Bernadette Peters

After getting dumped, Lucy creates The Broken Heart Gallery, a space for items love has left behind. It encourages a movement and a fresh start for all romantics, including Lucy.

Benadette Peters stars in this ironic film based on Tama Janowitz's best-selling collection of short stories that defined the downtown New York art scene of the 1980s Eleanor lives with the artist Stash. Just like his artist friends, he is completely unknown but is waiting for the big break. Stash is mean to her and finally she leaves him. Ironically, she gets her big break - as a hat designer. —Mattias Thuresson

As the opening credits roll, the audience hears "The Clouds Will Soon Roll By", a typical Great Depression-era type lyric, while the audience watches a rain storm. The time and place is set as 1934 Chicago. As the action begins, an alarm clock wakes Arthur Parker (Steve Martin), who rolls over to wake his wife, Joan (Jessica Harper), by trying to interest in some early morning sex, but his shy, practically frigid wife turns him down. Arthur is frustrated by his wife's disinterest in sex. While he dresses for work, he lip-syncs "I'll Never Have to Dream Again" to a female voice (Connee Boswell). The song continues during breakfast with Arthur singing for himself. In addition to Arthur's sexual disappointments, he is further frustrated because his wife will not finance the start of his own business. Arthur leaves home that morning and threatens never to return. He goes to a bank to borrow enough money to start a sheet music store. With no collateral, the banker (Jay Garner) refuses to loan him any money. During moments when his dreams are shattered, Arthur shuts out reality by escaping into Busby Berkeley-like musical production numbers. In this particular instance, Arthur and the banker lip-synch the lyrics to "Yes, Yes! (My Baby Said Yes)", performed by Sam Browne and the Carlyle Cousins. They are joined by several chorus girls who tap dance and toss large cardboard coins. During the song Arthur is showered with bags of coins and the song develops into a huge production number complete with over-heard camera shots of dancers in kaleidoscopic patterns and the dancers reflected in a highly polished, mirror-like floor. During one sequence, the banker and Arthur are dressed in cut-away suits and dance with a chorus line of girls. The scene changes to Arthur driving down the road where he picks up a hitch hiker, the Accordion Man (Vernal Bagneris). Later, while Arthur sells some sheet music to the owner of Barrett's Music Shop, Eileen (Bernadette Peters) enters. Even though she is a shy, rather plain school teacher, Arthur expresses his instant attraction to her by singing "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?"(performed by Bing Crosby). During the number, Eileen is converted into a lovelier version of herself and performs a tap dance routine. She leaves the store without paying much attention to Arthur. As she walks down the street, Eileen hears the Accordion Man singing "Rock of Ages" and gives him a contribution, which prompts him to launch into a spirited rendition of "The Old Rugged Cross". Soon, the hitch hiker devours some food at Jimmy's Diner, an Italian-American food joint. He and Arthur are sitting together in a booth, but Arthur isn't eating. As he gives his meal to the enigmatic bum, the diner walls disappear and Arthur walks out into the rain and dances to a violin solo of "Pennies from Heaven" (the violin soloist is uncredited; the song is sung by Arthur Tracy, who was called The Street Singer). The rain drops become coins raining down as he dances in front of a huge backdrop collage depicting various scenes from the Great Depression. After the song, Arthur gives the Accordion Man a quarter, leaves the diner and heads for Eileen's farm. He had learned she was a school teacher, so he asked some children where she lived. Although Eileen is frightened at first, she listens as he expresses his infatuation with her. The scene changes to a bar where a couple of other salesmen are lamenting the depression economics, but Arthur, smiling, claims he's doing great (referring more to his progress with Eileen than his sales). He and the other salesmen perform a vaudeville act-type rendition of "It's the Girl" (performed by the Boswell Sisters with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra) which includes a tap dance routine and Arthur performing a short banjo solo. The following scene shows Eileen reading the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Rapunzel" to her school class. Suddenly, the children are dressed in all white and their desks become small white grand pianos on which they accompany their teacher as she sings "Love Is Good For Anything That Ails You" (performed by Phyllis Robins with Nicholas Orlando's Orchestra). The children also tap dance on top of their pianos. Back to reality, the school's principal scolds them for making so much noise. Arthur is waiting outside when school is dismissed, to drive Eileen home. During their visit, Arthur makes the mistake of saying, "My wife", but he quickly tries to cover up by claiming his wife was killed in a motorcycle accident. Then, he plays on Eileen's sympathy by asking her to take the pain away. When he returns home to his wife, Joan gives into one of Arthur's sexual fetishes by putting lipstick on her nipples. Once he entices her to reveal them to him, she cries and asks "Are they as nice as hers?" He lies to her and claims that even though he has been tempted when he is out on the road, he has refrained. We hear the radio play "Let's Put Out the Lights (and Go to Sleep)" while Arthur talks about wanting to play the sax and have his own dance band. The next morning, Arthur is happy he's had sex with his wife and she has finally agreed to finance his record shop. While he dresses, Joan sings "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" (performed by Rudy Vallee and His Connecticut Yankees). During the song, she picks up a pair of scissors to stab him in the back, but it is only an illusion -she is actually still in bed. It is what she would like to do if she had the nerve. After some time passes, Eileen is fired from her teaching position because she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Arthur has opened his record store but is languishing with few customers. One evening he drives to a bridge where he sees a girl walking towards him. He speaks to her and determines that she is blind. He offers to walk with her (with an implied sexual context) and compliments her beauty. Later, he goes to Eileen, who informs him she is going to have his baby. She forces him to write down his address so that she'll know where to find him. He promises to do what he can to help. One of the things that attracts him most about Eileen is that she isn't shocked by his sexual suggestions; rather, she seems to relish them. In this instance, he tells her about a man giving an elevator operator $20 to turn his back so he and his date can have sex. When she likes the idea, Arthur is thrilled. She sings "I Want to Be Bad" (performed by Helen Kane, the Boop-Boop-a-Doop girl) as they act out their sexual fantasy in an elevator. In the following scene, the blind girl Arthur had met earlier stumbles over the bum Arthur had picked up earlier in the film. Although the film audience doesn't see the act, the bum rapes and kills the girl. Later, as Arthur returns from his tryst with Eileen, he happens upon the crime scene and sees the blind girl dead. We see a Camel cigarette package that will later be used as evidence against Arthur. During this sequence, we hear a reprise of "The Clouds Will Soon Roll By" playing in the background. As Arthur leaves the crime scene, he almost runs over the vagrant who committed the crime. [I could be wrong, but the way I remember it, Arthur does hit the vagrant, killing him and throwing his body into some bushes where presumably it is never found--isaiah53-5]. Back home, Arthur is so shaken by what he has seen that he promises Joan that he will change and will be good in the future. Eileen wanders into a bar where she orders lemonade, but Tom (Christopher Walken), a stylish pimp, talks her into adding gin to her lemonade. She offers herself to him for $5 and tells him her name is Lulu. Tom and three of his cronies perform a song and dance routine to "Let's Misbehave" (performed by Irving Aaronson and His Commanders). During the number, a couple of elderly whores join Tom and he and Lulu tap dance on top of the bar. Soon, Arthur realizes his life with Joan is over. The film audience sees Arthur, Joan and Eileen dressed in sailor outfits sing "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" (performed by Walt Harrah, Gene Merlino, Vern Rowe, Robert Tebow and Al Vescovo) into a radio microphone. One evening as Arthur is leaving his record store he hears Eileen laughing, goes over to her and offers to buy her a cup of coffee. During their conversation, she reveals that she aborted the baby. When he takes her to his record shop, she further reveals that she has become a prostitute and enjoys it. Arthur admits that he should have held on to her, but he was too obsessed with owning a record store. Once they both realize they are still in love with each other, they decide to run away together. Before they go, they smash all the records in the store except for "Pennies from Heaven." Arthur won't allow her to break that one. The police question Joan and tell her that Arthur closed the store and was seen at a bar with a prostitute. When they tell her that her husband is a suspect in a murder case, she reveals that he traveled to Chicago and back at the time of the murder. One evening, Eileen and Arthur go to movies to see "Follow the Fleet" (Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers perform an excerpt of "Lets Face the Music and Dance" from the film). Soon, Arthur mimes Astaire and he and Eileen walk up on the stage in front of the screen and dance like Fred and Ginger. Suddenly, Arthur and Eileen are transformed into a black and white film sequence in which they dance with a chorus of male dancers. At the end of the dance, the males canes become the bars of a jail cell. When they leave the movie theater, Eileen and Arthur see a newspaper headline about the blind girl being murdered. As Arthur feverishly drives away, he tries to get Eileen to believe he is innocent of the crime. Abruptly, Eileen tells Arthur goodbye. He asks if she is running out on him, to which she replies, "Not fun, is it?" The next morning, while Arthur is trying to get his car started, the cops arrive. He runs, but they catch him. Even though he pleads his innocence, he is convicted. At the gallows, he quotes the verse of "Pennies from Heaven" and then sings the chorus (in this instance, Steve Martin is actually singing). As Eileen looks out a window, Arthur, still dressed in his prison clothes, comes running back calling her name. She can't understand why he is there: he has just witnessed his execution. He says, "Whoever said you could stop a dream? We couldn't go through all that without a happy ending." That line leads into the finale, which is a huge Busby Berkeley-type production number to "The Glory of Love". The number opens with a stage full of chorus girls who are seated and kicking their legs. Soon, Eileen and Arthur, dressed in new costumes, enter and sing (in this instance, both Bernadette Peters and Steve Martins own voices are heard). Towards the end of the number a rainbow appears in the sky and the camera pans up through the clouds to a fair sky and a full moon. During the end credits, renditions of "Pennies from Heaven" and "Love Is Good For Anything That Ails You" are heard.

