Episode #90: PENNIES FROM HEAVEN

[ZZZ 63]

I really worry about the post-gender argument. I feel like most of the times female character, story or POV have come up on this show a lot of people have been really dismissive of it's relevance. I don't think it's a conscious reflex but the words people use to describe those rare female-centric movies have always really irritated me, doubly so because they act like you're crazy or sensitive for calling it out. Equality does not mean we have to pretend gender isn't completely baked into every part of our culture it just means we need to be more questioning of ideas that might be based on preconditioned ideas.

[Philly Cheesesteak 92]

I really worry about the post-gender argument. I feel like most of the times female character, story or POV have come up on this show a lot of people have been really dismissive of it's relevance. I don't think it's a conscious reflex but the words people use to describe those rare female-centric movies have always really irritated me, doubly so because they act like you're crazy or sensitive for calling it out. Equality does not mean we have to pretend gender isn't completely baked into every part of our culture it just means we need to be more questioning of ideas that might be based on preconditioned ideas.

 

I could t help but notice that with the Breakfast at Tiffany's episode.

[ZZZ 63]

I don't know I never know how to react to it because it always starts with "I have no trouble identifying with female characters, let me explain to you my problems with this female character" and sometimes it's completely valid but sometimes it feels really icky.

[Philly Cheesesteak 92]

I don't know I never know how to react to it because it always starts with "I have no trouble identifying with female characters, let me explain to you my problems with this female character" and sometimes it's completely valid but sometimes it feels really icky.

 

And things get especially judgemental regarding films with female protagonists that predate the 80s. Standards of gender change, yes, but for goodness sake can we not disregard or outright condemn the past because they fail to meet some arbitrary purity test? A test, by the way, we ourselves will fail when our own descendants put us to their own arbitrary criteria?

[Galactiac 91]

I would take Nights of Cabiria over Breakfast at Tiffany's any day of the week. I really believe Breakfast at Tiffany's is just a weak film even if you pretend Mickey Rooney wasn't in it.

[JosephDaley 26]

All of the gendered discussion here is wonderful, but has no basis on the film we're voting on today.

 

'Pennies From Heaven' isn't one of the greatest movies ever made, and follows a male character who couldn't be bothered to care about the feminine perspective of the women in his life. You're almost all making this all a question of do we vote because we love Amy and want to see her and the things she loves comfortably reflected in The Canon, or not.

 

The answer is neither. We vote *N-O* because 'Pennies From Heaven' is barely a C, in the context of the greatest movies ever made. 'Pennies From Heaven' doesn't even come close to the Top 500 Greatest Movies Ever Made, so why should it be allowed to be inducted into The Canon of the Greatest Movies Ever Made?

 

Are we just going to allow every movie that our hosts put forward into The Canon? 'Re-Animator' has it's following and place in history specifically because it *is* one of the greatest horror genre exercises of the 1980's, and is an sterling example of how to make a pitch perfect horror movie.

 

'Pennies From Heaven' was relegated to the dust covered waste bin of ineptitude because it's just objectively *not* the greatest anything, it's just a blip on Steve Martin's career, and an anecdotal addition to his IMDb. It's a fine movie that isn't exceptional at literally conveying anything.

 

Again, this is The Canon of the Greatest Movies Ever Made.

[DavidAustin 10]

Soft yes. I do think Steve Martin's character is utterly irredeemable, but that works for me. Some of the set pieces are fantastic (particularly walked) and I think the film is impressively ambitious. It may not achieve all of its ambitions, but it comes close enough.

[DavidAustin 10]

For the record, I did have a much easier time say yes for Reanimator.

[Philly Cheesesteak 92]

All of the gendered discussion here is wonderful, but has no basis on the film we're voting on today.

 

'Pennies From Heaven' isn't one of the greatest movies ever made, and follows a male character who couldn't be bothered to care about the feminine perspective of the women in his life. You're almost all making this all a question of do we vote because we love Amy and want to see her and the things she loves comfortably reflected in The Canon, or not.

 

The answer is neither. We vote *N-O* because 'Pennies From Heaven' is barely a C, in the context of the greatest movies ever made. 'Pennies From Heaven' doesn't even come close to the Top 500 Greatest Movies Ever Made, so why should it be allowed to be inducted into The Canon of the Greatest Movies Ever Made?

 

Are we just going to allow every movie that our hosts put forward into The Canon? 'Re-Animator' has it's following and place in history specifically because it *is* one of the greatest horror genre exercises of the 1980's, and is an sterling example of how to make a pitch perfect horror movie.

