Pennies from Heaven

Plot synopsis:
In prison, Larry Poole (Bing Crosby), a self-described troubadour, is approached by an inmate named Hart (John Gallaudet) who is on his way to the electric chair. Hart asks Larry to deliver a letter to a family called Smith near Middletown, New Jersey. After finding the family, which consists of a grandfather (Donald Meek) and a young girl named Patsy (Edith Fellows), Poole tells them that the letter holds a key, reveals that the condemned man had unintentionally killed Patsy's father and that he is giving the Smith family his old house and former hideout, the only thing he has to give as atonement.
Susan Sprague (Madge Evans) represents the county welfare department and it is her job to see that Patsy is raised "properly", or the girl will go to an orphanage. A variety of misadventures befall Larry as he tries to help "Gramps" out with Patsy to save her from the orphanage, all while Susan and he are falling in love, paternally.
To get cash for a restaurant license, Larry gets a stunt job at the circus, but is injured. While he is in hospital Gramps comes to let him know that the county has taken Patsy away. Larry believes Susan went behind his back and had Patsy placed in the orphanage. It is discovered that Susan had no part in it, but she loses her job defending Larry and his care of the child.
Larry has the circus perform for the children so that he can 'break Patsy out', when Patsy lets Larry know how Susan feels about him. Their attempt to free Patsy fails. Afterwards, Larry finds out that Susan has gone to New York and he goes there to find her.
While in New York, Susan is approached by two policemen looking for Larry, not to arrest him as she suspects, but to bring him back to the head of the County Welfare Department to help deal with Patsy, who has gone on a hunger strike. The policemen are watching Susan's apartment in the hopes that Larry will show up. When he does, they make him leave with them, after he and Susan reveal their feelings for each other.
When they return to the orphanage, the head of the welfare department begs Larry to help them with Patsy. Larry agrees to adopt Patsy and raise her with the help of Susan, who agrees to marry him and be a mother to Patsy.

Tags: depressing

Review:
Bing Crosby was loaned out from Paramount to Columbia for this film and Columbia did no better for him in the way of budget than Paramount.
Again relying on Crosby's personality to bring in the box office, if anything Columbia probably spent less money than Paramount on his films.What they did do was give Crosby a good supporting cast, a role tailor- made for him and a good score of tunes to sing, topped by one of his immortal hits, the title tune Pennies from Heaven.
This was the second of 15 movie songs introduced by Bing that were nominated for the Academy Award as best song when that award actually meant something.Crosby's Larry Poole is a more delineated character than most of the ones he did in the 1930s.
He's asked by a prisoner who's on death row to look up the family of a man he murdered and give them the key to an old house that the prisoner owned.
He meets up with the family which consists of juvenile Edith Fellows and grandfather Donald Meek.
He also tangles with social worker Madge Evans, but in the end all his righted.In the real world I can't believe that civil servant Evans would ever take up with a vagabond character like Larry Poole, definitely not in this day and age.
But if he's played by Bing Crosby, well.........The film has one other interesting feature.
Finally Bing asks just what is this expected windfall and Meek replies, "The Townsend Plan."Today's audience would not get that dated bit of humor, but the Townsend Plan was the brainstorm of a Doctor Francis Townsend who was a retired physician who came up with a scheme in which the elderly were to be paid in scrip (in other words money that had to be spent) and then that money would be taxed through the sales which would in turn pay for another month's scrip and so on and so on.
At the time of the filming of Pennies from Heaven this plan had a lot of followers in the country which was in a depression.
Of course Townsend never got his plan passed, but a lot of historians credit him with raising such a fuss over what we did with our elderly that the result was Social Security.One of Bing's best..
PENNIES FROM HEAVEN has an improbable story about a drifter (BING CROSBY) who plays the lute and sings for his supper at a nightclub he opens at The Haunted House Cafe.
The house has been inherited by DONALD COOK and EDITH FELLOWS from a prisoner on death row who wills the house to them as atonement for having killed the girl's father and is turned into a café by Bing and his friends, including LOUIS ARMSTRONG who is the vocalist and trumpet player.The main focal of the plot is Bing's relationship with bratty little Edith Fellows, who causes no end of trouble throughout and is the most irritating factor about the whole thing although she's meant to be amusing and cute.
