Pennies from Heaven

Pennies from Heavenⁱ is a musical set in depression time Chicago. Steve Martin is an inconsequential salesman (he sells sheet music for 3 cents a piece in comission) married to a ἀγουρίδα of a woman who won't put out and won't help him borrowⁱⁱ but then puts lipstick on her nipples every night praying he comes backⁱⁱⁱ. He keeps breaking into song, and also dance (a lot of tapping). He fals in love violently, to a woman that shares the same traits (breaks into song, dances). The kids she teaches have that disease too. You'd think it's the 40s all over again or something.

Some scenes are surreal (like, for instance, he and the banker - this old otter of a guy - kiss!) but in general musicals are about as boring as it gets. He gets laid for the first time in what may well be months by turning a horrible slip (he accidentally mentioned his wife to a woman who thought him unmarried) into a tragic story of the woman's death and from there pawing and nabbing all the way to third base. She ends up pregnant. They end up best friends, because she knows why elevators stop in between floors.

Walken taps (and he's damned good at it), Walken strips (and he's damned good at it too!). He wears his hair gelled back, a small french moustache and tighty fitting suits.

Overall not a bad way to pass the time.

1. 1981, by Herbert Ross, with Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters. [↩]
2. Incidentally, ever heard of Jesse Lauriston Livermore ? He's one of the very few people to short during 1929, and therefore one of the very few people to come out of the Great Depression ahead. Still, his fortunes reverted later, and his pesky wife refused to pawn off jewelry he had bought for her earlier. [↩]
3. This seems to be a big thing I don't understand. I hate eating lipstick off lips to begin with. [↩]