Radio Days
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Radio Days
Plot
Woody Allen's gentle and nostalgic tribute to the glory days of radio and coming-of-age during World War II plays like Fellini's Amarcord filtered through Neil Simon. The nominal star is Seth Green as Joe, a teenage Jewish boy, growing up with a house full of relatives in Brooklyn. Allen cuts between Joe's working class neighborhood of Rockaway Beach, Queens, and the glittery and glamorous world of radio in Manhattan. ~ Paul Brenner, RoviReview
Nostalgia often allows otherwise disciplined filmmakers to lower their guards and indulge in misty-eyed wistfulness for its own sake, a trap Woody Allen neatly avoids by making Radio Days a film every bit as sharp as it is sentimental. A touching coming-of-age story almost by accident, the film revives radio-dominated WWII era New York through a series of comic vignettes portraying the adventures of an Allen-esque boy (an already impressive Seth Green) and the behind-the-scenes lives of the radio performers he idolizes, mining each for humor and pathos. Almost by definition, some portions of episodic films work better than others, but Allen integrates them all excellently into a consistent whole, a feat made all the more remarkable by the film's brief running time. There's a lot of narrative packed into Radio Days' 85 minutes, and Allen's steady tone makes sure that none of it feels out of place. Aware of how much memory is tied into pop culture, Allen uses minute period details and a packed soundtrack to evoke the time, a choice that lends impact to its era-ending finale. Even those born well after the time the film portrays may find themselves nostalgic for its passing, and newly aware that their time too will pass. Though it owes a debt to Fellini's Amarcord, this is one of Allen's most distinctively personal films. ~ Keith Phipps, RoviCast
- Mia Farrow - Sally White
- Seth Green - Little Joe
- Julie Kavner - Mother
- Josh Mostel - Uncle Abe
- Michael Tucker - Father
Credit
George De Titta, Jr. - Art Director, Speed Hopkins - Art Director, Ezra Swerdlow - Associate Producer, Juliet Taylor - Casting, Jeffrey Kurland - Costume Designer, Ezra Swerdlow - First Assistant Director, Woody Allen - Director, Susan E. Morse - Editor, Charles H. Joffe - Executive Producer, Jack Rollins - Executive Producer, Dick Hyman - Composer (Music Score), Dick Hyman - Musical Direction/Supervision, Zequinha Abreu - Songwriter, Arthur Altman - Songwriter, George Bassman - Songwriter, Johnny S. Black - Songwriter, Nat Bonx - Songwriter, Nat Burton - Songwriter, Xavier Cugat - Songwriter, Stanley J. Damerell - Songwriter, Howard Deitz - Songwriter, A. Dominguez - Songwriter, Ervin Drake - Songwriter, Milton Drake - Songwriter, Alexis Dubin - Songwriter, Tolchard Evans - Songwriter, Frank Eyton - Songwriter, George Forrest - Songwriter, Jack Fulton - Songwriter, Joseph Garland - Songwriter, Mack Gordan - Songwriter, John W. Green - Songwriter, Robert Hargreaves - Songwriter, Edward Heyman - Songwriter, Al Hoffman - Songwriter, Dick Hyman - Songwriter, Moe Jaffe - Songwriter, William Jerome - Songwriter, Sammy Kaye - Songwriter, Walter Kent - Songwriter, Margarita Lecuona - Songwriter, F.W. Meacham - Songwriter, Aloysio Oliveira - Songwriter, Sy Oliver - Songwriter, Don Reid - Songwriter, Atos Rodriquez - Songwriter, S.K. Russell - Songwriter, Jean Schwartz - Songwriter, Terry Shand - Songwriter, Robert Sour - Songwriter, Al Stillman - Songwriter, Jule Styne - Songwriter, Ervin Willson - Songwriter, Robert Wright - Songwriter, Jack Lawrence - Songwriter, Frank Strayer - Songwriter, Fern Buchner - Makeup, Dick Mingalone - Camera Operator, Santo Loquasto - Production Designer, Carlo Di Palma - Cinematographer, Thomas A. Reilly - Production Manager, Robert Greenhut - Producer, Les Bloom - Set Designer, Carol Joffe - Set Designer, David Weinman - Set Designer, James J. Sabat - Sound/Sound Designer, Woody Allen - Screenwriter, Lew Brown - Featured Music, Larry Clinton - Featured Music, Al Dexter - Featured Music, James Eaton - Featured Music, Sammy Fain - Featured Music, Rudolf Friml - Featured Music, Gordon Jenkins - Featured Music, Gus Kahn - Featured Music, Jerry Livingston - Featured Music, Frank Loesser - Featured Music, Jimmy McHugh - Featured Music, Cole Porter - Featured Music, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Featured Music, Arthur Schwartz - Featured Music, Harry Warren - Featured Music, Ned Washington - Featured Music, Kurt Weill - Featured Music, Vincent Youmans - Featured Music| Radio Corbeau (1988 Film), Radio City Revels (1938 Film) | |
| Radio Daze (1996 Film), Radio Flyer (1992 Film) |
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Radio Days
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Radio Days
For other uses, see Radio Days (disambiguation).
| Radio Days | |
|---|---|
 Radio Days theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Robert Greenhut |
| Written by | Woody Allen |
| Narrated by | Woody Allen |
| Starring | Mia Farrow Michael Tucker Julie Kavner Dianne Wiest Danny Aiello Tony Roberts Jeff Daniels Seth Green |
| Music by | Dick Hyman |
| Cinematography | Carlo Di Palma |
| Editing by | Susan E. Morse |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 30, 1987 |
| Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $16,000,000 USD |
| Box office | $14,792,779 |
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.