 

'Pennies From Heaven' was relegated to the dust covered waste bin of ineptitude because it's just objectively *not* the greatest anything, it's just a blip on Steve Martin's career, and an anecdotal addition to his IMDb. It's a fine movie that isn't exceptional at literally conveying anything.

 

Again, this is The Canon of the Greatest Movies Ever Made.

 

Fair point, fair point. Things sort of just branched out there for a bit. I take full responsibility there.

[NathanGordon 1096]

Dude-oriented I: In the history of cinema the vast majority of films made up to this point have been made by men. It's an unfortunate fact and there are historical and cultural reasons for this, but it's still a fact. By its nature, The Canon is going to be dude oriented regardless, just going off percentages.

I think I understand your intention with this statement, but I hope that you can also see how this is a very, very poor argument. This is like saying "Well, historically, most CEOs of our company have been men. There are bad reasons for this, but that's just how it is. We understand there are qualified women candidates, but we're going to hire a man. Internally. From the board of directors."

 

Just because there's been a pattern of lame sexism in film financing, production, distribution, and criticism, doesn't mean we have to continue on that path. This is casual discrimination, and it enables wider, more severe institutional discrimination.

[Threshold 93]

I think I understand your intention with this statement, but I hope that you can also see how this is a very, very poor argument. This is like saying "Well, historically, most CEOs of our company have been men. There are bad reasons for this, but that's just how it is. We understand there are qualified women candidates, but we're going to hire a man. Internally. From the board of directors."

 

Just because there's been a pattern of lame sexism in film financing, production, distribution, and criticism, doesn't mean we have to continue on that path. This is casual discrimination, and it enables wider, more severe institutional discrimination.

Exactly right!

Feminist VS Post-Feminist argument which I continue to bring up.

It's fine to be viewing these things from a post-feminist perspective, as long as you realise we aren't even in a feminist world.

 

And in saying that- I reckon this film treats women poorly in that we are locked into Steve Martin's hideous perspective for most of the film. It's so grating.

[SaoirseRonantheAccuser 4]

I'm really torn about this! There are scenes I really love, and scenes that I just didn't think worked.

 

I think it's clumsy with some of its musical numbers. Take the bank number: The guy says no, then we get a song about him saying yes. I guess the fantasy is just, "I wish he said yes?" But that's hollow, and it kind of goes across the suddenness with which it hits in the story. The song comes about 20 seconds later than it should - this should be Martin anticipating the yes, praying for the yes, fantasizing about how good the yes will feel... until the fantasy is punctured by the no. But instead, it's just a song and dance - a good one, and funny! - for the sake of having a song and dance. That's not generally how really great musicals work. The final musical number shares the same flaw - it shows us something then gives us a fantasy contradiction, not realizing how much more powerful it is to have the fantasy punctured rather than letting it linger.

 

But then, the bar segment is great, particularly the crassness of his compatriots deflating his fantasy despite his own crassness within it; he has wildly different standards for everyone else than he is able to hold for himself. As Amy recognizes, he genuinely believes that he's good. He's a romantic in the moment, a lover, someone who can support the homeless, but he's also a someone who stays with his wife for a record store, threatens a homeless man, a date-rapes a girl who might like him.

 

I also disagree with Devin's assessment that the ending is random. To me, the ending - Martin being hanged for a crime he didn't commit - is essential. He's a guy who did awful things, who shat on everyone around him, the sort of 'nice guy' who constantly shares MRA memes on Facebook, but who is handsome and charmingish-enough to lie his way out of most scenarios and feckless enough to abandon those he can't lie away. So the universe destroys him with something he didn't do, but that his lies and running make him look guilty of.

 

I think the movie recognizes how scummy and shitty Steve Martin's character is, but I think it wants to takes its time to really show it to us. His first scene shows him as an idle dreamer, and while it's also kind of scuzzy and misogynistic, we see that exact scene played straight a thousand times to show the lead as unfulfilled at home thanks to a frigid wife. She won't support his dreams; how could he not cheat, especially with an innocent schoolteacher? Sure, he kind of stalks her, but that's pretty standard romantic comedy behavior, right? And yeah, their first sex scene leaps right over the edge of sexual assault to me, but maybe it's setting up a redemption arc for him?

