Radio Days

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. Read more

`Radio Days', written, directed and narrated by Woody Allen might be thought of as Allen's doing Jean Shepherd. The comparisons between this movie and Shepherd's `A Christmas Story' and his RADIO commentary is strong. The irony is that while Allen is going for nostalgia and comedy here, Shepherd, according to a lecture I saw him give about two years before his death, is actually going for satire. That is, while the notes in the `Radio Days' insert says that many of the episodes in the movie actually happened to Allen in Rockaway, Long Island, Shepherd's parents were entirely different from his fictional family living in Hammond, Indiana. I still remember with glee the opening of `Radio Days' coinciding roughly with the movie `Brighton Beach Memoirs' by the immensely well reputed comedy writer, Neal Simon. And, `Radio Days' got the better reviews. It's been a long time since I saw `Brighton Beach Memoirs', but I will offer the memory that Allen bests Simon by a long shot. As in most Allen movies, a great little game is to find all the cameo performers, and this one has more than it is share. The roster of guest appearances is filled to overflowing with the appearance of many semi-famous radio personalities such as Kitty Carlyle Hart, playing herself, without credit as far as I can see. Allen's stock company is here in force, headed by Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner, Tony Roberts, Wallace Shawn, and Dianne Wiest. Visitors to this stock company are Josh Mostel and Danny Aiello (after a recent especially strong appearance in `The Purple Rose of Cairo'). Most subtle are the appearances of Kenneth Mars as a heavily bearded rabbi and the very talented William H. Macy, whose role is so small, I don't even remember seeing him, much less recognizing him on the screen. The biggest casting surprise is a very brief appearance by Diane Keaton as a big band vocalist who has no lines except for the song she sings in the last scene. The action covers roughly six years, from the summer of 1938 (the year of Orson Wells' `War of the Worlds' Halloween broadcast) to New Year's Eve of 1944 and deals largely with the adult narrator's extended conservative Jewish family of mother, father, married aunt and uncle, unmarried aunt, and a pair of grandparents, all living in a rather large house between the waterfront and the business district of Rockaway, Long Island. There are a few asides to the Mia Farrow role who begins as a wannabe actress / cigarette girl who, in this six year period, achieves success in, you guessed it, radio. At the time of the action in the movie, the narrator appears as an eleven-year-old grade school boy who lusts after a Captain Midnight secret compartment ring. The parallel with Shepherd's `A Christmas Story' is strengthened by the analogy of this ring and Shepherd's Red Ryder BB gun. There are also strong connections to Shepherd's frequent references to the Little Orphan Annie secret decoder ring. This movie is fueled almost entirely by nostalgia, real and imagined, for adolescence and the radio. There seem to be fewer quick gags than even the relatively serious `Crimes and Misdemeanors' and the previous work, `Hannah and Her Sisters'. Parents are a recurring theme in many of Allen's movies, the most prominent being their appearance in interviews in `Annie Hall'. I often wonder if Allen was actually treated as poorly by his parents as he seems to depict in the many brief allusions in his movies. As this film is all about growing up with parents, it is perhaps the strongest essay on the subject, and the little boy character is either smacked or spanked at least five times in this movie by his parents. I have a very strong suspicion that much of this is done for dramatic effect and does not reflect an `Unhappy Childhood' for Allen, but it does make me curious. In spite of the fact that this is an excellent movie, on a par with `A Christmas Story' and superior to `Brighton Beach Memoirs', the bar is set so high with Allen's movies that I have to put this at no better than a 7 out of 10 among Allen's movies in overall quality. Being just good in the company of such outstanding works still rates it five stars when compared to movies as a whole. Read more