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Contents
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Plot
The Narrator (Woody Allen) tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. Allen himself narrated the stories of his youth, although he is never seen by the audience. The young Allen is portrayed onscreen by Seth Green as "Joe". In the New York City of his youth in the late 1930s to a rooftop overlooking Times Square on New Year's Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator's experiences with his remembrances and anecdotes, inserting his memories of urban legends of the radio stars, and is told in constantly changing plot points and vignettes.
Even though the narrator's Jewish-American family lives modestly in the Queens, New York neighborhood of Rockaway Beach, each member at one point during the film finds in radio shows an escape from reality through the gossip of celebrities, sports legends of the day, game shows, and crooners, with the majority of the stories taking place in the glitz and glamour of Manhattan. For the narrator, the action adventure shows on the radio (one of them based on The Shadow) inspire him, as he daydreams about buying a secret decoder ring, an attractive substitute teacher, movie stars (who may or not be as honest as they appear), and World War II.
Meanwhile, several other parallel stories are told, from an aspiring radio star named Sally White (Mia Farrow), the narrator's Aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest) and her (mostly fruitless) search for love, and during the middle of the film on the radio the tragic story is told about a little girl named Polly Phelps, who falls into a well near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. It becomes a big national story and as the family listens in, sadly little Polly does not survive. (This was actually inspired by the true story of Kathy Fiscus, a little girl who fell into a well in Southern California in 1949 and died after an exhaustive attempt to rescue her.)
The musical score, which features songs from the 1930s and 40s, plays an important, integral and seamless part in the plot. Orson Welles' famous 1938 CBS radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds has an important role in one of the vignettes.
The film was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[1] Film critic Roger Ebert called it Allen’s answer to Federico Fellini’s Amarcord.[2]
In a poll of 500 films held by Empire magazine, it was voted 304th Greatest Movie of all time.[3]
Cast
- Danny Aiello as Rocco
- Woody Allen as The Narrator
- Sydney Blake as Mrs Gordon
- Leah Carrey as Grandma
- Jeff Daniels as Biff Baxter
- Larry David as Communist Neighbor
- William H. Macy as Radio Actor
- Mia Farrow as Sally White
- Todd Field as Crooner
- Seth Green as Joe
- Kitty Carlisle Hart as Maxwell House (Coffee) Radio Jingle Singer
- Paul Herman as Burglar
- Julie Kavner as Mother
- Diane Keaton as New Year's Singer
- Renée Lippin as Aunt Ceil
- Judith Malina as Mrs. Waldbaum
- William Magerman as Grandpa
- Kenneth Mars as Rabbi Baumel
- Josh Mostel as Uncle Abe
- Tony Roberts as "Silver Dollar" Emcee
- Rebecca Schaeffer as Communists' Daughter
- Wallace Shawn as Masked Avenger
- Mike Starr as Burglar
- Don Pardo as "Guess That Tune" Host
- Michael Tucker as Father
- Dianne Wiest as Aunt Bea
- Kenneth Welsh as Radio Voice
Soundtrack
A soundtrack of the film, titled "Radio Days: Selections From The Original Soundtrack Of The Motion Picture" was released on cassette and compact disc in 1987:
01. Glenn Miller - "In The Mood"
02. Larry Clinton - I Double Dare You
03. Tommy Dorsey - Opus No. 1
04. Artie Shaw - Frenesi
05. Allan Jones - The Donkey Serenade
06. Benny Goodman Trio - Body and Soul
07. Tommy Dorsey - You and I
08. Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye - Remember Pearl Harbor
09. Guy Lombardo - "That Old Feeling"
10. Glenn Miller - "(There'll Be Blue Birds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover"
11. Benny Goodman - "Goodbye"
12. Tommy Dorsey - I'm Gettin' Sentimental Over You
13. Richard Himber - Lullaby of Broadway
14. Glenn Miller - American Patrol
15. Duke Ellington - Take the A Train
16. Xavier Cugat - One, Two, Three, Kick
Awards and nominations
1987 Academy Awards (Oscars)
- Nominated – Best Achievement in Art Direction:
Art Direction: Santo Loquasto
Set Decoration: Carol Joffe, Les Bloom, George DeTitta, Jr.[4] - Nominated – Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen[4]
1987 BAFTA Film Awards
- Won – Best Costume Design : Jeffery Kurland
- Won – Best Production Design: Santo Loquasto
- Nominated – Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Dianne Wiest
- Nominated – Best Editing: Susan E. Morse
- Nominated – Best Film: Robert Greenhut, Woody Allen
- Nominated – Best Screenplay Original: Woody Allen
- Nominated – Best Sound: Robert Hein, James Sabat, Lee Dichter
1988 Writers Guild of America Awards
- Nominated – WGA Screen Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen: Woody Allen
Further reading
- Woody Allen On Location by Thierry de Navacelle (Morrow, 1987); a day-to-day account of the making of Radio Days
References
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Radio Days". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/413/year/1987.html. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
- ^ "Radio Days". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19870130/REVIEWS/701300302/1023.
- ^ http://www.empireonline.com/500/38.asp
- ^ a b "The 60th Academy Awards (1988) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/60th-winners.html. Retrieved 2011-07-31.
External links
- Radio Days at the Internet Movie Database
- Review of Radio Days at TVGuide.com
- VINCENT CANBY, WOODY ALLEN'S FOND REMEMBRANCES OF 'RADIO DAYS', NY Times, January 30, 1987
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