Radio Days
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Movie Reviews of Radio Days
Movie Review: Nostalgia isn't what it used to be!
Summary: 5 Stars
Dramatic chords, and as the opening credits roll, you hear a classic (and HOT) jazz-age recording of Flight of the Bumblebee. The big band punches the tag, and then, in the darkness, Woody Allen narrates: "Once upon a time, two burglars broke into our neighbor's house in Rockaway." And you say to yourself, Hey, THIS is going to be a fun ride! And you would be correct.
This film is populated by much the typical cast of Woody Allen eccentrics, but here, they are somehow warmer and more human than usual, and if anything, that makes them all the funnier. There is the enthusiastic young lady who is dying to get into radio, despite her squeaky voice and a New York accent that makes Bugs Bunny sound like John Gielgud. And there are the parents of the young Woody Allen character, whose heated domestic arguments still manage to stay on this side of the line between loving sarcasm and real venom. Some of their dialogue actually reminds me a bit of the witty repartee between my wife of 13 years and myself:
She: You know, I could have married Sam Slotkin!
He: Sam Slotkin's DEAD.
She: Yes, but while he was alive, he was working.
And with the funny, lovable characters come many funny moments, including the classic opening scene with the burglars, and a dating couple whose romantic interlude in the parked car with the radio playing comes to a grinding halt as The War Of The Worlds comes on and the gentleman eventually flees the invading Martians in panic, abandoning both car and date. (You also, as Allen-the-narrator promises early on, get plenty of equally funny glimpses into the lives of the radio stars. Wallace Shawn is particularly notable, portraying the voice behind The Masked Avenger.)
But there are also moments of tenderness and sorrow as well. The father of the young Allen is angrily disciplining him when a radio news bulletin comes on about a little girl trapped in a well, and listening to the unfolding drama, father and son are soon in a tender embrace, anger forgotten. And, if I may be permitted one slight spoiler from later in the film, when you see Allen's Aunt Bea -- "Aunt Bea, who just wanted to get married" -- in the family kitchen, playing solitaire, on New Year's Eve, and you realize what that means for her, I defy anyone to not feel a twinge of sadness on her behalf.
Another thread that runs through this film -- and Allen, narrating, calls your attention to it specifically -- is the wonderful music. He describes each of the character's favorite songs, with a little remembrance or story to go with each one. Sometimes there are things that make you wish you were born in another era. I myself love trains, and I sometimes long for the days of the overwhelming power and grace of steam locomotives, and the magnificence of the old Penn Station. Well, this film's music will seriously make you wish to be back in the golden age of radio. Diane Keaton's supremely touching rendition of "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" is like a warm hug given voice. After many, many viewings of this film, hearing the end of that song still brings a sigh to my lips.
This film has no "plot" to speak of, yet it succeeds brilliantly, one of the few films I think you could really say that for. The thread of radio ties all of the assorted characters and their stories together very neatly. Radio was a real part of everyone's life back then, and if the humor and pathos of real, everyday life cannot drive a film, what can?
This is arguably one of Woody Allen's best films, and though there are others that I enjoy, this is probably my personal favorite of his output. I recommend it highly.
Movie Review: Sentimental Nostalgia Even A Woody Hater Can Love
Summary: 5 Stars
Though I am personally fond of most Woody Allen films I can understand why some people don't care for his brand of filmmaking. RADIO DAYS, though, is such a heartfelt Valentine to the pop culture and family life of the World War II era many if not most people will find something to enjoy in the film. Allen does not appear on camera though his narration is full of warmth and wry humor. Child actor, Seth Green, makes a wonderful on screen stand in for him playing the narrator, Joe. Through Joe's eyes we meet his quirky but loveable family who all live together in the mostly Jewish (in the 1940's) Queens neighborhood of Far Rockaway.
The story is told through anecdotes all of which reinforce the importance of radio in the culture and very fabric of 1940's life. Joe's mom played perfectly by Julie Kavner may love listening to the romantic stories on the radio but despite their squabbles her heart still belongs to her diminutive taxi driving husband (Michael Tucker). Single Aunt Bea (Diane Weist) loves dancing to oft played radio songs while going through a series of disastrous dates in a futile search for a husband. Joe, himself is first enthralled by the radio hero "The Masked Avenger" (character actor Wallace Shawn) and later by Biff Baxter (Jeff Daniels) whose exploits inspire him and his buddies to scan the coast looking for Nazi submarines. There is a separate story arc also narrated by an adult Joe (Allen) starring Mia Farrow as Sally a pretty hatcheck/cigarette girl trying to break in to the radio business. Farrow delivers some of the film's funniest lines in a Brooklyn accent which through diction lessons she finally transforms into a successful radio voice. One of the film's most hilarious sequences involves Sally and Rocko (Danny Aiello) a hit man whose duty it is to "knock her off".
The soundtrack of RADIO DAYS is absolute perfection. And the film's biggest strength is the way Allen shows how radio had the power to unite diverse Americans via its airwaves. This point is most vividly made when all of America seems to gather round to listen for progress in the search for a little girl who tragically fell in to a well. This episode caused me to run to Wikipedia to discover this was based on a real 1940's occurrence that Allen remembered from his younger years. RADIO DAYS is a wonderful film that will stand as a realistic depiction of 1940's urban life.
