Radio Days

Woody Allen created a masterpiece of economy in "Radio Days". Into 88 minutes the writer/director compresses a familial love story and a tale of growing up as the United States was heading into World War II and Nazi submarines prowled off the cost of Rockaway, New York, at least as one boy's memory would have it.In the early 1940's, radio broadcasts not only entertained, they forged bonds among various classes and were the foundation of a culture which stretched from ethnic neighborhoods in the outer boroughs of NYC to the most famous movie theatre in America, Radio City Music Hall, here showing "The Philadelphia Story"(1940), starring Katharine Hepburn.The main character is Joe Needleman, a ten year old Jewish schoolboy ( and a surrogate for Allen himself) who is obsessed with the Masked Avenger and his token ring, which the boy wants to the extent of pilfering money intended for fundraising efforts in Palestine. Joe is a member of a multigenerational household which includes his immigrant grandparents, his taxi driving father and his sharp tongued mother who is the engine who drives the family. She is a perfectly cast and delightfully performing Julie Kavner. Also in residence are Joe's married aunt, her husband who brings home lots of fish gifted to him by his longshoreman friends,and their daughter who does Carmen Miranda imitations. The youngest of the three sisters is Joe's other aunt whose goal in life is to get married but who makes a series of spectacularly wrong choices in her beaux. This aunt is warmly portrayed by Dianne Wiest, fresh off her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Hannah and Her Sisters" the previous year. Indeed with Wiest, Mia Farrow and Diane Keaton on board, the cast is one of the singular joys of "Radio Days".To concentrate on the Mia Farrow character, introduced as a sleeparound nightclub cigarette girl, she, after a good deal of work on her outer borough accent, graduates to her own radio show. At an earlier moment in December 1941, she asks the immortal question, "Who is Pearl Harbor?"- a perfect example of how to define character economically.Diane Keaton, Woody's former girlfriend and the immortal Annie Hall, radiantly closes out the film in a luxurious nightclub on New Year's Eve. Her song, together with Woody's offscreen narration about the life affirming but unreliable power of memory, especially as it fades, brings this delightful and enduring film to a close.The wizards in MGM's technical departments have punched up the colors of this 1987 film to an eye-popping degree. What did early 1940's New York City look and sound like? "Radio Days" will bring you back.

`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.

What a wonderful, wonderful, film this is. It is definitely one of Woody’s very best and I would rate it in his top five – having seen most of his middle to top rated movies.The nostalgia of the 1930’s simply flows from the screen and pours over you – the whole thing is so very atmospheric, but also a superb feast for the eyes. It captures those ageless fashions when tailors were tailors! I just love the men’s & women’s fashions of the 20’s, 30’s & 40’s. The film won BAFTAS for Costume design & Production design. You are simply transported to that age – with the sets, the clothes and the music – Cole Porter and a lot of the big bands / orchestras of the period, there are 45 short tracks in the film!The film is one of Allen’s more ‘Jewish’ films and it flows with his great little sketches and wonderful humour - the local kids nick Mum’s teeth and play hockey with them, as they haven’t a puck, and they’re about the right size!Mia Farrow plays one of her best cameo roles for Woody Allen here, and looks just great, and rather sexy have I have to say - as the ‘cigarette seller,-a la ‘Trixie,’ from the ‘Rocky Horror Show.’ The way the film is screened as a 'life at home' period piece also reminded me of Terrence Davies, ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives.’ Like a few Woody films, this one barely broke even and yet it's possibly a lot of people's favourite 'WA' film?I have Just one disappointment! This classic is out on Bluray in America.. But not here …(hears head thumping against a wall and a mature male crying!)

Woody Allen's 1987 film Radio Days is a marvellous (autobiographical, but fictional) account of 1930s/40s life in New York, focusing on Allen's recollections of the effect radio had on the lives of his (fictional) family. The film, which is quite light on defined narrative, comprises a number of beautiful set-piece sequences and vignettes, all accompanied by a selection of the most typical pieces of the music of the time - such as Just One of Those Things, In The Mood, American Patrol and Night and Day.Although Allen does not actually appear in the film, his boyhood character does, played by Seth Green as the character Joe. Joe's parents are superbly played by Julie Kavner and Michael Tucker, who are 'poor but happy' as they struggle to raise Joe, and aspire to be like the stars of the radio that they listen to every day. As you might expect in a Woody Allen film, there are some superb running, and one-off, gags, such as Joe's father never revealing to his son what he does for a living (until Joe happens to hail a cab one day to find it being driven by his father), or the argument between Joe's parents over which ocean is the greater - the Pacific or the Atlantic.Major roles are also given to two Allen regulars. Mia Farrow is excellent as the hat-check girl Sally White, whose ambition is to become a movie star or singer, but an ambition which tends to lead to her finding herself in compromising positions with a series of middle-aged male 'impressarios'. Dianne Wiest is also typically brilliant as Joe's Aunt Bea, who is constantly pursuing a fruitless search for love and marriage - in one typically hilarious scene, it is revealed to her that her target man's previous fiancee was actually a man!Allen also casts some of his other regulars in more minor roles, such as Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Danny Aiello and Jeff Daniels.For me, not quite up there with Allen's very best, but a beautiful, heart-warming film nevertheless.

One of my favorite movies. Watched it on original release 1987, and at least twice a year since. Great performances all round.Very nostalgic and family and kid stuff we can all relate to. Love it!

THIS IS ONE OF WOODY ALLENS GOOD ONES.NONE OF THOSE CONVOLUTED CONVERSATIONS ABOUT LIFE, THIS FILM TOLD THE AMUSING STORY OF A YOUNG MANS VIEWING OF HIS AMERICAN NEIGHBOURHOOD IN THE 1940s EXCELLENT. TERRY

The use of all these old songs was magic. Good story, well executed.