Woody Allen's New Deal

Radio Days

Written and Directed by Woody Allen

Opening January 30 at the Copley

HOW OLD IS Woody Allen now? From photos you wouldn't think that old--maybe somewhere in his fifties. But after watching his new film, Radio Days, you get the feeling that Allen has aged in dog years.

It is, after all, one of the peculiar aspects of senility that it tends to derail the brain into the trackless waste of childhood reminiscence. Allen wanders through such barren terrain in Radio Days, a series of vignettes drawn from his boyhood during the glory days of radio. Time progresses, but to no discernible end. While the vignettes are not quite incomprehensible, they certainly are not laden with meaning, either. Kind of like Reader's Digest.

Woody Allen, of course, can be funny when he wants to, and Radio Days certainly has its moments of mirth. But ever since becoming an "auteur director," Allen has avoided going for outright laughs--which is a shame, since he is still a better comedian than he is a serious artist.

As a result Allen has created a film which is neither very amusing nor very thought-provoking. Indeed, it is difficult to see what Allen was hoping for with Radio Days. The bleak seriousness that he offered as proof of his new maturity in Interiors gives way in Radio Days to saccharin nostalgia, the type of forlorn longing for the `good ol' days' that could most generously be labelled "poignantly wry."

Radio Days is only really poignant, though, for those who spent their childhoods in 1930s Brooklyn. The rest of us have to take our emotional cues from the perpetually overcast scenery. So Allen, who does not appear onscreen, has to tell us in a voice-over that his hometown "wasn't always this stormy and wind-swept. But that's the way I remember it, because that's when it was the most beautiful."

MORE THAN OCCASIONALLY the Weep-o-meter shoots past "melancholy" to "maudlin". In one scene the young Woody figure--actually a character named Joe--escapes from a spanking when news that a little girl has been trapped in a well prompts a gush of empathy and remorse from Joe's family. Hand me the Kleenex, please.

Happily, though, there is a flip side to this golden oldie. When not focused on the goings on of Allen's mythical Brooklyn family, Radio Days settles into a likeable send-up of the socialite radio personalities who dominated the airwaves of the '30s and '40s, much as The Purple Rose of Cairo parodied the make-believe movie idols of the same period.

While Allen is not breaking new ground with these episodes, he does manage to capture the humorous and outlandish spirit of the era. The individual vignettes are at least a pleasant release from the overwrought sentimentalism of the family scenes.

THE CENTRAL CHARACTER who ties several of these vignettes together is an aspiring actress named Sally White, played with characteristic grace and believability by--surprise, surprise--Mia Farrow. Even if Allen hadn't been shacking up with her, he would have been wise to cast her. Since he no longer sleeps with Diane Keaton, though, he has no excuse for giving her an entire scene in which she does nothing but sing.

One talented actress with whom Allen is not sleeping, but who nevertheless appears in this film, is Julie Kavner, best known to the public as Brenda Morganstern of TV's Rhoda.

Recently Kavner, who plays Joe's mother in Radio Days, made an appearance at a publicity luncheon in Boston, where she described working for a man who has long been an idol of hers:

"He choreographs everything, the actors and the camera and the staging. He has a very clear vision of what he wants to see. And at the same time he's open to things that might come out in rehearsal, or if something doesn't work, to change it. He's very, very clear about that."

On the set, she added, "It's very quiet, and there's total respect and admiration for him all the way down the line. Everybody is aware that they're working on a piece of art. The focus is clear, and its all to him. Complete creative control."

Perhaps part of the problem of Radio Days is that the film is, to such a large extent, entirely a product of Woody Allen. More than a fictionalized memoir, Radio Days is a tribute to Allen's work, to his friends, and to himself. This would be fine, except we have seen it all before: the indulgent self-references in Stardust Memories, the boyhood reminiscences in Annie Hall, and the constant cameos by personal friends in virtually everything he has ever done. The only thing he hasn't been able to reuse from his earlier films is their freshness.

You're still young, Woodie. Live in the present.