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| Author | Topic: Pennies from Heaven |
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PTM
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6/26/2003 | posted: 3/24/2004 at 10:59:28 PM ET
Looks like Pennies may finally be coming out on DVD on July 27th. This came from a Canadian site so hope it applies to the US. It says it will feature a commentary track plus a cast & crew reunion featurette.
PTM
|  moljul
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4/2/2001
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New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 3/24/2004 at 11:07:02 PM ET
Very cool news!
| jmslsu01
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Registered:
6/9/2003
From:
northern VA | posted: 3/25/2004 at 9:21:19 AM ET
I believe Amazon has a Canadian site,and DVDs are interchangeable with the two countries. So if it isn't released in the States (which I would find strange),you could buy it from a Canadian outlet (it would be more expensive,however).
Jenn,who *loves* DVD commentaries,and recently enjoyed the commentary on the Willy Wonka DVD (by the "kids"!)
| Kiernan
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10/12/2001 | posted: 3/25/2004 at 1:52:45 PM ET
Very very good news! I just love the quirkiness and originality of that movie. Wonder if Bernadette and Steve Martin still keep in touch after all these years....
"If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased."
| moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 3/25/2004 at 2:01:41 PM ET
Someone reported (hey maybe it was me) that Steve Martin attended a performance of Gypsy and immediately went back stage to visit so I would say they "keep in touch" at least a little.
Can't wait to see the DVD. I love the commentaries too. I was very disappointed the Prince Charming DVD didn't have anything special as I'm sure cast interviews would have been hysterical.
|  leebee
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1/19/2004
Fav. BP Song: Being Alive
Fav. BP Show: Sunday In The Park With George
| posted: 3/25/2004 at 2:59:45 PM ET
This is great, great news! Pennies is one of my favorite movies ever, EVER I say! I'm talking all the way back to Chaplin's "City Lights" ever! The only copy I've ever had of Pennies is one I taped off of TMC.
| Anonymous
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From Internet Network:
209.179.140.x | posted: 3/27/2004 at 12:01:37 AM ET
Sorry if this is a stupid question but could someone PLEASE explain the ending of Pennies. I cann never understand it.
| Karen
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5/3/2002 | posted: 3/27/2004 at 10:58:02 AM ET
I feel dumb even trying to answer, because it's very complex and I'm sure there are a lot of nuances I still haven't grasped. What I take from it is that the director is stepping back and putting a frame around the material. Just as the characters go off into fantasy worlds inspired by the songs they love, and are then abruptly torn back to "reality", so too we, the audience, are being pulled out of our immersion in the film's narrative and forcibly reminded that their "reality" is every bit as artificial as their fantasy. Our experience in viewing this film(or any film)is analagous to the escape mechanisms used by Arthur and Eileen. I think maybe Ross and Potter were trying to break our emotional enthrallment and provoke an intellectual realization of the artifice of it all. That's wildly simplistic, but it's an outline of how I might begin thinking about it. Please, please will others jump in with some more ideas?
| moljul
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 3/27/2004 at 8:02:46 PM ET
Supposedly the film originally ended with the hanging but those involved (whether it was Steve Martin or the director or producers) felt the ending was too much of a downer so they added in the song and the "happy ending".
I interpreted it to mean that the song was actually in Eileen's mind. As he was about to be hung Arthur breaks into song as his mechanism to deal with what was happening. Then the camera focuses on Eileen standing in her window thinking about what is happening to Arthur and then her mind starts the song and dance and the arrival of Arthur and the happy ending.
Just my thoughts. It is hard to figure out.
| Karen
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5/3/2002 | posted: 3/28/2004 at 10:48:20 AM ET
A while back I purchased a peliminary draft script of "Pennies" dated June 27, 1980. Some of it is the same, but a lot is very different, especially the ending. In this version, after they exit the movie theatre they go on the run for a while. They end up spending a night in the barn on an isolated farm. The crazed farmer discovers them kissing and embracing and violently confronts them with a shotgun calling them "filthy animals". Eileen manages to talk him into giving her the gun, and promptly shoots him to death, stunning Arthur. They hide the body and temporarily move into the farm house where they find some money, deciding to use it to return to Chicago. They plan on buying a radio and a victrola and going to the movies at night. On the way back, their car breaks down and the police find them, only Eileen is the one who is shot rather than Arthur. She is shown in a hospital room with an iv and an oxygen mask while Arthur is sentenced by the Judge. In jail, Arthur is visited by his wife Joan who kisses him passionately. Eileen dies in the hospital on the morning that Arthur is executed. Following his hanging, the two of them(or their ghosts)meet on a breakwater on Lake Michigan. He says "Who ever said you could stop a dream...We couldn't go through all that without a happy ending. Songs ain't like that! Are they?" Then they both face the camera and say together "The song is ended but the melody lingers on." At this point they dance off into the distance of Lake Michigan while singing in their own voices "The Glory Of Love". Then the camera tilts up into the sky and it ends as in the finished film. Obviously this version would have felt even harsher, darker, and more intense than the film ended up being. I would guess the studio executives wanted it shorter and softer, and also probably cut down Eileen's scenes to make it seem more of a "Steve Martin" vehicle. As we know, it didn't help at the box-office where the film was a failure, although it lives on as a critical and personal favorite of many.
| moljul
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From:
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 3/28/2004 at 1:02:56 PM ET
Wow that's really interesting. So its the farmer who is killed instead of the blind girl?
