When did Woody Allen go soft? "Radio Days", a series of vignettes centering around the popular radio shows and personalities of the early 1940s (just prior to the start of WWII and just after), has not a delightfully vulgar bone in its being; it's the movie equivalent of a cozy blanket, or warm jelly. Even so, despite the rosy nostalgia, Allen the screenwriter creates characters who, rich or poor, are gleefully corrupt. Allen, who also narrates, exposes a sentimental heart (and melancholy yearning) for this era in time, but more importantly he gets a funny rhythm going in the autobiographical stories of a family in the Rockaway Point region of Queens. These bubbly nostalgic tales are barely shaped, however, and some of them--his aunt's date with a man who confesses a gay affair, or a group of boys spying on a woman who soon becomes their substitute teacher--fall flat. The Manhattanites and radio stars are far less amusing (or interesting) than the happily bickering family, but there are fine performances throughout. Frizzy-haired Mia Farrow is endearing as a nasal-voiced coat-check girl (she also gets to sing a lovely solo for the USO, and has a funny scene pleading for her life after mobster Danny Aiello kidnaps her). Dianne Wiest is also delightful (as usual), as are Michael Tucker and Julie Kavner. One presumes Allen's love for these radio days is the real thing, and he does show a tender side (especially in a well-edited sequence with all of New York glued to a story of a little Pennsylvania girl who has fallen down a narrow well). Still, the picture has so little punch that sequences tend to dribble away or feel half-finished, and Allen's mock-innocence is a sham. But an amusing sham. **1/2 from ****
Review of Radio Days
