Radio Days (1987)

Director:

Woody Allen

Writer:

Woody Allen (written by)

Release Date:

30 January 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

A nostalgic look at radio's golden age focusing on one ordinary family and the various performers in the medium.

Plot Keywords:

Memory Film | Working Class | Accidental Shooting | Enema | Hunting

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Mike Starr	...	Burglar
Paul Herman	...	Burglar
Don Pardo	...	'Guess That Tune' Host
Martin Rosenblatt	...	Mr. Needleman
Helen Miller	...	Mrs. Needleman
Danielle Ferland	...	Child Star
Julie Kavner	...	Mother
Julie Kurnitz	...	Irene
David Warrilow	...	Roger
Wallace Shawn	...	Masked Avenger
Mick Murray	...	Avenger Crook (as Michael Murray)
William Flanagan	...	Avenger Announcer
Seth Green	...	Joe
Michael Tucker	...	Father
Josh Mostel	...	Abe

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Netherlands:6 | Canada:PA (Ontario) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | Finland:S | France:U | Singapore:PG | Sweden:Btl | UK:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Orion Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

The story of Kirby Kyle, the ill fated baseball player, is a parody of former Chicago White Sox Pitcher Monty Stratton, whose promising career was derailed after he lost part of his leg due to a hunting accident. Stratton attempted a comeback, and then retired. His life was made into a movie The Monty Stratton Story.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The burglars turn on a radio and instantly hear sound, when the vacuum tubes should have taken longer to warm up.

Quotes:

Abe: He's a ventriloquist on the radio -- how do you know he's not moving his lips?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Martin: Radio Days (#1.13)" (1992)

Soundtrack:

You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To

Recollecting Can Be Meaningful

I thought I was being original when I made the connection between Woody Allen's "Radio Days" and Federico Fellini's "Amarcord," but I was being naive. The parallels are so transparent it is of no surprise that most of the IMDB reviewers (and I imagine those others as well) caught the similarity.

And it's a good similarity - "Radio Days" is as successful in transporting the viewer to a different place and time as "Amarcord" was. It also cements my conclusion that Woody Allen is the only director who "spoofs" great art films and artistic styles, confirmed by his tributes to Ingmar Bergman and German Expressionists.

All that aside, "Radio Days" is, second of all, a look at Allen's childhood memories weaved together by radio. It's the story of his family (his large and extended family and neighborhood personages), their likes, dislikes, relationships and favorite radio shows. They are inextricably connected as genetic members of a family, but also more intangibly linked by radio broadcasts, to which they listen to individually as well as collectively. They have favorite songs and shows - each favorite reflecting the personality of a given character. They also share great love for one another, though they quibble like all human beings do. In fact, that tender quibbling, love and loss and understanding is what makes Allen's characters come to life so successfully - no wonder he speaks of them with warmth.

What "Radio Days" is about first of all and foremost, is nostalgia. The film would only be a heartwarming family tale and nothing more if it were not "recollected" by Woody Allen, the narrator. His role in the film (in which he never physically appears) is that of a story-teller. He transports the audience to his memories consciously, mixing present reflections with the unadulterated spirit of his memories. And it is he, not the characters in the film as much, who experiences the nostalgia, the central theme of "Radio Days."

In narrating his memories, Allen is able to distance himself from them temporally. He is telling a tale that borders on fantasy, such as that on whose form nostalgic memories take place. There is a bittersweet yearning for the past and a realization that memories must inevitably fade, change, yield to time's destructiveness. Re-telling them not only reveals how one thinks life once was (usually painted over with warmth and pleasantness), but also oneself and the knowledge that these times are no longer physically accessible. How we recollect our past tells us of us as much as it does of the past. In "Radio Days" that past is warm and Allen's yearning for that warmth and childish innocence is what pervades the film so well giving it its nostalgic quality.

And nostalgia, the film seems to suggest, is a feeling worth experiencing. If one can glance back at his life and feel a longing towards the past, a warmth emanating from his memories, then he remembers life as having been kind to him. Even if the details flee from the mind (as they inevitably do) and only the feelings inspired by hazy memories remain. And that, if nothing else, is not only comforting, but also meaningful.