Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
"Radio Days" has various vignettes told from the perspective of its most humble narrator, Woody Allen himself, as he recounts the days in Rockaway Beach living with his Jewish family in a house that felt like cramped quarters. Michael Tucker is the patriarch who will not disclose to his son, Joe (Seth Green, standing in for an adolescent Woody), where he works; Julie Kavner is the wife who loves her husband but still has romantic fantasies of being with rich, dashing men; Dianne Wiest is Aunt Bea who has trouble holding on to her dates and is far too picky; Josh Mostel as the gregarious Uncle Abe who brings home copious amounts of fish every day, and his wife, Aunt Ceil (Renee Lippin), who has a particular fondness for a radio program with a ventriloquist. Joe spends all his time listening to the radio including the adventures of the Masked Avenger thus schoolwork is of second nature to him.
"Radio Days" exists as a time capsule of a more innocent era (nostalgically speaking) when radio permeated everyone's homes and World War II and an uncertain future were in the mix. Woody Allen has created a series of memorable episodes that are so artfully crafted that they border on the level of genius. This is largely because the childhood memories are so alive and brimming with pleasures of incidents we can all relate to (it reminds me a lot of the nostalgic rosy glow of "A Christmas Story"). There is a bit involving a carrot placed on a snowman's nether regions which is discovered by a teacher...who then eats the carrot. Joe asking for donations for the "Jewish Homeland Fund," which are really for the sought after Masked Avenger ring. Then there are the kids who look through binoculars on a tenement rooftop hoping to see enemy bomber planes and instead catch a woman undressing in her room (who later turns up as a substitute teacher in their class). A show-and-tell moment that looks like it is right out of similar scenes from "Annie Hall" with a school kid showing a used condom to the class!
The movie also shifts to colorful episodes of the glamorous New York City elite of celebrities who supply the voices heard on radio programs. Most fittingly is squeaky-voiced Sally White (Mia Farrow) who takes diction lessons and becomes what she dreamed of - a true radio star! This is long after she witnesses a mob killing by a gangster (Danny Aiello) who happens to be from the same neighborhood she grew up in. Seeing Wallace Shawn as another radio star uttering the Masked Avenger's dialogue is priceless.
"Radio Days" doesn't skip the revolutionary and dramatic radio segments, especially one involving a helpless child stuck in a well - a news story that binds Joe's family together in ways which reminds us of how tragedy supersedes everything.
From its selection of over 40 songs (my favorite might be the Carmen Miranda tune "South American Way"), its wry narration by Allen and the quixotic performances, "Radio Days" paints a heavenly glow on an era that time forgot. It is the era before television took charge at every household, a visual replacement of a medium where imagination was what they all held onto. Radio was so powerful that it could force a man to leave a woman stranded in a car while listening to the frightening War of the Worlds broadcast. Thanks Mr. Welles.
