Penny Serenade – A Night of Music and Melodrama
Choir Programme
The following songs either feature in Penny Serenade or reflect its key themes:
Arnos Vocale
These Foolish Things (1936)
Lyrics: Eric Maschwitz (as Holt Marvell) | Music: Jack Strachey | Arranged by Paul Weston
Moonglow (1933)
Words & Music: Will Hudson, Eddie DeLang, Irving Mills | Arranged by Gwyn Arch
Redcliffe Singers & Nightingale Valley Community Choir
Humming Chorus (1904)
From Puccini’s Madama Butterfly
Pennies from Heaven (1936)
Words: John Burke | Music: Arthur Johnston | Arranged by Mac Huff
All Choirs & Audience
Silent Night (1818)
Music: Franz Xaver Gruber | Lyrics: Joseph Mohr
1.
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin, mother and child.
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace!
2.
Silent night, holy night
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing ‘Alleluia
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born!
3.
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth,
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth!
The Arnos Sisters*
My Blue Heaven (1927)
Music: Walter Donaldson | Lyrics: George A. Whiting | Arranged by Joe Bedford Sarjeant
Ain’t We Got Fun? (1921)
Music: Richard A. Whiting | Lyrics: Raymond B. Egan & Gus Kahn | Arranged by Becky Murray
You Were Meant For Me (1929)
Music: Nacio Herb Brown | Lyrics: Arthur Freed | Arranged by Becky Murray
Musical Notes
by Kieran McGovern
“Noel Coward once drily observed how extraordinarily potent cheap music is. That is certainly true of Penny Serenade” (New York Times review)
In one respect, George Stephen’s three-hankie weepie, Penny Serenade (1941) is a jukebox musical, telling its story through a sequence of song choices. It rethinks Coward’s dictum, throwing in Wagner and Mendelssohn’s greatest hits (Here Comes the Bride/Wedding March) alongside less elevated crowd-pleasers like I’m Tickled Pink With a Blue Eyed Baby.
Musically, the story unfolds through a series of ‘oldies’. These span three centuries, from Auld Lang Syne (1788) through to These Foolish Things (1935). Together they form a record collection—described by one critic as a “phonographic scrapbook” and labelled ‘The Story of a Happy Marriage’. The songs help tell the story, smoothing over shifts in time and place and often foreshadowing the drama to come. Many of these tunes are literally 78s records played in the film (You Were Meant For Me, Just a Memory, etc).
Ain’t We Got Fun (1921)—sung this evening by The Arnos Sisters—plays in the background. A Jazz Age standard immortalised in The Great Gatsby (1974), its jaunty optimism hides trouble ahead: “the rent’s unpaid.”
These Foolish Things (1935) – sung this evening by Arnos Vocale – plays in the party scene. The lyric was written in a morning (‘fuelled by vodka and coffee’) by a real-life model for James Bond, later revivified in Bryan Ferry’s 1973 version.
The Japanese Sandman, Paul Whiteman’s 1920 dance hit, takes the party to Tokyo. Again, all is not quite right in the funhouse, with onscreen references to the Great Kantō Earthquake (1923)—an important plot point. Stevens just got this under the wire, less than a year before Pearl Harbour would make a sympathetic Japanese backdrop strictly verboten in all forms of popular entertainment.
Silent Night (1818)—the well-known carol which you are all invited to sing along with this evening—was first performed in a tiny parish church on Christmas Eve. Here it is used as cinematic shorthand for Christmas: a time for celebrating new life. The standard celestial choral work-over has an emotional resonance deepened by the heroic dignity of Julie and Roger. Those strings tremble in the shadow of their heart-wrenching trauma. Manipulative, of course, but music is a key element in what Variety describes as a mix of “tenderness, heart-throb, comedy and good, old-fashioned, gulping tears”.
My Blue heaven (1927)—sung this evening by The Arnos Sisters—exemplifies this mix. Played on a record and as background music, it underscores Julie and Roger’s longing for stability and happiness as they navigate love and loss. Heard against the film’s bittersweet narrative, its promise of a cozy haven becomes both poignant and ironic: an emblem of hope that life rarely delivers without heartache.
You Were Meant for Me (Main Theme)
The heavy lifting is done by You Were Meant For Me (1929)—sung this evening by The Arnos Sisters—a song that weaves in and out of the central narrative – the ‘for better or worse’ of a profoundly tested relationship. The song is played on a record, sung four times and repeatedly reprised as backing music.