MADGE EVANS as a social worker brings some sense of practicality to the whole affair and DONALD COOK provides some good humor, but the script meanders all over the place.Crosby makes the role of the drifter pleasant enough but his character is never quite believable.
Only when the musical numbers are played does the film reach any real level of entertainment, particularly during the "haunted" number at the café featuring a skeleton dance while Louis Armstrong belts out the song.This is a harmless trifle in Bing's career, on loan to Columbia before his big successes at Paramount, and mostly because he delivers a few songs in his unmistakable crooning style, particularly the title tune.Bing is his usual amiable self, but the script is miserable.
Bing Crosby and Edith Fellows.
Pleasant if meandering Bing Crosby vehicle casts him as a man unjustly jailed who is given a note to deliver by a condemned man.
Out of prison, he tracks down the Smith family in New Jersey and discovers a lonely girl (Edith Fellows) who lives with her destitute grandfather (Donald Meek).
Crosby ambles along with them and becomes part of the family, much to the dismay of a nosy social worker (Madge Evans).
No one seems unduly concerned about school or the fact that a total stranger has moved into the household.Not a lot of logic here but Crosby and Fellows are quite good.
Not a great film but it has a few pleasant songs, including the title number, and Crosby continues his screen persona of easy-going and decent.
McLeod, no relation to the 1981 musical of that same title featuring Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters, stars Bing Crosby, on loan from his home studio of Paramount, in a forgettable but likable story with a notable title tune that underscores the film opening credits, presenting pennies falling from the thundering clouds above bouncing to the wet ground below.
His biggest dream in life is to go to Venice, Italy, and ride on the gondolas, which, at present, seems unlikely.In the story's fade-in, Larry, serving time in prison on a supposed smuggling charge, with one more week to go before his released, is met by a man Hart (John Gallaudet), a condemned prisoner on his way to the electric chair to die for his crime, who wants Poole, the only man he trusts, to deliver a letter to a family named Smith of Middletown, New Jersey, and explains his reasons.
Following this dramatic scene opener, quite unusual for a musical-comedy, finds the pardoned Larry drifting along to a carnival where he encounters a pre-teen but tough little girl (Edith Fellows) being cheated at a game booth by a slick barker (who charges a dime for a throw of six rings).
YOU CROOK!" After making the acquaintance with Patsy and later her grandfather (Donald Meek), who are flat broke and in financial need, and learning that their last name is Smith, Larry finds that they are the Smiths he's been searching for.
With the help of the positive-thinking Larry, he happens upon an idea of turning the old place into a roadside restaurant called the Haunted House Cafe.
The second half of the story focuses on Susan Sprague (Madge Evans), a county welfare agent, who feels Patsy, an incorrigible child who has been skipping school, isn't being brought up in the right atmosphere, especially when Patsy is bonding with a man who had spent time in prison, thus, threatening to take her away.Aside from Crosby's easy-going personality and his easy-listening crooning, Madge Evans' blonde beauty and Edith Fellows' temper tantrums controlled only by Crosby, whose "taming of the shrew" is through his singing, the supporting cast also features a very young Louis Armstrong as Henry, the hired hand, trumpeter and vocalist of the Haunted House Cafe; Nana Bryant as Mrs. Howard; Charles C.
Wilson as the Warden; and character actress Nydia Westman appearing briefly as the landlady.Nice tunes, compliments of songwriters Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston include: "So Do I" (sung by Bing Crosby); "Pennies From Heaven" (sung by Crosby to Edith Fellows during a thunder storm); "Skeleton in the Closet" (sung by Louis Armstrong); "Let's Call a Heart a Heart" (sung by Crosby to Madge Evans); "Pennies From Heaven" (reprise); "One, Two, Button My Shoe" (sung by Crosby and orphan children); "So Do I" and "One, Two, Button My Shoe" (reprise/finale).As in most Crosby musicals of the 1930s and '40s, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN is a likable production no different from the movies he has done over at his home studio at Paramount.
Along with the film, young Edith Fellows, who resembles a youthful Jane Powell, in a performance that could have been played by another registered movie "brat" named Bonita Granville, is as forgotten as this movie itself.
