Of all Hollywood items left to sink without a trace, this film was the most unfairly dismissed of any. It's gleaming, tongue in cheek excesses and trailblazing nostalgia (unappreciated at the time) has never since been matched. Pennies From Heaven has 'slept' long enough, see it and be astonished.
I saw this when it first came out and was enthralled. But most people were just confused. The idea of the characters’ inner thoughts and emotions and fantasies being expressed in musical numbers was just too esoteric to grasp. But for those who do “get it”, it’s a marvelous film.
I had a cool dad who played me this movie and many others. It was one of his all time favorites. The orchestration and production is light years beyond what passes for music and entertainment today. And Chris Walken as the dancer, gold.
You need to see true 1930’s musical numbers to see the difference from this, this was a nice tribute but the original films are far superior. I think you will be surprised 😮
@@DisneyFan-eg3oz Thanks, but I have seen and own most of the 'original' films you reference and my comment still stands. "Pennies From Heaven" could not have been made in the 1930's but it understands the forms perfectly in order to shatter them. Few of the musical numbers have an ending, for instance, as the characters get pulled back to their reality - this number is a rare one that does have an ending. Musicals in the 1930's were created at a time when every department had enormous resources to call on via the studios, while "Pennies From Heaven" was created at a time when there were virtually no musicals being made, let alone period ones. Nope, the original films are wonderful, but not superior to this, for it equals them.
I wouldn't know. I can't persuade my eyes to go any higher than the X at the front of her dress. But from I recall of her face, Bernadette Peters is absolutely gorgeous
LOVE THIS ! SASSY AND FUN ! I Think she could have sang this on her own. Can't imagine how long this number took to learn. Musicals are very underrated.
One of the extras on the DVD is a recording of a 2001 (I think) 20 year anniversary showing of the film. Live on the stage are Steve Martin, Jessica Harper, Bob Mackie, Herbert Ross, etc. They even acknowledge one of the girls from this scene (all grown up now) and sitting in the audience. I was astounded, tho, that Bernadette Peters was not mentioned in this gathering--not once. By anyone. It was a glaring omission that I'm still trying to understand even today. I know she and Steve were a couple for a while, but I'm hoping the break up was not the source of her becoming persona non grata!
One of my absolute favourite movie musical numbers. It's interesting that the post-production tapping is quite different to what the kids are doing at 2.24 and at 2.28. But everything about this number is just so good! A real feel-good clip.
This number is Awesome ! She's a beauty! Her move's are incredible! Makes me think of being in a niteclub in the 1930s . Peters got moves before jagger ! No doubt. Love it!
Tap dancing kids are fantastic. Shocking to think they would all be middle aged now. Somewhere in their mid fifties. Wonder how many stayed in the business. So talented and all looked to be having a great time.
Have always preferred music from "before my time", this is one of them. This rendition (music and staging) one of my favorites. Anything from the late 20's through 40's is usually a hit with me. Also, some songs from the earlier years. I remember after a performance of "Tintypes" (mostly music from the 1910's plus, Mom came up to me and said she wished her father could have seen me do the show - it was all the songs he loved and that I sang them much as he did! (Reincarnation anyone, after all, he died 9 months before I was born!) Anyway, while I love this "staging", can't say I liked the movie much.
Hate those people who comment with "who else is here because of x" but I am here because of Schmigadoon. Which reminded me that I still have to watch the movie which has everything I like in paper: Herbert Ross, nods to Busby Berkeley and tap dancing.
Are you trolling? You must be or you would have said "who" Miss Peters MIGHT be lip-syncing to ...and WHY ...other than herself ...which is a standard method of making a musical show or video because the microphones pick up too much extraneous noise and unless handheld can not record the voice of someone moving and dancing with any sort of consistency. xoxo
Tammy O’Rourke the elder sister to the late Heather O’Rourke. It was after Tammy played in this musical, that Heather got her role in the (1982)poltergeist movie at age 5
Go a step further….Spielberg discovered Heather in the MGM commissary while Tammy was filming this movie. Heather was only there because their mom had nobody to babysit her. So she was a “tag-a-long.”
