Review of Pennies from Heaven

This not very well known and dismissed musical surprised me with how good it was. Under the glossy production design and snappy musical numbers, there's a very dark center to the film, as its characters struggle through the Great Depression and their own desperation. It put me in mind of the depression-era musicals like "42nd Street," in which landing a part in a chorus line could mean the difference between eating and starving, and people put on a show more out of grim determination than through the true desire to burst into song. Maybe it's this quality that resulted in the film being a box office bomb upon its release.

Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters and especially Christopher Walken do smashing work in this movie. Walken shows that pizazz and attitude can go a long way toward overcoming limitations as a singer and dancer.

Grade: A-