PENNIES FROM HEAVEN will go on record as her best known film work, for that her subsequent features, mostly for Columbia, have been minor programmers that remain hidden in the land of oblivion.
After she asks him what his name is, the camera focuses to the girl's point of eye-view from the bottom up as Crosby's character, appearing quite taller, looks down and answers her question.
A similar such scene occurs later as Crosby sings to the tune of "So Do I" while Fellows does some street dancing to earn some extra money as the tenement people throw some loose change from their apartment windows above.
While there are enough good songs to go around, only "Pennies from Heaven" remains legendary, earning an Academy Award nomination as Best Song of 1936, losing to "The Way You Look Tonight" from SWING TIME (1936).Available on DVD and shown on Turner Classic Movies(TCM premiere: December 5, 2005), PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, which which runs 81 minutes, is worthy screen entertainment made palatable by its good songs and fine supporting cast.
And you have to love the interplay between Bing and Louis Armstrong - and while you're watching Louis, that's Lionel Hampton playing the drums rather than vibes tonight - not many remember that he first started on the drums before moving to the vibes.
Bing Crosby is one of the few performers who while he performed in over 70 films while he was alive, was so talented he has now appeared as a performer in just as many after his death in archive footage.
The big stars like Crosby even later than this had the power to own their own films and get a piece of the box office.This film has the major attraction of Crosby in his prime with plenty of support and a fine performance by Louis Armstrong who is one of the great musical performers of the era too.
The script is light hearted and puts together just enough plot to get through all the great musical numbers.This is the type of film that isn't made anymore but is great to see, especially since a lot of Crosbys work is very entertaining.
I was ten years old and this was one of Bing Crosby's earliest films.
I believe this is the first film he did with the great Louis Armstrong.
Pennies from Heaven 1936 is a great film and has a wonderful scene with Louis Armstrong singing "Skeleton in the Closet" while chasing a skeleton all around the room.
Bing Crosby plays a drifter serving a stretch in prison when he's asked by a condemned inmate to deliver a letter to the family of the man the inmate killed ("Anybody that can sing sappy, sentimental songs in prison wouldn't double cross a guy taking his last walk").
He also finds himself at odds with a pretty social worker whose job it is to see the young girl is properly cared for.An enjoyable bit of fluff with nice comedy and some mild tugging at the heartstrings.
There is not much actually that's wrong with Pennies from Heaven, other than that the story is very slight and you have no trouble figuring out how it's all going to end and that Madge Evans would have seemed more comfortable if she had more to do.
Pennies from Heaven is not a lavish-looking film, nor was that needed.
Pennies from Heaven's Oscar-nomination was more than justified as it is a truly appealing song in all respects and is heavenly sung by Bing Crosby.
Bing Crosby is reason enough to see any film, and he certainly doesn't disappoint, giving a charismatic and (incredibly) appealingly heart-warming performance and singing beautifully as always.
He shares convincing chemistry with Edith Fellows, who does a great job being cute and sassy, she didn't seem that much of a brat to me.
Donald Meek is typically wonderful, and seeing early-career Louis Armstrong in Skeleton in the Closet was surprising in a pleasant way.
8/10 Bethany Cox. Excellent film- bing and Edith Fellows are a great team!.
Edith Fellows does NOT play a brat, but a determined and pleasant young girl who can use a little guidance.
The songs are fun and Bing and Edith make a great team!
Donald Meek is typically good, but Edith steals the show in the first scene at the carnival.
Bing Crosby brings his usual charm in the movie Pennies from Heaven.
Just watched this touching and musically entertaining Bing Crosby movie on YouTube.
In this one, Bing's a released prisoner who's promised a condemned man to give a note to a family named Smith.
That turns out to be a grandpa (Donald Meek) with a granddaughter named Patsy (Edith Fellows).
And the songs are good enough to get one humming though the highlight is one done by the great Satchmo-Louis Armstrong-who provides a rollicking tune called "Skeleton in the Closet" that provides a fun thrill on its own.
There's also a female orphanage rep (Madge Evans) who becomes a potential love interest for Bing.
Really, Pennies from Heaven is just a dandy fine picture that should make you a fan of Crosby's music if you're not already.