Despite the panning by the Critics, I bought the DVD, and was pleasantly pleased, and impressed with the inevitable ''Hollywood' treatment, BUT, still couldn't watch, without comparing scene by scene, with the BBC 's six-part original Serial, starring Bob Hoskins, Cheryl Campbell , etc etc. The Writes to the original were bought by the film maker's, and made sure, the TV series was never shown in the USA, for a few years after the film issue. Draw your own conclusions. The film was aimed at a wider audience, and toned down; whereas the BBC original, cut new ground in sexual explicitness and language. Many of the original scenes were cut from the film, which damaged the flow and continuity of the story. Many songs were changed for the film too.
Probably my favorite Movie Soundtrack from the 80's I ended up purchasing the double album twice... because I knew it would go out of print pretty quickly
This is a masterclass in how US movie/TV programmers re-purposed a drama from another country and completely misunderstood the subtleties of the BBC/Dennis Potter original.
It's amazing to see what kids can do, if this tap dance number was not doubled, which it does not look like. If all children are talented geniuses, why do they not grow up into adult talented geniuses too?.
This film was doomed simply because of it being an adaptation of Dennis Potter's BBC miniseries of the same name. He wrote this MGM screenplay, and even got a Academy Award nomination. Dennis Potter's works are brilliant but too deep and dark for most Americans. It was a butcher edit by the studio, and it came and went within a few weeks. The original BBC Pennies From Heaven has Bob Hopkins in the lead role, and is an excellent series.
And then right after this fantasy musical number ends and we’re back in the dingy Depression-era classroom, the principal angrily comes in to see why the kids are laughing so much. He singles out one boy, has him stand up and then hits his hands hard with a ruler, making him cry. That immediately destroys any happy feelings the audience had from the glamorous music and brings everything back to the terrible reality Bernadette was living in - which was going to get even more tragic.
Fred Astaire is a complete, absolute and utter idiot for panning this! In fact, this ranks right up there and blows away anything that any group of children did on film before or since 'Consider Yourself' or 'Food Glorious Food' in Oliver! (1968) and the single greatest moment of children on film of all, 'Every Sperm is Sacred' in Monty Python's Meaning of Life (1983)! Bet on it!
i loved the original bbc series so i remember hiring this film out on vhs- dont recall much of it but i remember liking it a lot and thought that steve martin and bernadette peters were well cast in it - i remember it was a total flop - it is pretty hard to get hold of a dvd of it nowadays in the uk - i saw the robert downey junior version and thought that was awful-
2:38 as she's coming down the aisle between the desks Bernadette seems really small and out of scale in comparison to the children... I'm wondering if that shot is a layered chroma-key moment.
You're misreading the perspective because the children closest to the camera steal the visual focus of the image. At the beginning of the shot she is a good bit away from the camera. Compare the size of her head with the size of the heads of each set of children that she passes by. They match.
I see what you see. She's 5'3 on a good day so she is not much bigger than the kids. At 2:43 she's advanced up to the front row and is in scale with the kids. You can see her dress train behind the desk legs at 2:38 so she is almost certainly in the shot. I think it's just that two of the kids were hidden behind other kids at 2:38 that throws the perspective off. I believe this was filmed in 1980 and I don't think they could have pulled on inserting her in the shot then or even for quite a few years after.
I watched the good fight and I was wondering... Who's the mother?? She rings the bell... (I'm Spanish so my knowledge of Broadway is limited).. but Holly Molly! Bernadette!! What a surprise!! I'm gonna watch this movie right now!.
I agree that having Miss Bernadette lip sync to another woman's voice is totally wrong. When one considers the tremendous vocal talent she has, this is an insult to millions of Bernadette Peters fans across the world. Besides, anyone who knows the unique sound of her voice [like a Betty Boop style} realizes how the song [love is good..] would even sound better enhanced with a '1920's flapper' rendition!
The miniseries this movie was based on is really good, but the movie doesn't really work, particularly the ending, and I think it's because they had to compress the story so much. They needed perhaps to tell a different story the would fit in two hours that was just inspired by the original.
It took a lot to make Fred Astaire walk out of a film in disgust, but this overblown and misbegotten compression of Dennis Potter did the trick. Steve Martin was as miscast here as in 'Bilko'. They should have let Bob Hoskins do it again. He could play American.
Bernadette & Jessica: two of the best singers of all time, and they're lip syncing to songs sung by others. Beautiful to watch, disappointing to listen to.
