Radio Days (1987)

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

Director:

Woody Allen

Writer:

Woody Allen

Stars:

Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Mike Starr

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
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	...	Tess, the 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	...	Martin, the father
Josh Mostel	...	Abe

Storyline

Woody Allen's sentimental reminiscence about the golden age of radio. A series of vignettes involving radio personalities is intertwined with the life of a working class family in Rockaway Beach, NY circa 1942.

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Plot Keywords:

1940s | radio city music hall | new york city | radio | extended family | 

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Official Sites:

MGM

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish Italian

Release Date:

30 January 1987 (USA)

Also Known As:

Días de radio

Filming Locations:

Radio City Music Hall - 1260 6th Avenue, Rockefeller Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$16,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,522,423, 1 February 1987

Gross USA:

$14,792,779

Company Credits

Production Co:

Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions, Orion Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1988, for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Writing - Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, the latter for Woody Allen, but the picture failed to win an Oscar in either category, losing to The Last Emperor (1987) and John Patrick Shanley for Moonstruck (1987) respectively.

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Goofs

The song sung by Frank Sinatra on screen in the scene at Radio City Music Hall, "If You Are But a Dream," [written by Moe Jaffe (my father), Nat Bonx, and Jack Fulton], was published in 1942, after the supposed date of the event portrayed. Additionally, the particular recording used in the film dates from 1944.

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Quotes

Ceil: Don't you wanna hit the hot spots and drink Champagne from my slipper?
Abe: I can't take that much liquid.

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Connections

References Rear Window (1954)

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Soundtracks

Carioca
(1933)
Music by Vincent Youmans
Lyrics by Gus Kahn and Edward Eliscu
Played as dance music at a nightclub

User Reviews

those were the days

Woody Allen fondly recalls that age before TV when radio was the nucleus around which family life revolved (and evolved). It's an affectionate (and, for Allen, atypically nostalgic) period piece, sketching with disarming humor the memories, anecdotes, and fantasies of an East Coast childhood in the 1930s and 1940s, narrated by the director himself and set against a collection of once-popular radio songs and programs. Television could never trigger such glowing memories, because TV numbs the imagination while the invisibility of the radio voice tends to enhance it. Allen includes plenty of jokes to that effect: the heroic Masked Avenger turns out, off microphone, to be the portly Wallace Shawn; the nonsense song Mairsie Doates recalls a neighbor brandishing a meat cleaver on a downtown rampage. The comedy is never more than feather-light, demanding nothing from its audience except uncomplicated laughter, but this is one filmmaker who has always been more effective on a smaller scale.