People weren’t ready for this side of Steve Martin in 1981. They wanted the wild and crazy guy, and were rather shocked and surprised when Pennies From Heaven wasn’t a comedic role, and was, in fact, an early 80s spin on the classic musical, and used tunes from the 20s and the Depression Era to tell its story.

Martin plays Arthur Parker, a sheet song salesman whose heart is in the music he sells. He wants to live inside a song, and doesn’t understand why the real world isn’t like that. He’s in a sexless marriage with Joan (Jessica Harper). He wants love, sex, passion and lust, all with a musical bent.

While on the road, he meets a young teacher, Eileen (Bernadette Peters), and she matches his lust for lust, and they fall into a passionate, but ultimately doomed relationship. In fact, Arthur ruins the lives of three women through the course of the film, with one ending up dead, and Arthur wanted for murder.

This isn’t an overly happy and joyous musical, and that’s kind of the point. There is magic in the songs and how they affect the world, and those who hear and sing them, but the real world exists outside the lyrics and bridges, and it’s not as nice as the ones in the stanzas.

Christopher Walken has one scene-stealing sequence when he comes across a now down-on-her-luck Eileen and delivers a dance sequence to Cole Porter’s ” Let’s Misbehave.

It’s a tragic jukebox musical, and as solid as it is, it was not what people thought of when they thought of Steve Martin. And the film suffered for that, but the years have been kind. We know Martin has many talents besides comedy, and this film works with great music and its sombre story.

Yes, Arthur is deeply flawed, and he treats the women in his life horribly. But again, that’s the point. The world is flawed, but a song can be perfect, and for a few minutes you can escape into the fantasy perfection.

I love the song selections for the film, and it’s this wonderful hybrid of a film shot in the 80s to feel like a 40s-era musical set in the 20s.

It’s a unique film in Martin’s filmography, and definitely worth an exploration.

And it’s a wild thought, when you watch the film’s trailer, that it suggests that this is a Christopher Walken we’ve never seen before – whereas here, some forty-plus years on, we can’t imagine him not dancing.

I liked this one. I’m not going to run right back out and watch it again; it is a bit of a downer, but it’s a solid watch, and filled with great tunes.