Pennies from Heaven (1978)

Named after the old song you might remember from the 1936 Bing Crosby movie of the same name; the BBC television mini-series Pennies from Heaven (1978) focuses on Depression-era sheet music salesman Arthur Parker (Bob Hoskins) who wants to escape poverty by opening his own sheet music store. Sadly, the desperate salesman stuck in the suburbs of London can’t secure a bank loan since the stock market is trash, and his wife Joan (Gemma Craven) won’t allow her inheritance to be touched by her hampered husband. Tough sheet, Arthur. But worse than the failures of the stock market is the massive dip in the cock market! See, Arthur’s wife can’t keep up with his sexual desires, pushing him to start an affair with Eileen (Cheryl Campbell), a shy schoolteacher desperate for attention. The problem is, he knocks her up just when Joan decides maybe she will finance his dream after all. Needing cash, they also get an assault pinned on them at the worst time, Eileen gets pimped out by a rich dude (Hywel Bennett), and all sorts of other awful things happen as the Great Depressions crushes hopes and dreams left and right. Still, the drama is punctuated by the actors lip-synching to elaborate song-and-dance numbers that keep the plot moving. Speaking of making it move, there's no need to look around for a lucky penny, there's a great scene where Bob strips down before he's about to get lucky. Before he was a star, Bob changes from his work clothes to his pajamas which lets us see the rather thin for him beefcake's butt, belly and rod! Take off the PJ's it's time for a BJ! Pennies from Heaven was the first place we got to see Bob Hoskins' heavenly body!