This is from the film in 1981 entitled "Pennies From Heaven". Bing Crosby was in the 1936 film which was a completely different film but also titled "Pennies From Heaven". Here is a clip of Bing Crosby singing "Pennies from Heaven" from the 1936 film: th-cam.com/video/XXpUoL52a1w/w-d-xo.html
@@stevekinsocal ....Yep sorry Steve old chap, ...original TV series by Dennis Potter incomparably better.....the trouble is, you guys just don't do [ or get ] "Irony"....the theme of PFH is the disconnect between the sugary sweetness of "popular music" / Hollywood glamour, and the harsh realities and "sticky betrayals" of normal everyday life.......and as for the 'lip synching', the sweet and innocent young teacher watching the 'production number' on the big screen would have 'mimed' to the words and Definately been too self conscious to sing them out herself......It's the ABSOLUTE separation of two incompatible worlds
@@williamclutterbuck6383 Potter's best work, and Bob Hoskins's breakthrough. But Potter overdid the gimmick of mouthing to old songs later, and became sleazy and long-winded.
Of all Hollywood items left to sink without a trace, this film was the most unfairly dismissed of any. It's gleaming, tongue in cheek excesses and trailblazing nostalgia (unappreciated at the time) has never since been matched. Pennies From Heaven has 'slept' long enough, see it and be astonished.
I totally agree! I love This song!
Bravo. This film, Herbert Ross’s masterpiece, has never gotten its due. Everyone involved was at the top of their game.
How wonderful. What you said, and the movie. Just perfect.
Billy, love what you said about Pennies from Heaven. It is a true masterpiece.
Amen
I saw this when it first came out and was enthralled. But most people were just confused. The idea of the characters’ inner thoughts and emotions and fantasies being expressed in musical numbers was just too esoteric to grasp. But for those who do “get it”, it’s a marvelous film.
I loved it from the get-go, but I remember the reviews were not very kind. It's now a cult classic.
One of my all-time favorite film musicals, so underrated in its time.
But Steve Martin's character would not pass muster nowadays. Perv, letch are to subtle a description
This musical number is so incredible and should honestly get more credit
I had a cool dad who played me this movie and many others. It was one of his all time favorites. The orchestration and production is light years beyond what passes for music and entertainment today. And Chris Walken as the dancer, gold.
"See it and be astonished.". It was and still is just perfect.
This IS one of the greatest musical numbers ever created.
You need to see true 1930’s musical numbers to see the difference from this, this was a nice tribute but the original films are far superior. I think you will be surprised 😮
@@DisneyFan-eg3oz Thanks, but I have seen and own most of the 'original' films you reference and my comment still stands. "Pennies From Heaven" could not have been made in the 1930's but it understands the forms perfectly in order to shatter them. Few of the musical numbers have an ending, for instance, as the characters get pulled back to their reality - this number is a rare one that does have an ending. Musicals in the 1930's were created at a time when every department had enormous resources to call on via the studios, while "Pennies From Heaven" was created at a time when there were virtually no musicals being made, let alone period ones. Nope, the original films are wonderful, but not superior to this, for it equals them.
I love Bernadette's transformation. She looks so shy and timid and then her face becomes alive with mischief and sexuality
I wouldn't know. I can't persuade my eyes to go any higher than the X at the front of her dress. But from I recall of her face, Bernadette Peters is absolutely gorgeous
Those jigglies are good for what ails me
If only she _actually_ sang it.
That dress! Amazing to see the fashions come around once again
Timeless brilliance..!!
LOVE THIS ! SASSY AND FUN !
I Think she could have sang this on her own. Can't imagine how long this number took to learn.
Musicals are very underrated.
It took 3 weeks to rehearse and 1 week to shoot. I was one of the little boys in the number.
@@TapGuy what was it like filming this sequence?
@@TapGuy which boy? That’s so cool!
This is one of the best musical production numbers ever filmed.
The dennis potter production is way better
Try and see the original BBC version from 1978...
@@philipperholland how wrong you are!
@@philipperholland nah
Oh Yes! I agree! It's totally awesome! I watch it quite frequently!
Christopher Walkens dance number is INCREDIBLE!! I love it! Watch it again and again over the years! So great!!❤
Yes! I also love the Pennies From Heaven number where front of the diner slides away and he’s dancing in golden light sparkles.
