Assassinatos na Rádio WBN

If you're looking for a serious mystery--or for that matter, a serious anything--don't watch this movie.

If you just want a fun movie that you can watch again and again, this one is for you! It takes place in the studios of radio station WBN on the night of its national debut. The station managers, directors, writers, and actors, already stressed with the debut and pleasing the affiliates, are shocked when a trumpet player in the orchestra is poisoned and killed. The station crew then has to keep the programs going while the police investigate and the writers go on strike. After more murders are committed, writer Roger Henderson, the innocent prime suspect, has to simultaneously evade the police, rewrite scripts for shows about to air, and solve the crime to prove his innocence.

There are some discrepancies and parts I'm sure critical people split hairs over. Don't expect a masterpiece, just some good fun.

Unfairly and almost universally trashed, this is a charming and atmospheric imagining of a hectic night in the life of a Chicago radio station whose ambition it is to go national. The sponsors are a tough sell, nothing is going as planned, and everything is pure chaos, compounded by a mounting tally of murder victims.

"Radioland Murders" is one of the noisiest and busiest live-action movies I've seen, literally wall-to-wall in every frame with rapid-fire slapstick and pratfalls, and it does not quite work as a comedy, but even as a comedy, it's breezy and pleasant in the face of its frenzied pace -- not unlike an old Warner Bros. cartoon of the Merrie Melodies variety. Better, though, it works as a nostalgic notion of old-time radio. The staggering gaps in logic and plot are meant to be ignored, as this is fantasy; it embraces the idea of radio in its heyday as the missing link between paperback adventures and television, requiring the listener's imagination to do half the work, while television requires none of it. The movie amounts to what could likely be a 9-year old listener's visual projection of what he's hearing on the radio.

It's technically dazzling, too, with the lens darting into rooms, out of windows and around the action becoming its own frenetic participant, and there's some breathtaking shots of the exterior of the station, often accentuating its height and distance from the city street far below. Brian Benben and Mary Stuart Masterson might strike the same one or two chords throughout the movie, but they're likable, as is this movie. And Scott Michael Campbell is very funny as Billy the pageboy, a kind of wide-eyed Quentin Tarantino of the radio age; fast-talking (everyone in the film is fast-talking, actually) and easily distracted (the look on his face as he accidentally barges into the ladies' dressing room and becomes mesmerized by the sight of the topless actresses is priceless), his entire grammar and understanding of life is derived from the radio shows of which he has encyclopedic knowledge.

Finally, "Radioland Murders" closes with some wistfully ironic thoughts (the movie is mostly free of contemporary irony, with the exception of this and an unsuccessful line about warning labels on cigarette packs) about television (best summed up by three uniformed cops hypnotized by a cathode ray tube) and the immortality of radio. A movie more about myth than story, "Radioland Murders" is written in the scattershot style of the radio programs depicted. It might merely be a sanitized and moderate entertainment (particularly when viewed against something like "The Hudsucker Proxy"), but it's affectionate, features lively music, looks great, and is completely innocent.

Radioland Murders is a movie that should be seen more than once because it is so fast-paced and contains lots of inside jokes....it helps to have worked in radio (i've been a control board operator for 6 yrs) to catch some of the adsurdity. In my opinion, it's mostly about "timing" because in radio "dead air" is a no-no....one program must flow into another (with commercials in between, of course)....the audience has no idea of the confusion going on behind the scenes! Watch the contrast of the writers' hectic schedule and the actors performing whatever they are given so smoothly...this script is well-written, I think. Dissect the lines and they work, like when Billy tells Mr. Henderson, "that's quite a reach, Mr. H". Just say it out loud and it has a rhyme to it. I love the part where the cops are staring at the TV test pattern!! Some of the silly parts were a bit too long for my taste, but the movie works on many humorous levels. I also enjoyed the 1930 popular lingo as dialog in places. And the last script Mr. Henderson delivers IS a pip and pulls it all together!

This is a wonderful, obscure film completely lacking subtlety which is why some people may hate it but exactly why I like it. The countless visual and verbal puns mean you can watch this film 20 times and never find them all. AND eventhough you KNOW what is coming next, you will still laugh at the punchlines.

Great story movement, dialogue; every stereotype known to Hollywood and YET, every stereotype seems to get violated; its like stereotypes of stereotypes. The only weakness is the movie keeps interupting some great songs.

One of my favorites. OK, so I don't have great tastes. Its still a really fun movie.

I am glad to say that I have this picture on video now, and it is still one of my favourite movies. I think the film brilliantly captures how a radio station (or a stage production even) can be controlled chaos at times.

This film was unfairly maligned in my opinion. I like the murder mystery/comedy genre. At times, it can be badly done, but here it is very well-handled. Brian Benben, Mary Stuart Masterson and the squad of celebrities who cameo, handle their scenes very well. My only real complaint would be that Christopher Lloyd and Michael McKean have very little to do.

But the plot twists and the resolution both pay off excellently and Mel Smith directs the piece with panache. There are also several great musical numbers thrown in as well. I give this film 8/10.