At a robot factory, two employees, Charlie (Randy Quaid) and Max (Kenneth McMillan), deliver ValCom 17485 (Andy Kaufman), a Companion Series robot suffering from a second level appendix laceration, to the factory warehouse C-Section. While in storage, Val is spoken to by AquaCom 89045 (Bernadette Peters) , a female Companion Series robot scheduled to be reconditioned and become a charming Companion Hostess for poolside parties and other social functions. Val responds that he was intended to be a companion and valet with no social charms. Despite their differently programmed personalities, Val and Aqua become close, and decide they are "mechanically compatible for many similar functions." On the factory floor, a Crimebuster Deluxe robot is being programmed, but when it shoots flames at a cardboard cutout of a nanny with a baby in a stroller on the shooting range, the programmers observe that the machine is still overreacting. A comedian-robot, Catskill 55602, is also delivered to C-Section. Catskill can only tell stupid one-liners, and needs a complete circuit rewashing. At night, Val decides he needs to take a field trip to study distant trees, and invites Aqua to come along as a highly intelligent companion who can help him collect, store and interpret data. Before they set off on their journey, they ask Catskill 55602 to join them. They appropriate one of the factory's trucks, and although he has never driven before, Val takes the wheel, zig-zagging along the road and crashing into road barriers as they travel. On his nightly rounds, the security guard notices the three missing robots in C-Section, and asks Charlie and Max where they were moved. When he learns of the missing robots, the factory boss (Richard B. Shull) berates Max and Charlie for keeping an eye on their charges, and gives them until tomorrow at 12 noon to retrieve them. The humans are unaware that the Crimebuster Deluxe has also overheard the boss's order, and the mis-programmed machine sets out to capture the fugitive robots. Val smashes the truck into a tree, and the next morning he and Aqua build a small robot, which they name Philco, to carry some of the supplies stored in the vehicle as they continue their journey on foot. Trailing the missing robots, Charlie and Max find the abandoned truck. Charlie notices the truck's dashboard is missing, and wonder if the robots might have stolen the truck and partially dismantled it on their own? Unable to find the robots, Max and Charlie are ready to return to the factory, but their boss sends out a helicopter to aid in the search. As they walk through the woods, Val and Aqua notice that Philco is missing. They locate him using Val's bow tie direction finder. Because searching for Philco is an energy drain, Val gives the direction finder to the small robot. Up in the air, Max again wants to turn back, until the helicopter pilot informs him that he and Charlie will be responsible for the replacement costs if they do not return with the missing robots. With night coming on, the robots seek shelter in a cave, but when Val scouts the location, he is tossed out by a bear, which he mistakenly believes to be a camel. Philco takes on the bear and scares the animal away. From the helicopter, Charlie spots movement on the ground-but he only sees the bear running away, as the robots have taken refuge in the cave. Realizing that Philco has no capacity for self-protection, Aqua asks Val to transfer her unit safety monitor to the small robot, relying on Val to protect her. Then, as Val and Aqua seek to repair their seemingly malfunctioning pleasure centers, they are interrupted by Philco and Catskill 55602. With the Crimebuster Deluxe also on their trail, the robots sneak into a small town at night, hiding behind small trees they have dug up. Back at the cave, the Crimebuster Deluxe picks up the fugitives' scent, and quickens its pace. In town, the robots raid a hardware store robot supply display for spare parts. They find a new bow tie direction finder for Val, but the store is out of energy packs. Philco pitches a fit when Val will not allow him to have a traffic control helmet, but before they leave the hardware store, Catskill 55602 takes the disputed helmet with him. Back on the street hiding behind their