One of the extras on the DVD is a recording of a 2001 (I think) 20 year anniversary showing of the film. Live on the stage are Steve Martin, Jessica Harper, Bob Mackie, Herbert Ross, etc. They even acknowledge one of the girls from this scene (all grown up now) and sitting in the audience. I was astounded, tho, that Bernadette Peters was not mentioned in this gathering--not once. By anyone. It was a glaring omission that I'm still trying to understand even today. I know she and Steve were a couple for a while, but I'm hoping the break up was not the source of her becoming persona non grata!
Gordon Willis' photography was brilliant. He was one of our greatest cinematographers.
What a beauty!
One of my absolute favourite movie musical numbers. It's interesting that the post-production tapping is quite different to what the kids are doing at 2.24 and at 2.28. But everything about this number is just so good! A real feel-good clip.
This number is Awesome ! She's a beauty! Her move's are incredible! Makes me think of being in a niteclub in the 1930s . Peters got moves before jagger ! No doubt. Love it!
Tap dancing kids are fantastic. Shocking to think they would all be middle aged now. Somewhere in their mid fifties. Wonder how many stayed in the business. So talented and all looked to be having a great time.
Have always preferred music from "before my time", this is one of them. This rendition (music and staging) one of my favorites. Anything from the late 20's through 40's is usually a hit with me. Also, some songs from the earlier years. I remember after a performance of "Tintypes" (mostly music from the 1910's plus, Mom came up to me and said she wished her father could have seen me do the show - it was all the songs he loved and that I sang them much as he did! (Reincarnation anyone, after all, he died 9 months before I was born!) Anyway, while I love this "staging", can't say I liked the movie much.
Perhaps you'd have preferred the English original. I did.
Hate those people who comment with "who else is here because of x" but I am here because of Schmigadoon. Which reminded me that I still have to watch the movie which has everything I like in paper: Herbert Ross, nods to Busby Berkeley and tap dancing.
she is so amazing
The dress fits Bernadette very well indeed!!
The decolletage is magnificent!!
My fav scene in the movie
So freaking cute.
Love this moving picture!
Brilliant Bernadette. Superb movie.
Damn saw this woman not too long ago and damn she still looks good this woman never ages.
Her "Hello Dolly" is on youtube-- check it out
@@markbraunstein58 I saw it live, and she was a wonderful Dolly - her acting ability is very underrated.
40 years ago. Amazing.
A film way before its time (or maybe one of those that is always before its time). Loved both this one and the British original.
A pearl of great price and worth every penny.
PERFECTION.
Having Miss Bernadette lip-sync to another woman's vocal is like having Picasso paint by numbers!
GIVE HER A "BREAK"
Well put
Why the lip synch? (I've not seen the movie)
Are you trolling? You must be or you would have said "who" Miss Peters MIGHT be lip-syncing to ...and WHY ...other than herself ...which is a standard method of making a musical show or video because the microphones pick up too much extraneous noise and unless handheld can not record the voice of someone moving and dancing with any sort of consistency. xoxo
Walter-KEMBLE WellBredNfed I think the point is that its not even her own voice shes lip syncing to. Not the technical stuff.
Films like this make me hate modern day filmmaking. Just no love put into today’s movies.
This film cost over $22 million to make, and it netted a total of $2 million. That's why. I know...it's sad.
Tammy O’Rourke the elder sister to the late Heather O’Rourke. It was after Tammy played in this musical, that Heather got her role in the (1982)poltergeist movie at age 5
Go a step further….Spielberg discovered Heather in the MGM commissary while Tammy was filming this movie. Heather was only there because their mom had nobody to babysit her. So she was a “tag-a-long.”
Yes!!! 💜 #WarnerArchives #PenniesFromHeaven1981 #LoveIsGoodForAnythingThatAilsYou
Despite the panning by the Critics, I bought the DVD, and was pleasantly pleased, and impressed with the inevitable ''Hollywood' treatment, BUT, still couldn't watch, without comparing scene by scene, with the BBC 's six-part original Serial, starring Bob Hoskins, Cheryl Campbell , etc etc. The Writes to the original were bought by the film maker's, and made sure, the TV series was never shown in the USA, for a few years after the film issue. Draw your own conclusions. The film was aimed at a wider audience, and toned down; whereas the BBC original, cut new ground in sexual explicitness and language. Many of the original scenes were cut from the film, which damaged the flow and continuity of the story. Many songs were changed for the film too.