 

But it isn't. He just keeps getting worse. He just keeps destroying everything he touches. And the movie gives him out after out after out, nigh-infinite opportunities to realize that the only problem in his life is himself, but he just doesn't have the sense or maturity to take it. Hell, when the blind girl dies, he immediately realizes he should go to the police, Eileen tells him to, and he chooses to try and hide instead. But even there, he's undone by wanting to fuck in a car.

 

Ultimately, I think I have to lean for a very soft no. It's a solid deconstruction of the musical with a post-70s edge and a Steve Martin just getting used to stretching himself... but literally everything it did was done more ambitiously, smarter, and better-looking 2 years earlier by Bob Fosse in All That Jazz, even up to the ending. I think the last 5 minutes in particular are where Pennies from Heaven loses my vote, honestly.

 

I totally get loving an ambitious mess, and I'm glad I watched this, but - at least on first viewing - it leans just a little harder on the 'mess' side than I'd like. But these sorts of movies often improve on second viewing, and this one might too. Just, you know... not in time for voting.

 

Sorry, Amy. You made some great arguments, though!

[SaoirseRonantheAccuser 4]

Shit, I better not be the tie-breaker in my first vote on the new forum.

[Philly Cheesesteak 92]

To reiterate my thoughts:

 

Part of me wanted to vote "yes" as a way of balancing the scales. Devin's indulgence pick, when it really shouldn't have by definition, made it into the Canon. By this logic, Amy's pick should deserve the same treatment. I don't even like the idea of indulgence picks to begin with, but if they're going to do more in the future we might as well make the most of it. At the very least, I would sort of like a representation of non-geek ambitious and messy passion projects to go along with the geek-inclined "we're just fine examples of well-crafted fun" kind represented by Re-Animator.

 

That said, I voted "no."

 

Again, this Canon should be an exemplary gallery of craft and talent in all genres, styles, schools and eras. As someone noted earlier, if Re-Animator has any virtue in its corner it's its sheer dedication to its exercise in gore and spectacle. Meanwhile, Pennies from Heaven, despite all that heart and passion and aspiration I've been harping on about, cannot for the life of it get any of those things right onscreen. This is kind of a problem.

 

I'm sympathetic to ambitious messes in cinema but we have rules and standards for a reason.

 

... But by God do I sympathize with Amy's point about the influx of geek and male-focused genre flicks in the Canon. To go back to my first paragraph, it's why I think it'd balance the scales a tad. If it were somehow voted in, despite any of my own personal reservations I wouldn't complain about it at the end of the day.

 

I guess it's a soft no from me, albeit attached with several asterisks and caveats.

[ZZZ 63]

All of the gendered discussion here is wonderful, but has no basis on the film we're voting on today.

 

'Pennies From Heaven' isn't one of the greatest movies ever made, and follows a male character who couldn't be bothered to care about the feminine perspective of the women in his life. You're almost all making this all a question of do we vote because we love Amy and want to see her and the things she loves comfortably reflected in The Canon, or not.

 

 

I take gender into account on all the films we vote on. A film doesn't need to represent perfect feminist ideals to be discussed. Gender plays a huge part in this movie and most movies. Whether you're a man or a woman in this world determines the course of your life. Arthur cheats and he's mostly fine, Bernadette Peter's literally has no other option than to become a prostitute. I'm pretty sure this film is purposely misogynistic and to ignore those aspects undermines a huge part of the film. This attitude of dismissing the way characters are affected based on gender is honestly insane to me and represents exactly what I was referring to earlier in the thread. It was not a deviation to talk about Amy, it was discussion of the way people deem the "gender discussion" unimportant or irrelevant.

[Muthsarah 124]

 

 

I really doubt Amy was being disingenuous when she said she was afraid to nominate this movie. She's offering up her favorite movie, which happens to be really hard to defend, to a forum of strangers. This is a movie that she clearly loves and it obviously means a lot to her and I think we all have films we would be hesitant to debate in this fashion. Amy is not a strict genre fan but she is a film enthusiast and I'm sure she is not so vindictive as to skew future episodes unfairly.

 

I 100% believe Amy's putting her heart on the line when she put this up for her indulgence pick. Like with "Creed", Devin plays the odds as much as anything. Like, above all else, he doesn't wanna lose. He'll pick his most winningest personal pick, then call in everyone and La Grande Armee to vote for him. Re-Animator wasn't half so daring a pick as Pennies From Heaven. A decades-long genre staple versus a forgotten film from a forgotten genre in a forgotten era. Amy picked something she's all-but-certain will lose, which really honors the idea of an indulgence pick, as laid down long before the Re-Animator episode. I gotta admit, it really builds up the feels. I really wanna give her every benefit of the doubt. I just haven't seen the film yet. I rented it on Amazon. I'm just waiting. Hopefully, I'll pull the trigger before Monday, so I can honestly vote on it.

