Radio Days

Radio Days (1987) was written and directed by Woody Allen. The movie is set during the "golden years of radio," when radio programs, listened to at home, were an important aspect of American entertainment.

The film is narrated by Woody Allen, and is a nostalgic--and possibly autobiographical--look at the childhood of a young boy growing up in Rockaway, Queens. Allen grew up in Brooklyn, but the culture and customs of lower-middle class Jews in Rockaway would have been similar to those that Allen probably witnessed in Brooklyn.

The movie is set in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Surprisingly, World War II doesn't hold a prominent place in the film. Although the war was thousands of miles away, no aspect of life in the U.S. was untouched by it. Allen chose to concentrate on other matters--failed hopes, unfulfilled romances, and family bickering.

Despite these negative aspects of day-to-day life, the film projects a cheery, upbeat attitude. After all, it was a time when someone who looked like Wallace Shawm could star as radio's "Masked Avenger." Woody's subdued narrative lets us know that he loved those around him and was loved by them in turn.

Life wasn't perfect, but it could have been worse, and who knew what good things the future might bring.

We saw Radio Days on DVD. It probably would work somewhat better on the large screen, but it's worth seeking out and seeing in any format.

In preface, let me say that I was born at the tail-end of the "golden age of radio," but just in time to experience a touch of its magic and the hold it had on households night after night in that pre-TV era. Add to that a favorite aunt who had worked in radio for years on the West Coast and who regaled her nephew with story upon story, which in turn led to the years I later spent in radio (luckily, prior to the "formula radio" days). It all adds up to my absolutely having to go see "Radio Days" when it first came out, despite the fact that I'd never been the world's foremost Woody Allen fan. Too much of his work, for me, lacked that indefinable but oh so recognizable element of "heart."

Well, I was wrong about Woody. This film shows it.

Autobiographical -- or perhaps semi-autobiographical -- in nature, "Radio Days" evokes the time when people returned "to those thrilling days of yesteryear," and for whom, quite probably, it was equally thrilling to contemplate the magic of a box in their living room that could cause them to "watch" the stories unfold in their minds. "Remotes," or on-the-spot broadcasts transported them to the scene of unfolding tragedies or triumphs in a way that newspapers never could (and which TV, for all its advantages, rarely matches).

And yet the film, for all its authenticity in recreating studio practices (watch, for example, how the actors drop completed script pages onto the floorrather than turning them and risking a tell-tale rustle of paper), isn't really so much about radio itself as it is about the people who listened, as personified by one raucous, cantankerous and loving Brooklyn family. Beautifully evoked, particularly by Julie Kavner (Mother), Michael Tucker (Father), and the incomparable Dianne Wiest (as the perenially lovelorn Aunt Bea), it is their reactions to what they hear on the radio -- whether listening breathlessly to the war news (at a time when the end result was anything but certain) or Bea's abandonment in the middle of nowhere by a panicked suitor as Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast takes hold -- that bring to life the era and the power of that medium.

Standouts? The whole cast is perfect, but for me, in addition to those previously mentioned, I have to cit Mia Farrow's portrayal of the dim-bulbed Sally White, who transforms herself with the aid of speech lessons into a radio personality. (For that matter, catch Danny Aiello as a less-than-brilliant hitman, particularly his scenes with Dina DeAngeles as his mom.)

Criticisms? One: At the end of a poignant scene in which young Joe has finally discovered what his dad does for a living, Allen insists on falling into some standby "schtick" in his voiceover. (I guess he couldn't resist; thankfully, it doesn't ruin the moment.)

Ultimately, of course, it is the era itself that this film celebrates. Faithfully, and lovingly, it is recreated with a skill that points up its absurdities at the same time it makes one hopefully nostalgic. And, if you're not very careful, you wind up falling hopelessly in love with this funny, obscure Brooklyn family.

And to the end of my days, I'll always wonder whether poor Aunt Bea ever did find her "Mr. Right" . . .

This movie starts with two burglars answering the phone during a break-in. They win the radio contest and the next day, the homeowners are shocked by the arrival of the winnings after finding their home robbed. Woody Allen narrates this nostalgic recollection of vignettes during his childhood. Joe (Seth Green) lives in Rockaway Beach with his parents Tess (Julie Kavner) and Martin (Michael Tucker) as well as an extended family. His imagination and his memories deliver stories about the people in his life and the radio they listen to. There is the War of the Worlds broadcast. Joe's favorite character is the Masked Avenger. There are also stories about the radio peronalities and aspiring actress cigarette-girl Sally White (Mia Farrow).

Woody delivers a loving tribute to the concept of radio through the eyes of childhood. This has a large cast with wide ranging vignettes. It's imaginative, touching, and fun. The characters are specific and compelling. There is a terrific veneer of memory. Through all the surreal and the real, there is the love of family and radio that transcends the screen onto the audience.

This movie shouts one word: WARMTH. The colors, the plot, the characters, they are all wonderfully warm.

I've watched this movie with senior citizens who were around in the forties. I once watched it with a Jewish guy who grew up on Long Island (albeit in the early 30's, not the 40's). All comments were the same: THIS was life in New York during wartime.

Vietnam was my war, so this era was a mystery to me. However, any time a genius like Woody Allen can create a film that not only makes me and my rowdy friends laugh, but gets guffaws from my dear old Mom as well, it deserves a little fanfare.

I didn't even mention the solid gold music.

See this film at once!

Woody Allen fondly recalls that age before TV when radio was the nucleus around which family life revolved (and evolved). It's an affectionate (and, for Allen, atypically nostalgic) period piece, sketching with disarming humor the memories, anecdotes, and fantasies of an East Coast childhood in the 1930s and 1940s, narrated by the director himself and set against a collection of once-popular radio songs and programs. Television could never trigger such glowing memories, because TV numbs the imagination while the invisibility of the radio voice tends to enhance it. Allen includes plenty of jokes to that effect: the heroic Masked Avenger turns out, off microphone, to be the portly Wallace Shawn; the nonsense song Mairsie Doates recalls a neighbor brandishing a meat cleaver on a downtown rampage. The comedy is never more than feather-light, demanding nothing from its audience except uncomplicated laughter, but this is one filmmaker who has always been more effective on a smaller scale.