Since 1981’s Pennies From Heaven came as Steve Martin’s first starring role since 1979’s broad comedy The Jerk, audiences expected more of the same. They didn’t get it, which appears to be why Pennies tanked so badly at the box office.

I saw Pennies as a teen during its initial release, and I absolutely adored it. Why?

That I couldn’t tell you. It bowled me over as a kid but I can’t remember the specifics of what impressed me so much about it.

Have the intervening years treated the flick well? Reasonably so, for although Pennies doesn’t dazzle me at 59 as much as it did at 14, it remains a creative, unusual and intriguing experience.

Set in the Depression-era Chicago of 1934, we meet sheet music salesman Arthur Parker (Steve Martin) and his wife Joan (Jessica Harper). Because she refuses intimacy, Arthur feels sexually frustrated and he encounters career-related concerns, as he wants to expand into more lucrative sales territory but can’t afford it.

Disheartened, Arthur leaves for a sales trip and threatens never to return. Along the way, he meets a teacher named Eileen Everson (Bernadette Peters) at a music store and falls for her, an event that upends his life.

Not only did Pennies undermine the expectations of those who expected more Wild and Crazy Steve Martin, but also it subverted the usual portrayal of musicals. Despite some outwardly joyful sequences, the tone remains melancholy at best.

The production numbers break the moodiness in an ironic way, as they function mainly to spotlight the sadness and desperation of the characters’ lives. They indulge in fantasy depictions of bright, sunny tunes to depart from reality, which accentuates their desperate states.

This works, and it helps make the movie seem even darker than it otherwise might. Make no mistake: Pennies presents a harsh scenario.

Its grimness and the incongruity clearly will turn off many viewers. However, these elements make the film more memorable in the long run.

For the most part, the actors live up to their part of the bargain, though I think Martin’s performance comes as a disappointment. Some of that stems from the work by Peters and Harper, both of whom thoroughly outdo Martin.

Actually, in an odd way, Martin feels most at home in the format, as his performance seems like one more classically taken from a 1930s musical. On the other hand, Harper and Peters come across as more modern.

Unfortunately, this creates a disconnect that makes Martin’s work appear somewhat cartoony and without real depth. The film depicts Arthur as a rather unlikable character.

While he presents the stereotypical movie musical dreamer, Arthur also treats women cruelly and cavalierly. He doesn’t demonstrate much interest in the feelings of others.

Martin presents such a moony performance that he largely negates Arthur’s negatives, unfortunately. He seems too concerned with making the character personable and doesn’t allow us to take in Arthur’s flaws well.

On the other hand, Harper and especially Peters shine in their roles. I never much cared for Peters, as I always thought she presented an annoying little-girl-in-a-woman’s-body personality, but she proves dynamic in Pennies.

Peters really delves into the character’s emotions and creates a full-blooded person. Eileen goes through many changes during the film and Peters moves across these effortlessly and convincingly.

Odd and occasionally off-putting, Pennies from Heaven will never maintain more than a cult audience. However, it manages to put something genuinely unusual on the screen.

The film does so successfully more often than not. An intriguing variation on the traditional movie musical, Pennies presents a good piece of work.

Pennies from Heaven appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-Ray Disc. Although the movie occasionally showed its age, it presented a nice transfer.

Sharpness seemed good. A smidgen of softness occasionally showed up in wide shots, but those instances were infrequent so the film largely looked detailed and concise.

I saw no jagged edges or shimmering, and edge haloes remained absent. Grain felt natural and I saw no print flaws.

Pennies went with a brownish semi-sepia vibe that made sense for the film’s period setting and tone, with brighter hues as necessary. These came across well.

Blacks felt dark and dense, while shadows felt clear. Ultimately, the picture quality of Pennies seemed satisfying.

While nothing special, the DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack of Pennies from Heaven became more than acceptable for a product of its era. Speech occasionally sounded a little dense, but the lines mostly came across as natural and distinctive, and I noticed no edginess or issues with intelligibility.

Effects played a small role in the flick. They sounded appropriately accurate and clean, though, and lacked any distortion or other flaws.

Music varied dependent on the source. Much of the film presented period recordings from the 1930s, so these displayed limited range as well as source flaws.

Nonetheless, they came across as acceptable given their limitations, and the flick’s score was relatively vivid. This ended up as a pretty acceptable mix given the movie’s age and format.

How did the Blu-ray compare to the DVD from 2004? The lossless track here felt a bit richer than the DVD’s lossy presentation but it couldn’t do much with the limitations of the source.

Visuals demonstrated more obvious growth, though, as the Blu-ray appeared better defined, cleaner and more natural than the DVD. The latter worked fine for its format and release era but the Blu-ray obviously improved it.

As for extras, we start with a scene-specific audio commentary from film critic Peter Rainer that presents the information as it runs with the movie. This format led me to fear the commentary wouldn’t cover much of the film, but it actually fills roughly 79 of Heaven’s 108 minutes.

Does it do so well? To a moderate degree, for Rainer adds some good notes but not enough to make this a great track.

Rainer gets into comparisons with other movie musicals and trends in the genre as a whole and also places Heaven in its period context. He discusses the performers and their work along with notes about prior efforts.

The change of pace Heaven represented for Steve Martin receives particular attention. We learn a little about the music, the staging, and the themes and symbolism as well as the flick’s reception and legacy.

All of this probably sounds better on paper than in reality, for I think the commentary seems decent but not much more than that. Still, it adds enough useful information to merit a listen.

Note that the DVD offered an on-screen icon that alerted viewers when they could skip to the next chapter and avoid the nearly 30 minutes of dead air. Unfortunately, this doesn’t repeat for the Blu-ray.

Along with the movie’s trailer, we find a 20th Anniversary Cast and Crew Reunion. This comes from a retrospective screening of the film and includes a panel with actors Steve Martin and Jessica Harper, art director Bernie Cutler, costume designer Bob Mackie, editor Richard Marks, producer David Chasman and executive producer Rick McCallum.

The program lasts 35 minutes, 43 seconds as it covers a mix of subjects. We learn about the approaches the actors took to the film, its visual look and inspirations, creating period costumes, editing challenges, reflections on writer Dennis Potter, a poor test screening and other reactions, and the mood on the set.

"Reunion" offers a reasonably good look at the production and its history, but it doesn’t substitute for a real documentary. This means we get some nice notes at times but the whole thing fails to coalesce and provide a concise discussion.

A commercial failure and a generally forgotten part of the Steve Martin catalog, Pennies from Heaven subverts the traditional movie musical in interesting ways. It offers an entertainingly dark and creative look at its topic. The Blu-ray features very good picture plus era-appropriate audio and a few generally useful supplements. While not for everyone, Pennies merits my recommendation.