You Were Meant Me is what film buffs call a “needle drop”—a song heard by a character onscreen that unlocks their story (Be My Baby in Mean Streets, for example). First heard in The Broadway Melody (1929), it was later revived by Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain and Sting in The Object of My Affection (1998)—read more about the song’s history on Kieran’s Medium: Song story – with clips & Spotify playlist.
In Penny Serenade, this takes the form of an exhilarating meet-cute opening sequence. It starts with Julie (Irene Dunne) disconsolately preparing to walk away from her marriage.
Then she hears a song that triggers a yearning for her near past.
“Don’t play that, Apple Jack,” she says, momentarily channelling Rick to Sam, a year before Casablanca (1942). Seconds later, the same 78 is stuck in a groove (“for you, for you”) and casting its spell, spinning her back to a happier time and place: the record department of a Brooklyn record store in the Roaring Twenties. Julie is sorting out that stuck needle when who should walk by? Why it’s Roger (aka Mr Right!) This is their coup de foudre, accompanied by a knowing wink and shared joke with the audience at describing a decade-old dancehall favourite as a “new tune”:
“New tune isn’t it?”/“Yes, it just came in.”/“Would be nice to dance to?”/“Yes, it is.”
And so their dance begins….
Additional songs
Moonglow (1933)—sung this evening by Arnos Vocale – is a big band standard that evokes the instant chemistry between Roger & Julie: “It must have been moonglow / That led me straight to you.” The most famous version is this smouldering dance duet form Picnic (1951).
Tonight’s nod to the Japanese context is provided by the “Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly—sung this evening by Nightingale Valley and Redcliffe Singers. The opera premiered in Feb 1904, a month after Archie Leach (Cary Grant) entered the world. Time passes in Japan: sadly and slowly in poor Butterfly’s case. Fortunately, Roger is no Pinkerton (though Cary did play the villainous lieutenant in 1932, “a bewildering mess, so bad that Grant later tried to buy the negatives to protect his reputation”, read more here).
Pennies from Heaven (1936)—sung this evening by Nightingale Valley and Redcliffe Singers, and popularised by Bing Crosby in the film of the same name—offered Depression-era audiences a hopeful refrain: that even in hardship, unexpected blessings can fall from the sky. While not featured in Penny Serenade, its bittersweet optimism mirrors the film’s emotional core—finding joy and resilience amid life’s trials. Both works remind us that love and hope often arrive in unexpected ways, even when the clouds gather.
Credits
Keep It Vocal Choirs
Directed by Anya Szreter
Arnos Vocale
Nightingale Valley Community Choir
Redcliffe Singers
www.keepitvocal.com
The Arnos Sisters*
Joe Bedford Sarjeant
Becky Murray
Lynette Taberner
*joined by Eric Bateman on bass
@TheArnosSisters
Kieran McGovern is a member of Nightingale Valley Choir and writes about Song Stories over on Medium.
Contributors
Jade Evans recently completed an AHRC-funded PhD at Queen Mary University of London and the BFI National Archive. Her research explored the creation and promotion of film stardom through archival collections, highlighting the invisible labour and agency of women stars often overshadowed by male-dominated narratives. Outside academia, Jade is a long-standing volunteer and board member for Portsmouth’s independent, not-for-profit No.6 Cinema.
Dr Kathrina Glitre is a senior Lecturer in Film Studies at UWE Bristol, and is an expert on classical Hollywood cinema, film genre, and screen performance. She has published widely on romantic comedy, Cary Grant, and acting style, including her monograph Hollywood Romantic Comedy (2006). Her research explores the interplay of aesthetics, industry, and gender representation, and she has served as Academic Adviser for the Cary Grant Festival.
Sean Wilson is a Bristol-based film and soundtrack journalist, Sean writes for outlets including Film Score Monthly, Den of Geek, and Little White Lies. He is the author of The Sound of Cinema: Hollywood Film Music from the Silents to the Present Day (2022), a comprehensive study of film music history. Sean has interviewed leading Hollywood composers and co-hosts the podcasts Scoreheads and Frame to Frame
Dr Estella Tincknell is a Visiting Fellow and former Associate Professor in Film and Culture at UWE Bristol. Her research spans British film and television, music on screen, and gender representation. She co-edited Film’s Musical Moments (Edinburgh University Press, 2006), a landmark collection exploring music’s role in cinema across genres and national contexts. She also co-edited The Soundtrack journal and has published extensively on film musicals, popular music in cinema, and feminist media studies.