And while this movie was being shot, then-current members Spanky, Darla, Buckwheat, and of course Alfalfa shared a song with Crosby and Ms. Fellows on set which I found out when I saw a picture of them in the book "The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang" by Leonard Maltin and Richard W.
The other connection was Mickey Daniels-he plays a Hay Wagon Driver that takes Bing, Patsy, and her grandfather to the "haunted house"-who was one of the original members when the series started in 1922..
Bing Crosby is alright but the songs he sings are forgettable and too bland.
"Pennies from Heaven" is little more than a Bing Crosby vehicle -- one badly in need of a tune-up.It starts off well enough, with a man about to be executed for murder handing a letter to a self-styled "troubadour" (Bing Crosby) to be delivered to the family of the man he killed.
Once Crosby finds them, he makes a half-hearted effort to help (he's on his way to Venice), but his affection for the man's daughter (Edith Fellows) encourages him to stay.
When a social worker (Madge Evens) comes after the girl to put her in an orphanage, Crosby announces a plan to open a restaurant.It is at this point that the story runs off the rails of plausibility, crashing into a chasm deeper than any Wile E Coyote ever fell into.
Louis Armstrong (whom Crosby insisted be hired) is a treat, Edith Fellows is an agreeably anarchic child, and Stanley Andrews (the host of "Death Valley Days") has an unbilled role as a plainclothes officer.
Evans, though, is sufficiently blah one wonders how a woman-hater like Crosby's character would ever find her attractive.Jo Swerling wrote better scripts than this one, but Norman McLeod's direction is tight and brisk.
Note his unusual camera angles, as when Fellows looks through her opera glasses at Crosby.Nevertheless, "Pennies from Heaven" is one of those "less than the sum of its parts" films in which everyone's contribution is wasted on a poor story.
In one film of the period, made away from Paramount at Columbia, Crosby changed for the better his devil-may-care attitude long enough to help a down-and-out family "Pennies from Heaven" cast him as a friendly vagabond, released from prison after being convicted on a false chargeHe befriends the daughter (Edith Fellows) and father (Donald Meek) of an executed murderer, setting them up in a ramshackle mansion that he turns into a profitable café Sentimental and curiously melancholic, the film was one of the very few Crosby movies to acknowledge the Depression.
However, I can happily say that because the film turned out to be a lot of fun AND the music was light and enjoyable.The film, oddly, starts on death row!
He wants to see Bing Crosby--a man you just can't imagine being in prison!
He is to locate the family of the murdered man and give them a deed for a home--a small way the condemned man can try to make amends.Eventually, Bing does find the family--which turns out to be a child and her grandfather (Donald Meek).
They are is trouble--without money AND a social worker (Madge Evans) breathing down their necks--they want to put the child in an orphanage!
In fact, the plot is on the sappy side and totally illogical.But what shines through in this film is Bing Crosby's charisma on screen.
He asked fellow inmate Crosby to deliver a letter to his family when he gets out.
Madge Evans ably plays the beautiful social worker.
Edith Fellows plays the girl, but I can't say I was enthralled by her performance.
Louis Armstrong is along for the ride, and Donald Meek is delightful as the grandfather of the girl.Nothing special, but you may enjoy it..
More realistic and even better actors included her own rival, Jane Withers, Warner Brothers' Sybil Jason, and in this Bing Crosby musical from Columbia, the divine Edith Fellowes.
No tears, no cloying cuteness and no overly sweet smile to take your mind of the depression, she was like someone you'd have seen a few years before in Hal Roach's "Our Gang" series.Bing is getting out of prison for a crime he didn't commit and goes to visit the orphaned young girl (Fellowes) and her grandfather (Donald Meek) to help them out after agreeing to assist them from the man who killed her father.
Meek and Fellowes fall instantly under Crosby's spell, especially after he introduces them to the haunting title song.
They open a restaurant and nightclub specializing in chicken dinners with a haunted house theme, hoping this will prevent Evans from taking poor Edith away.
But in true depression fashion, the government wins, and Crosby does all he can to win her back-this time legally and for good.A pleasing musical comedy, this is aided by the appearance of Louis Armstrong and his band who perform in the very funny haunted house dining sequence where all sorts of funny gags are leashed on the unsuspecting customers.