Pennies from Heaven was based on a 1978 BBC television drama. In 1981 Dennis Potter adapted his own screenplay for a film of the same name for American audiences, with its setting changed to Depression era Chicago. Potter was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay. The film starred Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, and Christopher Walken. The director was Herbert Ross and the choreographer was Danny Daniels.
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Pennies from Heaven was based on a 1978 BBC television drama. In 1981 Dennis Potter adapted his own screenplay for a film of the same name for American audiences, with its setting changed to Depression era Chicago. Potter was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay. The film starred Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, and Christopher Walken. The director was Herbert Ross and the choreographer was Danny Daniels.
This was Steve Martin's first dramatic role in a film. Martin had watched the original miniseries and considered it "the greatest thing [he'd] ever seen". He trained for six months learning to tap dance. Christopher Walken trained as a dancer as a young man and he was able to use his dancing skills in the film.
According to a 1990 article in The Times, MGM had Dennis Potter rewrite the script 13 times and required him to buy back his copyright from the BBC, for which he paid BBC "something over $100,000". In addition, MGM prohibited broadcast of the BBC...
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