Radioland Murders (1994)

Please don't spend money on this.

Brilliant and touching

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I remember watching this in the theater and it being so funny (for so long) that I couldn't breath I was laughing so much. Both my girlfriend and I had to look at the floor of the theater to look away from the screen to try and reduce our laughing because our sides hurt so much.Maybe if I watched it again I might not laugh quite so much but I remember laughing more at this movie than any other. And no, I wasn't a silly teenager at the time, I was in my 30's.I loved the fast, fast pace and the constant stream of jokes and sight gags. It does help if you can pay attention and keep track of everything that is going on. This is not a sophisticated comedy by any means, just a lot of good, clean fun (well, except for the murders). ;-)Just a (very) lot of fun.

The only thing that this inane film has going for it is its pacing. It is done lively and quiet fast and given the nature and how bad the film is, it's appropriate to do it that quickly.This is a definite take-off on the radio period in America.While a radio show goes on, the best part of the action seems to be on the backstage, where a series of murders are taking place, one after the other.Suspicion immediately falls on one of the writers who is on the verge of breaking up with his wife, the show's producer.The beginning showed progress with the problems of script writing presented. With the murders, the film falters quickly and becomes one of amateurish slapstick and all other mayhem and nonsense.The comedy lines are silly. One example is: Woman to man: "Don't you see the star on my dressing room?" His response was: "Does that mean you're Jewish?" Case closed.

This would make a good triple feature with RADIO DAYS and MY FAVORITE YEAR if you want to be nostalgic about old-time entertainment. The best way for me to review this movie is to list some pluses and minuses:PLUS: An amazing cast: just read the list. MINUS: Most of them are barely used. Were some scenes with the writers cut out? Otherwise, why hire big names like Klein, Korman, Goldthwait, McNicol? The only people we actually see writing in the film are Masterson and Benben. (The others are on strike, of course.)PLUS: Wonderful evocation of the days of live radio. (I did radio drama in the 70s and it was still much like it appears in the film.) MINUS: The mystery plot, while it keeps the action going, is rather a let-down when it finally unravels. RADIO DAYS is more successful because it focuses on funny situations and characters and doesn't burden the film with another layer of plot.PLUS: Wow...about five minutes of vintage Spike Jones material re-created on screen with McKean in a Spike suit and playing the Sabre Dance on bottles, guns, etc.!?! Blessings on the Jones estate for letting them do it. DOUBLE PLUS: ...and with Billy Barty and Mousie Garner, both Jones veterans, taking part! TRIPLE PLUS: A really fine score by Joel McNeely. Am I the only one who thinks there was a "Vertigo" tribute in the tower-climbing scene? McNeely has done a lot of Hitchcock score conducting.MINUS: Lots of show biz clichés (the separated couple romancing, the messenger boy becoming a hero, etc.), but you could argue that it's all part of the tribute.This is definitely worth watching, maybe even twice if you love that era (and I do).

A few years before "The Phantom Menace", George Lucas was involved in the goofy "Radioland Murders", about a series of killings at a radio station in 1939 Chicago. In a way, the whole movie seems like an excuse for a bunch of gags (namely the scene where the bellboy accidentally walks into the dressing room), but I couldn't help but admire it. Even people who never lived through the '30s are likely to feel nostalgia for that era (uh, can one be nostalgic for the Depression?). Overall, this movie may have no cinematic and/or artistic value whatsoever, but it's just fun to watch. Brian Benben and Mary Stuart Masterson play the lead roles (and George Lucas said that they're the parents of Richard Dreyfuss's character in "American Graffiti"). George Burns, in his final film role, appears as a radio personality. Also starring Ned Beatty, Michael Lerner, Michael McKean, Jeffrey Tambor, Stephen Tobolowsky, Christopher Lloyd, Larry Miller, Anita Morris, and Rosemary Clooney. A fairly neat movie.Oh, and as the movie makes clear: nothing's ever going to overtake radio as the dominant medium.