I kind of like the ending with them both dying and then "meeting up" because it seems more realistic. At least they are both in a spiritual world. Though there are some things in your description that I'm glad they dropped.
| Karen
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5/3/2002 | posted: 3/28/2004 at 3:04:04 PM ET
No, the blind girl is killed, just as in the finished film, and Arthur is mistakenly blamed for her death. The part where they leave the movie theatre and discover he is wanted by the police is the same. It's then that the sequence of them on the run and at the isolated farm is added. That Eileen kills the farmer is never presented as being known by the authorities. When the police shoot her, it's while attempting to arrest Arthur for the blind girl's murder. Eileen accidentally steps into the line of fire, she isn't the intended target. Another interesting but disturbing aspect of the scene in the barn is the very explicit voyeurism. When the farmer finds them, Eileen says "You want to watch. Don't you?...You can, you know...We are animals. We don't mind...You're entitled to watch. Nothing wrong in that." Then there's a close-up of his face, implying that he is watching them having sex. After she shoots him, Arthur asks why, and Eileen says "Because I felt like it." He tells her she's gone crazy, and asks her not to point the gun at him, at which point, she smiles, says it's no longer loaded, and pulls the trigger. When he screams and jumps, she's described as laughing harshly. So it really was developed quite differently. I'm not sure either if it would have been better to have used this version--some of it sounds very hard to take.
| leebee
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Fav. BP Song: Being Alive
Fav. BP Show: Sunday In The Park With George
| posted: 3/29/2004 at 11:19:08 AM ET
Wow Karen that is amazing. I have heard references to some of those things, but I've never seen them explained so well. Thank you for posting that.
| moljul
Registered User
Registered:
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From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 3/29/2004 at 11:40:12 AM ET
You know this is all so fascinating. While this version was more disturbing, the more I think about it, the more I wish they had done it that way. The main problem with the ending now is that it does not makes sense. But with them both dying, then meeting up would make sense. Also, its not so far fetched to think of Eileen doing some of the things Karen described. She had that personality bottled up inside of her from the beginning and Arthur is the one who let it out. Remember she acknowledged she very much liked having sex for money so why would she mind someone watching.
I would venture a guess that the studios didn't want to take a chance with that ending with these particular stars. This was Steve Martin's first foray into any kind of a serious role and Bernadette was certainly known for mostly light comedy. This type of movie with those two was quite a bit of a gamble commercially to begin with so I'm sure the producers wanted to soften it a bit. About a year or so ago I went to a screening of Pennies From Heaven and a interview with the cinematographer. First, if you ever get a chance to view this film on the big screen - TAKE IT! It is a gorgeous film and really isn't done justice visually on the small screen. The cinematographer, whose names is escaping me at the moment, said that he really felt by the time the film was finished that Steve Martin became really concerned about what it would do to his career. Because it was so different than anything he had done, he let his fears get the better of him and kind of turned his back on the film - really no longer believed in it. He went on to add that Bernadette on the other hand really believed it was a good film and campaigned and promoted it heavily. And I believe she still names this the film role she is most proud of in her career.
Bottom line: It's a bizarre film but I think if you are going to make a bizarre film you have to really go for it and not give into fears that it is too much. Be true to its nature. And I think they ended up compromising the artistic integrity of the film.
| Karen
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5/3/2002 | posted: 3/29/2004 at 1:16:17 PM ET
Moljul, I think you're right. What you say is akin to Pauline Kael's attitude. She loved Pennies(one of her all-time favorites)and was pushing for people to see it up until the day she died. But in her initial New Yorker review, which is included in the collection "Taking It All In", she also expressed a wish that Herb Ross could have taken the material even farther out and darker than he did. She obviously loved the film, and you could tell she almost hated expressing any reservations, but with her usual scrupulous intellectual honesty, she did. If you ever read old interviews with Kael(many have been collected)you'll see that Bernadette was a great favorite of hers.
| Karen
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5/3/2002 | posted: 3/29/2004 at 1:23:17 PM ET
Oh, and I forgot to add that the very accomplished and distinguished Gordon Willis(of the Godfather films)did the cinematography.
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