Woody Allen normally makes one film every year, but in 1987 he made two, "Radio Days" and "September", about as different from one another as it would be possible for two Woody Allen movies to be. "September" is a dismal and quite deliberately humourless psychological drama about unrequited love; "Radio Days", a period piece set in the New York of the late 1930s and early 1940s, is much lighter in tone. Indeed, it is also lighter than many of Woody's other comedies, substituting a nostalgic warmth for their frequent tone of neurotic or cynical angst.
The film is sometimes described as autobiographical, although this is not quite accurate, even though Allen narrates the story himself. (He is never seen by the audience). The main character, Joe, is, like Allen, from a Jewish-American family, but rather older than Allen would have been at this period. (I doubt, for example, whether Woody, born in December 1935, has any memory of Orson Welles' famous radio adaptation of "The War of the Worlds", broadcast in October 1938 when he was still under three years old).
The title reflects the fact that the thirties and forties, in America as in many other countries, was regarded as the "Golden Age of Radio" before television replaced radio as the dominant medium. The film explores the ways in which the lives of young Joe and his family are influenced by the radio shows of the day; Joe is particularly inspired by an adventure serial about a superhero known as the Masked Avenger. There are also anecdotes about the radio stars of the day; showbiz urban legends of this type play an important part in other Woody films such as "Broadway Danny Rose" or "Sweet and Lowdown". An example comes when a well-known radio presenter known for his womanising gets locked on the roof of a nightclub with Sally White, a cigarette girl with ambitions to become a radio star herself. (She eventually succeeds, despite an obvious lack of talent).
There is, in fact, no single coherent plot line; the film rather consists of a series of stories and anecdotes, most of them amusing, occasionally sad as in the tale (based on a real-life incident) of the young girl who dies after falling into a well. Compared to the great Woody Allen films like "Manhattan" or "Hannah and Her Sisters", made the previous year, "Radio Days" is a slight work. To call it "slight", however, does not necessarily imply low quality; it is, for example, far better than "September", a film which Allen clearly intended to be portentous and significant but which ended up as dull and depressing.
I suspect that Allen's target audience for "Radio Days" was people of his own age group or slightly older (he would have been 49 in 1987) who wanted to look back nostalgically at the days of their youth; the film contains not only references to the radio shows of the thirties and forties but also much of the popular music of that era. I was not around during that period (I was not born until the sixties) so presumably do not qualify. Nevertheless, this was still a film which I enjoyed.
Woody cast a number of actors who had appeared in his earlier films, such as Mia Farrow as Sally, Dianne Wiest as Joe's Aunt Bea whose search for love is a running theme, Danny Aiello, Jeff Daniels, Diane Keaton and Wallace Shawn, and gets good performances out of all of them. There are any number of amusing incidents; the burglars who accidentally win a big prize for their victims by answering a ringing telephone and correctly answering a question on "Name That Tune"; Joe's misappropriation (much to the disgust of his rabbi) of funds collected for Israel; his disappointment on discovering that the Masked Avenger is not the handsome hero he had imagined but is played by a short, bald actor; his search with his friends for enemy submarines after the outbreak of war.
Despite the episodic nature of his material, Woody manages to make the film hang together as a whole as a warm, loving recollection of childhood. The nostalgic atmosphere is heightened by the lush, warm tones in which it is shot. This is the Golden Age of Radio, not necessarily as it was, but as it should have been. As Roger Ebert pointed out in his review, what actually happened isn't nearly as important as how we remember it. 7/10
The film is sometimes described as autobiographical, although this is not quite accurate, even though Allen narrates the story himself. (He is never seen by the audience). The main character, Joe, is, like Allen, from a Jewish-American family, but rather older than Allen would have been at this period. (I doubt, for example, whether Woody, born in December 1935, has any memory of Orson Welles' famous radio adaptation of "The War of the Worlds", broadcast in October 1938 when he was still under three years old).
The title reflects the fact that the thirties and forties, in America as in many other countries, was regarded as the "Golden Age of Radio" before television replaced radio as the dominant medium. The film explores the ways in which the lives of young Joe and his family are influenced by the radio shows of the day; Joe is particularly inspired by an adventure serial about a superhero known as the Masked Avenger. There are also anecdotes about the radio stars of the day; showbiz urban legends of this type play an important part in other Woody films such as "Broadway Danny Rose" or "Sweet and Lowdown". An example comes when a well-known radio presenter known for his womanising gets locked on the roof of a nightclub with Sally White, a cigarette girl with ambitions to become a radio star herself. (She eventually succeeds, despite an obvious lack of talent).
There is, in fact, no single coherent plot line; the film rather consists of a series of stories and anecdotes, most of them amusing, occasionally sad as in the tale (based on a real-life incident) of the young girl who dies after falling into a well. Compared to the great Woody Allen films like "Manhattan" or "Hannah and Her Sisters", made the previous year, "Radio Days" is a slight work. To call it "slight", however, does not necessarily imply low quality; it is, for example, far better than "September", a film which Allen clearly intended to be portentous and significant but which ended up as dull and depressing.
I suspect that Allen's target audience for "Radio Days" was people of his own age group or slightly older (he would have been 49 in 1987) who wanted to look back nostalgically at the days of their youth; the film contains not only references to the radio shows of the thirties and forties but also much of the popular music of that era. I was not around during that period (I was not born until the sixties) so presumably do not qualify. Nevertheless, this was still a film which I enjoyed.
Woody cast a number of actors who had appeared in his earlier films, such as Mia Farrow as Sally, Dianne Wiest as Joe's Aunt Bea whose search for love is a running theme, Danny Aiello, Jeff Daniels, Diane Keaton and Wallace Shawn, and gets good performances out of all of them. There are any number of amusing incidents; the burglars who accidentally win a big prize for their victims by answering a ringing telephone and correctly answering a question on "Name That Tune"; Joe's misappropriation (much to the disgust of his rabbi) of funds collected for Israel; his disappointment on discovering that the Masked Avenger is not the handsome hero he had imagined but is played by a short, bald actor; his search with his friends for enemy submarines after the outbreak of war.
Despite the episodic nature of his material, Woody manages to make the film hang together as a whole as a warm, loving recollection of childhood. The nostalgic atmosphere is heightened by the lush, warm tones in which it is shot. This is the Golden Age of Radio, not necessarily as it was, but as it should have been. As Roger Ebert pointed out in his review, what actually happened isn't nearly as important as how we remember it. 7/10