 

But, however it goes, Amy's pick just makes me like her, as a movie lover, more than ever. She's got guts.

[Philly Cheesesteak 92]

 

I 100% believe Amy's putting her heart on the line when she put this up for her indulgence pick. Like with "Creed", Devin plays the odds as much as anything. Like, above all else, he doesn't wanna lose. He'll pick his most winningest personal pick, then call in everyone and La Grande Armee to vote for him. Re-Animator wasn't half so daring a pick as Pennies From Heaven. A decades-long genre staple versus a forgotten film from a forgotten genre in a forgotten era. Amy picked something she's all-but-certain will lose, which really honors the idea of an indulgence pick, as laid down long before the Re-Animator episode. I gotta admit, it really builds up the feels. I really wanna give her every benefit of the doubt. I just haven't seen the film yet. I rented it on Amazon. I'm just waiting. Hopefully, I'll pull the trigger before Monday, so I can honestly vote on it.

 

But, however it goes, Amy's pick just makes me like her, as a movie lover, more than ever. She's got guts.

 

Could I somehow give you the key to the internet? Because you just won it.

[EdogawaRampo_122973 2]

 

'Pennies From Heaven' doesn't even come close to the Top 500 Greatest Movies Ever Made, so why should it be allowed to be inducted into The Canon of the Greatest Movies Ever Made?

 

 

 

Let's not get hysterical. This canon, the one we're voting on, doesn't have any Buñuel, Chaplin, Lang, Kurosawa, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Ozu, Rosellini, Kubrick, Hawks, Godard, Visconti. It doesn't even have any Hitchcock.

 

It does, however, have the perfectly enjoyable and middlebrow "Working Girl", the atrociously crafted "Boyz N' The Hood", the middle-of-the-road actioneer "Casino Royale", the competent "Marathon Man" (arguably only the third best film to open in January 1976 after "Network" and "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and I voted for it). It has "E.T." but not "The Wizard of Oz", "All About Eve" but not "Sunset Blvd." and Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" but not Cocteau's. It's a great list of movies to watch, and it's fun to hear Devin and Amy talk about them, but at least half of them also fail the "500 greatest films" test.

 

Some commenters above are talking about the film as if it were incompetently made, someone called it inept, and someone said it was a film that is "hard to defend" but the craft alone in "Pennies from Heaven", with Ken Adams's design, and Gordon Willis's camerawork, is as good as many films included in this canon. The technique in the "Let's Misbehave" sequence, for example, is impeccable.

 

The film fails at the execution of a completely coherent narrative because it isn't trying to do that. The message of the film is not in its story, it's in the separation of sound from image that exposes the artifice of cinema so that we can't be hypnotized in the way we've grown accustomed to movies hypnotizing us. The "Follow The Fleet" scene, also impeccably realized, to me is the heart of the film, as it comments on that desire we have of becoming immersed in the movies we watch - a desire that according to this movie is either impossible or dangerous. I don't know if I agree with either proposition, but I like that they present it in this way, and in the end I voted yes partly because of that, but also for the same reason I voted yes on Reanimator, which is that beyond anything else, I find the movie to be unique, unforgettable, and lots of fun to watch. Is it one of the 500 greatest? I don't think so, but that really hasn't stopped us before.

[JeffreyMcDonald 65]

I think I understand your intention with this statement, but I hope that you can also see how this is a very, very poor argument. This is like saying "Well, historically, most CEOs of our company have been men. There are bad reasons for this, but that's just how it is. We understand there are qualified women candidates, but we're going to hire a man. Internally. From the board of directors."

 

Just because there's been a pattern of lame sexism in film financing, production, distribution, and criticism, doesn't mean we have to continue on that path. This is casual discrimination, and it enables wider, more severe institutional discrimination.

 

 

Yeah, it was definitely poorly stated on my part. (sometimes it's difficult to get out coherent thoughts tossing off a quick lunch-break message from my desk at work). Trying to clarify, but can't find the correct words to get across what I'm trying to say...which probably is a sign that it's a shitty argument to try to make.