Great!
Probably my favorite Movie Soundtrack from the 80's I ended up purchasing the double album twice... because I knew it would go out of print pretty quickly
If anyone has seen the movie poltergeist, the little girl who plays carol Anne, that’s her sister, the girl in the camera 2:19
Yeah Tammy is now a nurse, only found that out through a pod cast interview about her late sisters life and sad death
This is a masterclass in how US movie/TV programmers re-purposed a drama from another country and completely misunderstood the subtleties of the BBC/Dennis Potter original.
ICONIC! 🎶😆
God bless Bob Mackie!
I remember this, I still like it!
Second best number in this film after Walken's "Let's Misbehave".
Steve Martin's tap Dance Number was excellent also etc.
Always had a crush on the Beautiful & Talented Bernadette Peters Etc.A Brooklyn Girl and Italian, what more can any guy want etc.?
She's an Ozone Park girl 😉
@@christytdale8225 She is! My mother went to school with her! Ozone Park was a wonderful place once upon a time. Sure miss it.
Wonderful!!!
Glorious!!!
It's amazing to see what kids can do, if this tap dance number was not doubled, which it does not look like. If all children are talented geniuses, why do they not grow up into adult talented geniuses too?.
Awesome!
I would have paid much more attention in school if my teacher had looked like that!
This film was doomed simply because of it being an adaptation of Dennis Potter's BBC miniseries of the same name. He wrote this MGM screenplay, and even got a Academy Award nomination. Dennis Potter's works are brilliant but too deep and dark for most Americans. It was a butcher edit by the studio, and it came and went within a few weeks. The original BBC Pennies From Heaven has Bob Hopkins in the lead role, and is an excellent series.
And then right after this fantasy musical number ends and we’re back in the dingy Depression-era classroom, the principal angrily comes in to see why the kids are laughing so much. He singles out one boy, has him stand up and then hits his hands hard with a ruler, making him cry. That immediately destroys any happy feelings the audience had from the glamorous music and brings everything back to the terrible reality Bernadette was living in - which was going to get even more tragic.
When Bernadette was very cute!!! Very talented woman!
Pepper Williams I know. I have had my hair permed like hers in this film.
What do you meas WAS,? she still is Yo
She still is cute! I'm soooo excited to be seeing her in concert this year.
Fred Astaire is a complete, absolute and utter idiot for panning this! In fact, this ranks right up there and blows away anything that any group of children did on film before or since 'Consider Yourself' or 'Food Glorious Food' in Oliver! (1968) and the single greatest moment of children on film of all, 'Every Sperm is Sacred' in Monty Python's Meaning of Life (1983)! Bet on it!
i loved the original bbc series so i remember hiring this film out on vhs- dont recall much of it but i remember liking it a lot and thought that steve martin and bernadette peters were well cast in it - i remember it was a total flop - it is pretty hard to get hold of a dvd of it nowadays in the uk - i saw the robert downey junior version and thought that was awful-
Bernadette Peters!
Oh what a piece of work is man....
Whoaa! Where are those kids now, I wonder?
Oh, we're around!
TapGuy wow you were on pennies from heaven?
@@Preppy-f9i Yes, I was one of the 10 boys.
@@TapGuy great job mister!
Like all child performers.... in rehab. JK. Respect! You guys were doing wings at what 8 years old? Total respect!
I love you Bob Mackie!!!!
2:38 as she's coming down the aisle between the desks Bernadette seems really small and out of scale in comparison to the children... I'm wondering if that shot is a layered chroma-key moment.
You're misreading the perspective because the children closest to the camera steal the visual focus of the image. At the beginning of the shot she is a good bit away from the camera. Compare the size of her head with the size of the heads of each set of children that she passes by. They match.
@@johngilmer she's three desks back, look how giant those kids are right on the same distance from the camera she is! lol
I see what you see. She's 5'3 on a good day so she is not much bigger than the kids. At 2:43 she's advanced up to the front row and is in scale with the kids. You can see her dress train behind the desk legs at 2:38 so she is almost certainly in the shot. I think it's just that two of the kids were hidden behind other kids at 2:38 that throws the perspective off. I believe this was filmed in 1980 and I don't think they could have pulled on inserting her in the shot then or even for quite a few years after.
