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MM21: Sables From Heaven: Written by Dennis Potter feat. Jools Duane (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-22 11:00:14
Edited:
2025-08-12 21:26:19
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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This week we spotlight our first screenwriter with two films written by Dennis Potter: 1983’s Gorky Park (d. Michael Apted) and 1981’s Pennies from Heaven (d. Herbert Ross). Gorky Park is a police investigation thriller set in Soviet Russia concerning a gruesome murder involving a sable smuggling ring, and Pennies from Heaven features Steve Martin in one of his few dramatic roles as a depression era sheet music salesmen who escapes his dreary life through elaborate musical fantasies and a love affair with Bernadette Peters as an innocent schoolteacher. While wildly different in subject and tone, they illustrate Potter’s range and depth as a writer over his prolific career.

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Comments

Blank

Movie madness! 💗

Zach H.

Well chosen. Gorky Park has one of Lee Marvin’s most menacing performances and Pennies from Heaven deserves a reevaluation for just what they trying to shoot for with the subject matter in a Hollywood musical.

Luna Zeidner

Both these movies have been my favorites in the series so I'm very excited to listen

Ian

I really thought Felix would be on this one.

Doug Cartel

Modern capitalism is all high finance and whatever but from the early colonial period up until the early-mid 20th century the European empires competed for control over cotton production. Fur trapping was France's big bet on North America but obviously it didnt help them beat the brits; wonder if theres any deeper meaning in that with this furrier character. Probably not, but the fun thing about art is being able to ram square pegs into round holes and all that

——

I want to like hesse, she seems nice, but honestly she sucks, in all of these episodes she’s said like maybe 3 interesting things about the movies

Karl

Did they forget to introduce the guest or did I just miss it?

——

Thank you, I was spiraling there for a second. Lemme catch my breath

Patrick Taffe

How dare you sir, pistols at dawn

Tim U.

Nobody on the episode knew Alexei Sayle from The Young Ones? I thought Chris would jump in at least.

josh williams

How did you not have Felix in a sable ep?

Michael S. Judge

Michael Elphick is a There's That Guy MVP. His lead performance in the first and best von Trier movie, THE ELEMENT OF CRIME, is incredible

Michael S. Judge

Dunno about timelines of influence here, but "the gap between what people say and what they do" is nearly the exact definition of Peter Dale Scott's original Deep State thesis, or his predecessor Ernst Fraenkl – there's the outward or "normative" state, which is literally what we say, the "rules" we announce and then make a show of obeying, and then there's the deep or "prerogative" state that does anything it wants to, entirely in its own ruthless self-interest, and never talks about it. "The gap between things said and things done" is a pretty tidy summary

Greg

He couldn’t watch them on 123movies.ru

Gert

Jessica Harper is a very ... unusual screen presence. Seems normal enough in interviews.

JLV90

Pennies From Heaven movie poster is so cool

Jason Nuclear

Gorky Park is a great movie, but I like the novel more. One big change the movie made from the novel is completely dropping the part where the character played by Lee Marvin is backed by the FBI in his efforts to steal sables from Russia and a couple FBI agents serve as secondary antagonists in the finale (which takes place in upstate New York in the novel, not Sweden). In fact the movie swaps the FBI agents out with corrupt KGB agents during that final showdown

Caleb

Yall are insane if you think William Hurt's accent was at all ok.

The Children of Jack Acid

I guess William Hurt r***d Marlee Martin, who he started dating when she was 19 and he was 35? Though he hadn't done it yet by the time of this film.

J.L. Vaughn

William Hurt’s English accent in Elephant Man is also great

The Children of Jack Acid

No fuckin' shit, dude. This HUGE omission has entirely made me rethink my hero worship of these clearly culturally illiterate man-childs.

The Children of Jack Acid

For some reason I now have a vision in my head, of Richard Nixon on Laugh-In, looking at the camera and saying "Naka to meee?!?"

The Children of Jack Acid

Do a lot of U.S. military vehicles appear in this movie? Maybe the filmmakers had to remove any overtly bad references to corrupt U.S. state institutions in order to get cooperation from the people who rent out tanks and helicopters and boats and stuff. (Or people--maybe there are a lot of uniformed U.S. soldiers or sailors afoot?) I guess I could do a 10 second search on Google, or just watch the movie, but I prefer to pester strangers on the internet with questions.