 

I'm trying to talk about basic math. If the majority of films have been made by men, then the majority of films are going to have a so-called male perspective. I didn't say that we can't/shouldn't/won't vote for something that appeals to women or from women filmmakers. I was saying, just by the nature of the pool of films to choose from, the Canon is going to bias in a male perspective regardless, so it seems to me a pointless thing to point out. I mean, what's the gender breakdown of this list?

https://en.wikipedia...ilm:_An_Odyssey

 

But, that shitty argument aside, the point I was trying to make with the rest of that post was to say that films like "The Thing" or "Re-Animator" appeal only to basement dwelling asthmatic Dungeons & Dragons playing man-children of the '80s is somewhat baseless and reductive. As I said, I have plenty of awesome female friends (not of the 80s) who adore genre and exploitation films. I just don't agree with the framing of those movies being only made for or only appealing to a specific demographic. Some girls like to play in the dirt and mud just as much as the boys.

 

One of my favorite film watching experiences was watching "Bride of Re-Animator" at a midnight showing and when the characters get attacked by many appendages and my friend Alison yelled out in the theater with glee "Body parts galore!!!". She's not an '80s basement dwelling nerd...well she's a nerd (a biochemist), but she doesn't dwell in a basement and didn't grow up in the '80s. A nerd who likes good movies and doesn't judge them by who she imagines they were made to appeal to.

[JeffreyMcDonald 65]

...and again, totally willing to admit and mea culpa if I have a shitty argument or if I see that my perspective is wrong.

but what's the point of a discussion board if not to have a discussion?

I can't reply to everything but am actually enjoying reading other thoughts and even seeing how people are poking holes in what I'm saying.

Woo for learning experiences!

[sycasey 110]

First time posting on the Earwolf forums, though I've been a long-time follower of the podcast from Devin's site, Birth Movies Death. As cross-posted over there:

 

This is the first time I've watched a movie I've never seen before prior to listening to a Canon podcast, which was a fun experience!

 

I'm torn on the film itself. I'm glad I saw it, I liked that it took a big swing and tried something very difficult, and I liked that it dealt with challenging themes. On the other hand, I agree with Devin's take that the lead character is presented in almost totally irredeemable fashion -- I certainly never felt bad for him. It seems like the only argument in the character's favor is that he has artistic ambitions . . . but even there, the movie never demonstrates that he's actually good at his art. Beyond that, he's an asshole who lies to both his wife and his mistress and yet feels entitled to sex from both of them (at all times), and who also consistently feels sorry for himself while a literal homeless man is sitting across the table from him. He's surrounded by people worse off than him and still only thinks about his own unfulfilled dreams.

 

So for me Amy's argument in the film's favor isn't actually taking the right tack. I don't identify with or care about Steve Martin's character at all. To me the better argument is that this is a film built to show why the "good old days" weren't so good. Women have no options other than to stay with husbands who emotionally abuse them, become prostitutes, or get raped and murdered. Even the man who is in relative privilege feels like he has no real options, fails at everything he tries, and eventually is hanged for a crime he didn't commit (even the universe conspires against him). Meanwhile, the cheery songs of the era are re-purposed as ironic counterpoint to this dark world. I think the film is inconsistent about its conceit (for the reasons Devin lays out), but looking at Pennies From Heaven this way is how I get the most out of it. I'm thinking it could have worked better with a director who was better at applying visual cues to help nail down the themes; Herbert Ross is decent and competent, but doesn't quite display the bravura that was needed.

 

I like the film, but a soft no -- it falls just short of Canon status.

[HoldenMartinson 221]

Keeping up with these comments this week has been great. It's kind of a shame that Amy isn't reading these, because even if they'd give her too much anxiety, the discussion has been so good.

[Galactiac 91]

I wasn't going to say anything, but I was right on the edge of thinking indulgence picks were a bad idea. On the other hand an indulgence pick got me to sign up for the board, and so far the most exciting votes and the best discussions have been indulgence picks. It's starting to look like a pretty successful idea.

[Philly Cheesesteak 92]

I wasn't going to say anything, but I was right on the edge of thinking indulgence picks were a bad idea. On the other hand an indulgence pick got me to sign up for the board, and so far the most exciting votes and the best discussions have been indulgence picks. It's starting to look like a pretty successful idea.

 

When you put it like that... maybe we should give indulgence picks a fairer shake after all.

[FrancoAsmaeil 3]

Yes, because of Devin's shenanigans with Re-Animator.