Hahahahaha im a late 2000s person, wtf i feel like im the youngest person from all these comments
That's Heather O'Rourke's sister Tammy at 1.26.
Yes and on this exact set is where Steven Spielberg found heather!
Yeah I came across this from a podcast interview with her about her late sister Heather
Whatever happened to the super talented and gorgeous Bernadette Peters? 😍
We need Cindy Brady singing good ship lollipop to make this little scene complete
I love the jiggle in that dress
"neck line" is a little low for the 1930s!
@@gregoryagogo Well, it is a fantasy.
This is entertainment!
True, true!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey, it's Rita from Animaniacs!
Esta peli y El novio ,de Ken Russel...😃👍👌🌹🍃🌹🍃🌠💎🌠💎🌠
The kids in this clip are my age........I’m 50
I watched the good fight and I was wondering... Who's the mother?? She rings the bell... (I'm Spanish so my knowledge of Broadway is limited).. but Holly Molly! Bernadette!! What a surprise!! I'm gonna watch this movie right now!.
bERNADETTE; SHAKE IT BUT DON'T BREAK IT!
A Busby Berkeley
I'd like to think Fred Astaire liked this. sequence even though he hated the film
He actually phoned Ginger Rogers and told her not to see it.
I agree that having Miss Bernadette lip sync to another woman's voice is totally wrong. When one considers the tremendous vocal talent she has, this is an insult to millions of Bernadette Peters fans across the world. Besides, anyone who knows the unique sound of her voice [like a Betty Boop style} realizes how the song [love is good..] would even sound better enhanced with a '1920's flapper' rendition!
The lip-syncing is key to the movie.
@@jackal59 It's one of the major points of the story.
The miniseries this movie was based on is really good, but the movie doesn't really work, particularly the ending, and I think it's because they had to compress the story so much. They needed perhaps to tell a different story the would fit in two hours that was just inspired by the original.
you make a good point..
But Still Great...
ELISA
Delicious 🤤 fabulous 👍extraordinarily 👌👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑
It took a lot to make Fred Astaire walk out of a film in disgust, but this overblown and misbegotten compression of Dennis Potter did the trick.
Steve Martin was as miscast here as in 'Bilko'. They should have let Bob Hoskins do it again. He could play American.
0:31 me to my girlfriend
Dios y la correccion politica me perdonen...per Bernadette ta'p😲😉al crimen...
The original tv series was somuch better
Omg the lip syncing is tripping me out!
This is not the real, original english version of Pennies From Heaven! And not half as good!
It would be so much better if she was singing.
That's NOT the point. ALL the songs are Gramophone recordings because that's the fantasy theme of the depression in the film.
Bernadette & Jessica: two of the best singers of all time, and they're lip syncing to songs sung by others. Beautiful to watch, disappointing to listen to.
Oh, this is really Heaven. Not a one black face.
Where is Bing Crosby 0/10
This is from the film in 1981 entitled "Pennies From Heaven". Bing Crosby was in the 1936 film which was a completely different film but also titled "Pennies From Heaven". Here is a clip of Bing Crosby singing "Pennies from Heaven" from the 1936 film:
th-cam.com/video/XXpUoL52a1w/w-d-xo.html
Watch the original series by Dennis Potter (UK). It's light years better than this. It's far more authentic and creative.
nah
@@stevekinsocal ....Yep sorry Steve old chap, ...original TV series by Dennis Potter incomparably better.....the trouble is, you guys just don't do [ or get ] "Irony"....the theme of PFH is the disconnect between the sugary sweetness of "popular music" / Hollywood glamour, and the harsh realities and "sticky betrayals" of normal everyday life.......and as for the 'lip synching', the sweet and innocent young teacher watching the 'production number' on the big screen would have 'mimed' to the words and Definately been too self conscious to sing them out herself......It's the ABSOLUTE separation of two incompatible worlds
@@williamclutterbuck6383 Potter's best work, and Bob Hoskins's breakthrough. But Potter overdid the gimmick of mouthing to old songs later, and became sleazy and long-winded.
It's not as good as the British version
Inappropriate dress
Have you never seen a pre-code movie musical?