It's the depths of the depression in 1930s Chicago. Willie Loman -- I mean Steve Martin -- tries to sell sheet music. He loves the songs, although business is not going too well. He'd like to own his own record store but hasn't the capital. That stash belongs to his soulless wife, Jessica Harper, who believes that sex is dirty and wishes someone would cut Martin's "thing" off. For all that, he at least has an unprepossessing but adequate lower middle-class home. It's just that he has this itch that things could be better.
Whenever he gets this itch he scratches it with a fantasy musical number. No harp arpeggios or watery dissolves. At the end of a fierce argument with the bank, there's a sudden cut and he and the banker are arm in arm, dancing and singing some song from the 1930s. The original recording plays. Sometimes Martin's voice is that of the female.
True to his magical thinking, he falls in love at first sight with Bernadette Peters, a shy school teacher. He pursues her, seduces her, and impregnates her, which leads to her being fired, finding employment under a pimp (Christopher Walken), and running off with Martin without any plans. Their car breaks down under a bridge. Martin is arrested for a murder he never committed and hanged -- except that he and Peters kind of break the fourth wall and come together in a clinch at the end, with Martin observing that every movie must have a happy ending.
Well, no movie with Christopher Walken dancing on top of a bar in a louche saloon, and Tommy Rall hurling himself through the air, can be all bad. And this isn't all bad. The dancing is surprisingly effective. Herb Ross, the director, used to stage and choreograph musicals and he knows what he's doing. The songs are Golden Oldies, with vocals by Rudy Valee, Bing Crosby, and Betty Boop. Bernadette Peters has a kewpie doll face, full of sex, and she has a firm grasp on her role.
But the movie isn't an entire success either. It's more or less torpedoed by its own ambition. It seeks to evoke the desperation of the depression and it does the job all too well. The clothing is drab, the set dressing ditto, the characters hopeless, and the story bleak, except for that happy ending, straight out of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." The sepulchral picture of real life overwhelms the plot and the musical numbers seem more like distractions than anything else. Yes, Martin does a fine imitation of Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers to "Let's Face the Music and Dance," twirling around and holding his hands in the air, but I kept wondering WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO HIM?
For what it's worth, I seem to recall even better mimicry of Astaire by Martin on Saturday Night Live, with Martin falling over the furniture and eventually, happily, smilingly, tap dancing his way through a penthouse window.
That SNL sketch was amusing. The movie prompts you to slit your wrists.
Whenever he gets this itch he scratches it with a fantasy musical number. No harp arpeggios or watery dissolves. At the end of a fierce argument with the bank, there's a sudden cut and he and the banker are arm in arm, dancing and singing some song from the 1930s. The original recording plays. Sometimes Martin's voice is that of the female.
True to his magical thinking, he falls in love at first sight with Bernadette Peters, a shy school teacher. He pursues her, seduces her, and impregnates her, which leads to her being fired, finding employment under a pimp (Christopher Walken), and running off with Martin without any plans. Their car breaks down under a bridge. Martin is arrested for a murder he never committed and hanged -- except that he and Peters kind of break the fourth wall and come together in a clinch at the end, with Martin observing that every movie must have a happy ending.
Well, no movie with Christopher Walken dancing on top of a bar in a louche saloon, and Tommy Rall hurling himself through the air, can be all bad. And this isn't all bad. The dancing is surprisingly effective. Herb Ross, the director, used to stage and choreograph musicals and he knows what he's doing. The songs are Golden Oldies, with vocals by Rudy Valee, Bing Crosby, and Betty Boop. Bernadette Peters has a kewpie doll face, full of sex, and she has a firm grasp on her role.
But the movie isn't an entire success either. It's more or less torpedoed by its own ambition. It seeks to evoke the desperation of the depression and it does the job all too well. The clothing is drab, the set dressing ditto, the characters hopeless, and the story bleak, except for that happy ending, straight out of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." The sepulchral picture of real life overwhelms the plot and the musical numbers seem more like distractions than anything else. Yes, Martin does a fine imitation of Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers to "Let's Face the Music and Dance," twirling around and holding his hands in the air, but I kept wondering WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO HIM?
For what it's worth, I seem to recall even better mimicry of Astaire by Martin on Saturday Night Live, with Martin falling over the furniture and eventually, happily, smilingly, tap dancing his way through a penthouse window.
That SNL sketch was amusing. The movie prompts you to slit your wrists.