Pennies From Heaven Reviews

An amusing musical, notable mainly for its fine selection of songs, including the Academy Award-nominated title tune penned by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston. The film opens with Crosby serving a jail sentence for smuggling (for which he has been wrongly convicted). Before he is released he is given a note by a murderer who is about to meet his end in the gas chamber. The killer's note contains the name and address of his victim's relatives. As a final request, he asks Crosby to locate the relatives and move them into his abandoned family estate. Crosby finds the relatives--a 10-year-old girl, Fellows, and her grandfather, Meek--living in squalor. At Crosby's urging, Fellows and Meek pack their bags and head for their new home, only to find that it looks haunted. To make the place more inviting, Crosby comes up with the idea of turning it into a restaurant called the Haunted House Cafe. To draw the crowds he croons a number of Johnston and Burke tunes, with the title tune being nominated for an Oscar for Best Song. Other numbers include "One, Two, Button Your Shoe," "So Do I," "Let's Call a Heart a Heart," "Now I've Got Some Dreaming to Do," "What This Country Needs," and "Skeleton in the Closet."