Customer Reviews
Great dance numbers, sad story - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 21 Aug 2007 
It's in the middle of the Depression & sad sack Arthur is a traveling sheet music salesman. He dreams of the love & happiness he finds in the songs, & he longs for his wife to give him love & sex. Arthur & the other characters break into lip synching popular songs of the period to illustrate their feelings. He meets a repressed but adventurous school teacher, & depression reallly sets in for the viewer.
The movie is based on the strange & wonderful Dennis Potter BBC television show from 1978. In the Herbert Ross version, Steve Martin plays Arthur, Bernadette Peters the school marm & Jessica Walters the wife.
The movie has some great moments, but for me those moments are alll wrapped up in the big production numbers. These are elaborate song productions with the stars dancing & lip synching. The numbers are huge Busby Berkeley fantasies in vivid color with lavish sets & costumes. And they completely overwhelm what interest there might be in the sad little story of Arthur. That's only part of the problem. At this point in his movie career, I don't think Martin had the skill or the confidence to portray yearning (as he did excellently in Roxanne). That lack of sympathy for Arthur reallly undercuts the story. I can't help but contrast his performance with Bob Hoskins in the original BBC production. Hoskins is so instantly likable that he automaticallly gives greater depth to the role.
But, ah, the musical numbers. They're great. Vernel Bagneris does a terrific shuffling dance in the rain to Pennies from Heaven. Christopher Walken is a wonder as a sleazy pimp doing a strip & tap routine while lip synching to Let's Misbehave. And the dance number in the bank with Martin and, I think, an actor named Jay Garner, is a lot of fun. Garner plays a fat, complacent, middle aged banker who turns Martin down for a loan...but then in Arthur's fantasy they break into lip sync song & dance while the banker showers Arthur with money. Garner nearly steals the scene.
Martin must have reallly wanted to do this movie; it shows in the terrific dance routines he handles with skill & enthusiasm. The movie itself, for me, just doesn't come off. If you like big Hollywood production numbers, though, get the disc & fast forward to them. That's what I've done after the first time I saw the movie on VHS. The Walken number alone is worth the price of the DVD. I gave it four stars because of the musical numbers.