Movie Review: RADIO DAYS (ORION PICTURES/1987)
Summary: 5 Stars
REVIEW: "I love old radio stories." Woody Allen narrates over a background musical number called "Let's All Sing Like The Birdies Sing", "I've collected them down through the years like a hobby." And so begins this magical trip through the director's childhood before the advent of television shows when the radio was king, big bands and crooners were the superstars of the day, and the United States was hot on the heels of entering World War II. Through his expert lens we get to meet a vast assortment of quirky characters like Woody's young alter-ego Joe (played by future T.V./"AUSTIN POWERS" star Seth Green), his bickering but loving mother and father (Julie Kavner and Michael Tucker), his fish-loving Uncle Abe (Josh Mostel), and his Aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest) who is continually searching for the perfect husband. On the opposite end of the broadcast spectrum Allen zeroes in on those radio personalities who brightened up or (in the case of Orson Welles' "WAR OF THE WORLDS" program) disrupted the day-to-day routine of their listeners. No matter if its the adulterous couple who host the "BREAKFAST WITH IRENE AND ROGER" show; the short, bald-headed guy who plays the All-American hero "THE MASKED AVENGER" (Wallace Shawn); to the stars-in-her-eyes cigarette girl (Mia Farrow) with the horrific Brooklyn accent who will do anything to get on the radio: all of these people end up in a series of vignettes that are alternately hilarious and poignant with life. For certain Allen outdoes himself here: on a technical level the film just looks fantastic, on an emotional level it soars with a lot of heart and a deep-set love of humanity, and on an acting level it is nothing short of perfection. Just watching the finale (involving an incident that has every American glued to their wireless, and a New Year's Eve party on the rooftop of a posh restaurant) is testament enough to his genius as a director and screenwriter. "RADIO DAYS" is quite simply one of his best films. ANOTHER BIG PLUS: a soundtrack filled with wall-to-wall '40's greats like Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Carmen Miranda, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Duke Ellington.
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINTAIONS: Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (Santo Loquasto, Carol Joffe, Leslie Bloom, George DeTitta, Jr.)
Movie Review: Woody Allen's Wistful Trip Down Memory Lane
Summary: 5 Stars
Woody Allen's cinematic love song to his Brooklyn childhood, "Radio Days" is also, perhaps, his most affectionate and heartfelt film. Set in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Rockaway, "Radio Days" unfolds as a series of nostalgic vignettes encompassing Allen's fictional family, their eccentric neighborhood, and the colorful radio personalities who vied with an unfolding world war for dominance of the airwaves.
Although Allen doesn't appear in the film himself, he provides the voice-over narration, with a young Seth Green ably portraying the pre-adolescent comic as a fun-loving, ornery, ordinary kid. As his constantly battling parents, Julie Kavner and Michael Tucker are pitch perfect, with Laine Kazan and Josh Mostel equally convincing as Kavner's sister and brother-in-law, all residing within the same house. Also living in the house are the grandparents, and the fortyish, maiden aunt, played with touching sweetness by Dianne Weist. There are times when the performances come very close to stereotype but all the actors carefully avoid crossing the line and are genuinely likable and amusing.
The actors playing the radio performers are also excellent, most especially Mia Farrow in a very funny turn as a squeaky-voiced airhead who, by a combination of luck and coincidence (and diction lessons) becomes a Broadway gossip maven and a radio star in her own right. Wallace Shawn shines briefly in the incongruous role of "The Masked Avenger", while Kitty Carlisle Hart, Danny Aiello, Larry David, Tony Roberts, and Jeff Daniels show up in cameo roles. In the final, New Year's Eve scene, Diane Keaton sings as beautifully as she looks, warbling "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" as 1942 becomes 1943.
In fact, there are a number of great songs of the era that are well-repesented in this film and, although it isn't a musical, "Radio Days" has some of the same type of nostalgic charm as "Meet Me in Saint Louis". Production designer Santo Loquasto and cinematographer Carlo di Palma have done an outstanding job of recreating a specific time and place, and Woody Allen, himself, has created one of his most appealing works that ranks up there with "Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters", and "Annie Hall" as being his very best.
Movie Review: A very memorable film about memories
Summary: 5 Stars
This wonderful film is loosely based on director Woody Allen's memories of his boyhood in Rockaway, in New York. A vignette near the beginning of the movie contains a poignant scene of a rainy and windswept day there. Practically everything here is based on Woody's fond, and sometimes not so fond, remembrances of the huge affect the radio had in his and his family's lives in the late 1930s and early to mid-1940s. Many of Woody's memories are incredibly funny, especially Mia Farrow's experiences as a cigarette girl in a nightclub and later, her budding career as an actress and radio commercial personality. Rarely have I laughed so hard as the time when Ms. Farrow was practicing her elocution lessons.
We get to meet some of Woody's teachers including a Hebrew School teacher who thinks he knows how to discipline children better than Woody's parents and a gorgeous elementary substitute teacher that causes one of the male students in his class to believe that he is going "straight to hell." The film covers radio crime shows (the Masked Avenger, starring the much less than heroic looking Wallace Shawn), morning shows about rich and famous New York swells avidly listened to by Woody's envious working class parents and aunts and uncles. Diane Wiest is wonderful and very sympathetic as the maiden aunt who wins some money on one of those radio quiz shows. Let me just say that the quiz question is related to a brother-in-law's obsession with fish. Ms. Wiest also has a less than great adventure concerning a timid date who abandons her in his automobile during the infamous Orson Welles radio broadcast of the "War of the Worlds." There is also a sad news broadcast concerning a little girl who falls down a well and the efforts to rescue her. Woody and his family are arguing at the time about some petty mischief young Woody had gotten into, but the family stops to listen to this saga that brings his family and probably the rest of the country together.
As in many of Woody Allen's films, the popular tunes of the period provide enjoyable and nostalgic background music to the film. What more can I say: I loved this film and recommend that you either rent or purchase it as soon as you can.