Sunday Dance Videos: Gregory Hines and Steve Martin (really)

From Steve Martin’s big network TV special (remember those?) from November, 1981. Martin’s rather strange movie Pennies From Heaven was in theatres at the time; he spent 8 months learning to tap dance for the role. With a grim “real world” storyline that subverts the very idea of the escapist musical, it confounded audiences and yet won 3 Oscars. It was adapted from his own miniseries by Singing Detective scribe Dennis Potter.

The song is a classic Arthur Freed number from 1932, which made appearances in many of the “Broadway Melody” revue movies, and reprised with other period songs in 1952’s Singin’ In The Rain.