Pennies from Heaven

Pennies from Heaven (1981) is Herbert Ross's bleak musical with Steve Martin, ready to watch online on iFILM. Depression-era Chicago: sheet-music peddler Arthur sells other people's happy little tunes while his own days are nothing but grey poverty and a loveless marriage.

He tries to flee into song and into an affair with Eileen, a shy schoolteacher played by Bernadette Peters. The film's trick is that the characters never actually sing — in their daydreams they mouth along to genuine 1930s gramophone records, and a shabby little room blossoms into a lavish production number. The gap between the sugary songs and the cruelty around them lands like a slap. One jolt towers over the rest: Christopher Walken, a trained dancer, turns a barroom into a tap-and-striptease routine that has become legend.

Ross built an anti-musical, a sour reply to Hollywood's dream factory where the promised pennies never fall. Steve Martin, the familiar clown, reaches for something close to tragedy. It isn't for everyone, but catch its wavelength and it won't let go. Stream Pennies from Heaven (1981) online on iFILM.