trees, the red light on Philco's traffic helmet gives them away to the Crimebuster Deluxe, which detains them for questioning. The Crimebuster Deluxe tells them he has informed the police and the fugitives will be picked up at 4:00 AM. It tells them not to move in the interim. However, the Crimebuster Deluxe becomes confused over whether the robots can be criminals if they are robots or robots if they are criminals? The law enforcement robot goes berserk, and hightails it out of town. The escapees come upon a party, and hide in plain sight by becoming servers. Again, however, the Crimebuster Deluxe is on the prowl. Discovering their discarded tree disguises outside of where the party is taking place, Crimebuster Deluxe literally crashes the party and destroys the building. Back in the woods, Val and Aqua have stopped communicating, but come to realize they need maximum input for efficiency. In the meantime, singing "America The Beautiful," Crimebuster Deluxe barrels through the woods, scaring the wildlife and randomly shooting at the fleeing animals. The runaway robots come upon a junkyard, promising unlimited replacement parts. However, their energy packs are running down. As the robots search the facility, they are observed by Calvin and Susan (Christopher Guest and Melanie Mayron), owners of the junkyard. Calvin welcomes the "customers" he believes will bring needed cash flow to the business, but Susan reminds him that the robot models do not come with a wallet option. Exploring the junkyard, Philco comes upon a dead robot, and attempts to warn Val and Aqua. However, Crimebuster Deluxe finds them and begins shooting bullets and flames. Susan and Calvin jump the Crimebuster and disable it. After its misguided behavior throughout their adventure, all agree that Philco is in need of a specialized purpose. Unfortunately, Susan informs Aqua and Val the only place where such enhancements can be made is back at the factory. On their way back, Aqua is again concerned about their energy packs. Val tells her that he has 34% power remaining, when in fact he only has .009%. Aqua also lies, telling Val that she has 33% instead of the .008% registering on her power meter. The four robots are spotted on the trail by Max and Charlie. Max wants to grab only the three missing robots so as not to mess up the factory inventory. As they slowly proceed, Val has a heart-to-heart talk with Philco, the first robot he ever built and programmed, wishing his "offspring" a bright future, even as he realizes their power packs will soon be drained. As his power ebbs, Val tells Aqua that he hopes the last thing erased in his circuit wash is his memory of her. In a selfless act, Catskill 55602 switches power packs with Philco. He still has 42% of his energy left because he has been telling low power jokes on their journey. As Val, Aqua and Philco resume their journey, Max and Charlie come upon the powerless carcass of Catskill 55602. "One down, two to go," says Max, but Charlie is annoyed that after chasing the robots all over hell's half acre they find this one close to the factory. Nearing the factory, Val and Aqua are pleased that they have been able to make their way back, and pleased that Philco will now have a bright future. Val wants to discuss one last human emotional phenomenon with Aqua, but their power runs out before he can raise the subject. A sad Philco continues on his journey alone, while Max and Charlie pick up the powerless remains of Val and Aqua. From the nearby woods, Philco sees his makers hauled away. Sometime later, Westland (Kathleen Freeman), the helicopter pilot, finds Max and Charlie now demoted to the motor pool at the factory working over the Crimebuster Deluxe. She asks what happened to the robots, and is told that they were circuit washed three times and sent out to new owners, but they returned each time and finally junked. Back at the junkyard, Calvin and Susan have refurbished the former fugitive robots, and given them updated wardrobes. Also, Val and Aqua have created another new, female sister robot to Philco. Back at the factory, the Crimebuster Deluxe is back on the prowl. He too, has had his circuits washed, but he has fooled Max and Charlie, and again heads out to fight crime in his old mis-programmed manner.

Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin), a homeless bum, directly addresses the camera and tells his story. Navin is the adopted white son of African American sharecroppers in Mississippi, who grows to adulthood naively unaware of his obvious adoption. The large family lived in a small shack. The family includes mother (Mabel King), father (Richard Ward), brother Taj (Dick Anthony Williams), sister Elvira (Ren Woods), Grandma Johnson (Frances E. Williams) and many more. He stands out in his family not just because of his skin color, but also because of his utter lack of rhythm when his adopted family plays spirited blues music. He is unable to dance in rhythm to the spirited folk songs played by the family, but finds that he can do so perfectly to a champagne-style song on the radio. One night, he hears the staid and starchy Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra song called "Crazy Rhythm" on the radio and his feet spontaneously begin to move with the urge to dance. He sees this as a calling (and believes that this is the kind of music that inspires him to go out into the world and be somebody) and decides to hitchhike to St. Louis, from where the song was broadcast. On the way, he stops at a motel, where a dog wakes him up by barking at his door. Navin thinks the dog is trying to warn of a fire and decides to name the dog "Lifesaver." He wakes up all the other hotel guests to rescue them, but when everyone realizes it was a false alarm, one Asian man angrily suggests he call the dog "Shithead," which Navin takes literally. Navin takes a lift from several motorists and eventually reaches St. Louis. Navin gets a job (and a place to sleep) at a gas station owned by Mr. Harry Hartounian (Jackie Mason). Harry pays Navin $1.10 per hour. Navin makes it a habit of sending his savings back home at regular intervals. Over a period of time Harry starts to trust Navin and even leaves him in charge of the gas station when he goes out on date with his wife. A car full of thieves rolls in to buy some gas. Navin says that they have to pay by credit card as he is all alone and the owner has asked him not to expose the cash at the gas station to customers. Navin realizes that the credit card is stolen. Navin calls the cops but then attaches a thick rope to the axle of the car and the other end to the wall of a nearby church. When the thieves realize that they have been made, they try to drive away, bringing down the church wall. He's thrilled to find that he's listed in the local phone book, as his name is "in print" for the first time. Not long after, a gun-wielding lunatic (M. Emmet Walsh) randomly flips through the phone book and picks "Johnson, Navin R." as his next victim. As the madman watches through his rifle scope, waiting for a clear shot, Navin fixes the slippery glasses of a customer, Stan Fox (Bill Macy), by adding a handle and a nose brake. The customer, Stan Fox, is an inventor who promises to try to market the device to split the profits 50/50 with Navin, then departs. Seizing his chance, the crazed sniper tries to kill Navin, but fails, hitting the oil cans in the station window and a soft-drink machine. The lunatic chases Navin to a traveling carnival, where Navin hides out, eventually getting a job with SJM Fiesta Shows as a weight guesser. While employed there, Navin meets an intimidating daredevil biker named Patty Bernstein (Catlin Adams) and has a sexual relationship with her, finally realizing what his "special purpose" (his euphemism for his penis) is for. Later, while operating a miniature railway, he meets a cosmetologist named Marie Kimble (Bernadette Peters) and arranges a date with her. Patty confronts them, but Marie knocks her out. While courting, Navin and Marie walk along the beach and sing "Tonight You Belong to Me", with Navin playing the ukulele and Marie on the cornet. Navin and Marie fall in love, but Marie reluctantly decides to leave him because of his lack of financial security. She writes a note and slips out while Navin is in the bath. Devastated, Navin takes Shithead and travels to Los Angeles. There, the gunman who tried to kill him-now sane and working as a private investigator-tracks him down and gives him a letter from Stan requesting a meeting. His glasses invention, now called the Opti-Grab, is selling big and he's entitled to half of the profits. Stan gives him a check for $250,000 as the first installment on his share of the profits. Now extremely rich, he finds and marries Marie, and they buy an extravagant mansion. Their life becomes one of splendor and non-stop partying. However, motion-picture director Carl Reiner (playing himself) files a class action lawsuit against Navin, claiming that the invention caused his eyes to be crossed and as a result, the death of a stunt driver in the film he was making. Nearly ten million other people have the same complaint (including the judge and prosecution) and are awarded $10 million in damages. Bankrupt, depressed, and now homeless, he abandons Marie and is soon living on the streets. He storms out into the street after yelling at and blaming Marie. Seeing how callous and superficial they've become, Marie wears her tattered dress from the beach, and regrets requiring Navin to be rich. His story now told, he resigns himself to a life of misery and memories of Marie, but to his amazed joy, she suddenly appears, along with Navin's family, and some more good news: Having carefully invested the small sums of money he sent home throughout the film, they've become wealthy themselves. They pick him up off the street, and he and Marie move back home into the Johnsons' new house - a much larger but identical version of their old, small shack. Once again Navin dances on the porch to folk songs, this time with perfect rhythm.

One of comedies true originals - the master of wit and good, mean fun, the curmudgeonly, and very original, the legendary W.C. Fields' is wonderfully portrayed by Rod Steiger in this off-beat biopic.