Pennies from Heaven

As a teenager I was a great fan of the music of the 1920s and the 1930s. I didn't see this series when it was first shown in the 1970s but I saw it when it was repeated in 1990. I know you shouldn't speak evil of the dead but Dennis Potter was one weird and scary guy. The music is very pleasant. It may be dated but it is still nice to listen to in the same way comedy films of the same era like those of the Marx Brothers, Will Hay and Laurel and Hardy are still fun to watch. Many things in the series are morbid and ghoulish and a bit inconsistent with the music. These scenes where you had men moving their lips to female singers (eg Bob Hoskins mouthing to Elsie Carlisle and in another scene his friends mouthing to the Carlyle Cousins) and vice versa (eg Gemma Craven mouthing to Dan Donovan) annoyed me greatly. As a teenager I built up a collection of 400 78s from that era including some that were featured in the programme like Jack Hylton's "Painting The Clouds With Sunshine" recorded 25/10/29, four days before the Wall Street Crash. I also corresponded with a few old men who had been musicians in these bands including Tiny Winters, the bass player with the Lew Stone band. Tiny played bass on a few of the records that were featured in the series. He said, agreeing with my views, that he didn't like it. Mary Lee, one of the singers with Roy Fox's band, told me she was surprised to see Cheryl Campbell in the series moving her lips to her voice. This series did not gain the approval of the musicians on the 1930s records featured in it or of people who were fans of these bands in the 1930s or of modern day enthusiasts. This was just a depressing play written by a sad lecherous oddball who aimed more at upsetting people than entertaining them.

I remember seeing this on TV when it first came out. I was changing channels, and here were these woman, tap dancing on a coffin, lip syncing, "I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you." I was hooked.

It was the first time I ever saw Bob Hoskins, who managed to make a character who was truly awful somehow loveable.

It's a depression-era story, and while the story itself is grim, somehow the telling is joyful, with the cast breaking into "song." The songs are wonderful old songs, and they just mouth to them, and it creates a surreal feeling, but one that works, because it's as if this is what they are feeling (and could have felt at the time in the vernacular of the old songs).

The whole telling of this story is so original and vivid that you must watch it when you can.

==> Don't confuse this with the movie version, directed by Herbert Ross, with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters has spectacular production values (unfortunately, the biggest production number was actually cut), but Steve Martin, great as he is, just doesn't make you like and feel for him the way Hoskins does. Bernadette is sufficiently waif-like, but she lacks Gemma Craven's grittiness.

Christopher Walken is the highlight of the film, doing an incredible song/dance/striptease on a bar that shows what a great dancer he is.

Thanks to the PBS Network, KCET 28 Los Angeles, I was able to see "Pennies From Heaven" years ago during a tribute to writer, Dennis Potter. I throughly enjoyed this tv mini-series. To be honest in this review, I did not get to see the last episodes of "Pennies From Heaven" because my VHS video tape cut off after six hours of recording. The last scene I saw was when Bob Hoskins and the blonde lady were eating at a ritzy restaurant and had just tasted the wine. But I throughly enjoyed all that I had seen. The drama, the comedy and the good ole music is fantastic. Bob Hoskins is a young 36 in this film. Handsome and dashing. He is perfect in the lead role. It is fun to watch him lip-syncing. Bob Hoskins acting is the best and the top. His clarity of emotions that he brings forth (to the camera, to the viewer) is impeccable. Oh, how I wish this fine production were available on VHS video or DVD. I guess the only chance of seeing this tv mini-series again is if the PBS network in Los Angeles broadcasts it again. The 25th Anniversary of this "Pennies From Heaven" tv-mini-series is on March 7, 2003.

To evaluate Pennies from Heaven solely in terms of its use of 1930s dance tunes is at best blinkered and at worst deeply stupid. What Potter did with those tunes was to point up how his characters sought refuge in what now would be called 'pop culture' to escape the grim realities of the time - and he was writing about the 1930s: the Depression, Fascism, Stalinism, etc. And Potter was genuinely fond of the 30s tunes that were used: I don't think the series mocks the songs at all, but their up-beat denial of misery is what makes their use so powerful as they counterpoint the characters' despair.

Whatever else Dennis Potter might have done (I am not an unqualified fan) this series is just about the greatest drama series ever seen on British TV; except, that is, for Potter's last word on his 'lip-sync' method, The Singing Detective, from 1987.

With all the characters suddenly bursting into song, thankfully mimed to the original artists, this series made new ground. Very entertaining, lots of obscure but brilliant supporting actors, and a great script. The central role was brilliantly portrayed by Hoskin's frustrated salesman, trying to be taken seriously but also looking for satisfaction from his hopelessly frigid wife. His lust interest is one of those women who ooze sex appeal, and it's easy to understand how a man could fall when confronted with such unbridled passion. The whole series focuses on repressed desires and imagined hopes, as expressed by the episodes of song and dance. Notable is the courtroom scene in which the entire jury bursts into a routine. One to buy and keep.