A film about growing up in Rockaway during the early 1940s, framed by piece after piece of contemporary pop radio songs and programs. It strikes a viewer as even more autobiographical than usual for Woody Allan. That's not necessarily a good thing, I suppose. What happens to an artist may seem pregnant with import to him but rather flat to an outsider. But "Radio Days" succeeds where so many others fail. It belongs in the category of other autobiographical achievements -- John Boorman's "Hope and Glory," Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint," Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." The Masked Avenger in Allan's movie muses with others on New Year's Eve, 1944, "I wonder if anyone will remember this." They will now.
A lot of the credit goes to Carlo DiPalma's photography and Santo Loquasto's artistic direction. It's an awfully familiar environment, stylized to the point of enchantment. I forget how much younger I am than Woody Allan but it can't be by much because I could decode some of the characters and incidents he gives us here. The vast mural advertising Camel cigarettes on Times Square, for instance, with a hole in the guy's mouth and the smoke rings issuing forth, inviting us to inhale. Victory gardens. Watching the skies for enemy airplanes. Collecting scrap and milkweed pods. Liberty bonds. The tragedy of the little girl trapped in the well, whom I remember as Kathy Fiscus. The ridiculously inspirational stories of sports heroes who, through an excess of "heart", overcame their disabilities. The broadcaster was I think Bill Stern.
The brief episode involving Stern's rendering of the Monty Stratton story is a good example of what buoys this up and lifts it above an ordinary autobiography. Monty Stratton, a major league pitcher, lost a leg in a hunting accident and came back to pitch again. In Woody's scenario, the pitcher loses his leg and comes back alright. But then there is another accident, and he loses his non-pitching arm -- and still comes back. Another accident. He's now blind -- but he STILL returns to major league pitching. Finally he's run over by a truck, killed, and Stern tells us he is now pitching in that Great Major League in the Sky. Now, I find that to be a successful combination of personal history and satire.
It's impossible to avoid sentimentality in a movie like this. And, after all, what the hell, if you had a happy childhood, you miss it, so why not have lonely Aunt Bea taking up with the wrong guys? Why not have sappy songs like "I Don't Want to Walk Without You"? They were part of the period and there were a lot of guys overseas and many of them didn't come back. Every other window seems to have a flag with a blue star on it or, for the unlucky ones, a gold star. Not everyone was as confidently sarcastic and loving as the families we see in this film, of course. But at least the country was pulling together against an agreed-upon common enemy. The Air Raid Wardens and the ration books now seem like a small price to pay for that kind of solidarity. Living in a city at the time when neighborhoods were relatively stable was a little like living in a village in which everyone seemed to know everyone else and you couldn't sneeze without someone around the corner saying in a familiar voice, "Gesundheit." It's impossible to imagine that kind of taken-for-granted intimacy in a post-war bedroom community. (I think I'm getting a touch of that nostalgia myself. Is it catching?) Woody Allan narrates the thing and at the end he observes that he will never forget that New Year's Eve of 1944 when they woke him up to hear Guy Lombardo. "But, to tell the truth, the memory gets dimmer with each year." Righto, Woody.
A lot of the credit goes to Carlo DiPalma's photography and Santo Loquasto's artistic direction. It's an awfully familiar environment, stylized to the point of enchantment. I forget how much younger I am than Woody Allan but it can't be by much because I could decode some of the characters and incidents he gives us here. The vast mural advertising Camel cigarettes on Times Square, for instance, with a hole in the guy's mouth and the smoke rings issuing forth, inviting us to inhale. Victory gardens. Watching the skies for enemy airplanes. Collecting scrap and milkweed pods. Liberty bonds. The tragedy of the little girl trapped in the well, whom I remember as Kathy Fiscus. The ridiculously inspirational stories of sports heroes who, through an excess of "heart", overcame their disabilities. The broadcaster was I think Bill Stern.
The brief episode involving Stern's rendering of the Monty Stratton story is a good example of what buoys this up and lifts it above an ordinary autobiography. Monty Stratton, a major league pitcher, lost a leg in a hunting accident and came back to pitch again. In Woody's scenario, the pitcher loses his leg and comes back alright. But then there is another accident, and he loses his non-pitching arm -- and still comes back. Another accident. He's now blind -- but he STILL returns to major league pitching. Finally he's run over by a truck, killed, and Stern tells us he is now pitching in that Great Major League in the Sky. Now, I find that to be a successful combination of personal history and satire.
It's impossible to avoid sentimentality in a movie like this. And, after all, what the hell, if you had a happy childhood, you miss it, so why not have lonely Aunt Bea taking up with the wrong guys? Why not have sappy songs like "I Don't Want to Walk Without You"? They were part of the period and there were a lot of guys overseas and many of them didn't come back. Every other window seems to have a flag with a blue star on it or, for the unlucky ones, a gold star. Not everyone was as confidently sarcastic and loving as the families we see in this film, of course. But at least the country was pulling together against an agreed-upon common enemy. The Air Raid Wardens and the ration books now seem like a small price to pay for that kind of solidarity. Living in a city at the time when neighborhoods were relatively stable was a little like living in a village in which everyone seemed to know everyone else and you couldn't sneeze without someone around the corner saying in a familiar voice, "Gesundheit." It's impossible to imagine that kind of taken-for-granted intimacy in a post-war bedroom community. (I think I'm getting a touch of that nostalgia myself. Is it catching?) Woody Allan narrates the thing and at the end he observes that he will never forget that New Year's Eve of 1944 when they woke him up to hear Guy Lombardo. "But, to tell the truth, the memory gets dimmer with each year." Righto, Woody.