Jason Nuclear

My best guess is the film makers thought it might turn off American movie goers during the height of the cold war. Not sure why seeing as the novel was a best seller

David Wright

Potter's "Brimstone and Treacle" is a truly sick little movie.

Lizard

🤡🤡🤡

——

I had that same pistol In college. It got stolen…. Where was that lizard the summer of 2008?

Jenn

Me 2

Alex Green

Candytwink, Candytwink, Candytwink, Candytwink, Candytwink

drizzly_november

"I am a human being! I am a MAN!" gets memed a lot, but when I finally saw it and heard Hurt's delivery, it's so deeply moving.

drizzly_november

Will mentioned in the preview that the idea of hurting sables for fur rather than befriending them for their antics was too traumatizing for Felix.

Daniel Capshaw

Hello, I am the listener familiar with Only Fools and Horses.

MEAT CLOWN

I'm familiar with Only Tools and Corpses by the band Gorerotted, I never knew that it was a pun

The Children of Jack Acid

13 years ago or so she was trying to be a YouTube sensation with a "Crabby Cookbook" for people who hate to cook. Her videos were kinda corny, and it looks like she just aborted the mission completely. But I find them charming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OMIy-VVKa0 Anyway, she was good in Phantom of the Paradise, too!

Antipaganda

Sucks whatever a candytwink sucks.

Hesse Deni

You’ve made a mistake I’ve made a million times and confused William Hurt for John Hurt! Who, despite being British, does an amazing Elephant Man Accent

Hesse Deni

Omg I’m mad they changed it if it was western New York or Cattaragus county. If it was the adirondacks or Hudson valley tho good riddance they improved it

Hesse Deni

The simple answer is they filmed Helsinki for Moscow so Stockholm was closer and easier

Broadway Joe

I dug Pennies from Heaven, but Gorky Park is probably the worst MM entry so far.

Scott Grabel

Until Will said otherwise, I thought they meant smuggling the fish sable, like damn that must be some good whitefish

etienne

listeners of Trashfuture such as me had their ears perk up

Ned Walrus

I'm just a small town country rube and don't at all comprehend the difficulties involved with adapting a screenplay, but everything Will and Hesse say that is clever about the writing for Gorky Park is like directly from the book (which is a great book). The tete-a-tete between Renko and Osborne, the self-delusion of Irina, the back and forth sable hat part, the creepiness of the skull reconstructor guy and his lines, and many of the lines they quoted ("everything I've told you is either an elaborate lie or the very simple truth") and all directly from the book. All of the baffling things in the movie are the things that were changed, e.g., the KGB major (Pribluda) who is suspected from the very beginning of the story is actually uninvolved with the Osborne conspiracy in the book and is an interesting character. They have some rat faced guy play him and he is exactly what Renko thinks he is, but if you read the book the correct choice would 100% have been Jon Polito. Ending the story in Sweden instead of New York also takes away a lot of the impact. It's a great story and I thought the movie sucked as an adaptation.

Last Years Man

Holy fuck, I'm 30 minutes through Pennies in Heaven and it's absolutely demented! Great choice!

Last Years Man

It's certainly not a masterpiece, but there's a lot about it that I liked. I especially like the way Arkady isn't a super detective. He's smart, sure, but he has to work to make progress on the case and he gets a lot of things wrong. It's one of the few movies that actually functions as a procedural in that you really have to go through all the steps to get to the conclusion, rather than have it obvious from the beginning and the steps being a contrivance.

wailing ken jennings

if you start louie louie by the kingsmen right at the ending montage of gorky park it lines up perfectly. coincidence?

Equality State Of Mind

Lookism Defined: Steve Martin is evil. Picks up a black hitchhiker in 1934, feeds him, gives him money, even though he's short himself. Worst thing he actually does is cheat on his awful wife. Linda Fiorentino is the hero of the movie. Lies, cheats, steals, performs not one act of kindness, betrays not one ounce of human sympathy, murders two people, frames the only half-decent person in the movie. Chef's kiss!

Equality State Of Mind

Anyone else read the bum as more Lenny from Of Mice And Men than wandering psycho?

Equality State Of Mind

I mean, he was a Russian speaking English that was actually Russian. All the accent had to be was not-American.

Equality State Of Mind

Yeah, I literally thought he was. Saw he was guesting on one episode, and my brain made it this one cuz sables.............. Dawg, I need to get a girlfriend!

Equality State Of Mind

The Brits kinda out-furred the frogs with the Hudson Bay Company, cuz of all their goddamn boats. GODDAMN BRITISH BOATS!