movie, there may be more.

If you are not into musicals there may be a fan edit out there that cuts out all the bizarre musical interludes, and it would not mess up the narrative at all. The story is as bizarrely Noir as it gets and its doesn't have to rely on "code" subtext. Its all hanging out there and you can still imaginatively add to it.

The depression sequences have a version of the Neo Noir color palate filtered through Edward Hopper. Muted, dingy, puke yellows, intestine greens, dead body blues, and  carnal reds occasionally accented by neon. Bravo! 8/10