Radio Days (1987)

Comedian, writer, actor, film director and auteur Woody Allen has had his ups and downs throughout his prolific career. Success came early with his funny film spoofs like TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969) and SLEEPER (1973), Allen hit his zenith with the Oscar winning ANNIE HALL (1977) and the critically acclaimed MANHATTAN (1979). But since 1990, Allen has had more misses (SHADOWS AND FOG, EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU, and SCOOP) then semi-hits (VICKI CRISTINA BARCELONA or the recent MIDNIGHT IN PARIS).

But in the mid to late 80's, Woody Allen had, in my opinion, a stretch of four films (you could throw in a fifth - BROADWAY DANNY ROSE too) that are some of my favorites in his film resume. Three of them - ZELIG (1983), THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985), and HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) I had seen before.  But RADIO DAYS (1987), Allen's nostalgic revisit to his growing up during the Golden Age of Radio was the one I had not seen.

One reason I enjoyed RADIO DAYS is that Allen does not appear in the film. He's the narrator of the film. I like Woody Allen as an actor but sometimes his shtick gets a tad old. Playing the Allen character as a youth is Seth Green. Having Allen as the voice over is a wonderful device as he is a great storyteller. As Allen regales us with stories of his favorite radio shows early in the film, it reminded me of my father telling me about his favorite radio shows when he was a kid like The Shadow or Sky King or Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. In the 30's and 40's, radio was the television, the Internet, MTV, ESPN, CNN, and Entertainment Tonight all rolled into one.

RADIO DAYS is a series of stories, memories, and anecdotes of radio's heyday framed around Allen's growing up in a lower middle class Jewish family in Rockaway, New York just before and during World War II. We meet young Joe (Seth Green) who dreams up ways of buying a replica of the secret decoder ring worn by his radio hero the Masked Avenger. Joe's father (Michael Tucker) has a million get rich schemes while hiding his true profession from Joe. Uncle Abe (Josh Mostel) brings home heaps of fish every day to his exasperated wife Ceil (Renee Lippin) to cook. Cousin Ruthie (Joy Newman) listens to the neighbor's phone calls on the party line ("Mrs. Waldbaum's having her ovaries taken out," she whispers to the family). Aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest) dreams of getting married but always ends up with the wrong man. And Joe's mother (Julie Kavner who would go on to become the voice for Marge Simpson) oversees her sweet but slightly nutty family.

Interwoven through their stories are the stars and shows of Radio: the Masked Avenger (who's really the bald, short Wallace Shawn); Breakfast with Irene and Roger; Guess That Tune; Radio G-Man Biff Baxter; Bill Kern and his Legends of Sports; and plenty of great music by the best big bands and orchestras of that era. Allen weaves in Orson Welles phony broadcast of a Martian invasion on one of Aunt Bea's dates. He also reminds us that not everything on the radio is wonderful.  The first hand account of a young girl who fell down a well in Pennsylvania ends in tragedy when the reporter announces her rescuers have brought her up dead.

 One storyline that Allen uses as the bridge between his family stories and the world of radio is the fall and rise of Sally White (Mia Farrow) from Cigarette Girl at an uptown Manhattan club to gossip queen of the airwaves. Sally dreams of radio stardom but with her squeaky Brooklyn accent, her closest brush with the radio is casual trysts with radio stars like Roger (David Warrilow) from Breakfast with Irene and Roger. Fired from her Cigarette Girl gig, Sally's luck sort of changes when she accidentally witnesses her boss get shot at her new job. Hit man Rocco (Danny Aiello) takes her back to his Mom's house to finish her off but they discover they're both from the same Brooklyn neighborhood. Rocco gets her a part on a radio drama but the attack on Pearl Harbor interrupts that dream. We watch Sally go from singing to the troops to doing radio voice overs for a laxative commercial. Only after she takes diction lessons, does she find her true calling. She becomes a gossip columnist, reporting on all the show business shenanigans she saw when she was a cigarette and coat check girl.

With Sally's story, Allen captures all the different facets of the radio business. Just like when silent films went to sound, the right voice can mean all the difference in a radio performer's success or failure. Radio offered a variety of professions: singer, musician, news reporter, sports commentator, gossip columnist, actor or actress, commercial voice over talent, or host of game shows. Allen brings it all full circle on New Year's Eve 1944 as Sally and many other radio stars (Irene and Roger, the Masked Avenger, Biff Baxter) go on top of the roof to bring in the New Year. They sense the Age of Radio is almost over, lamenting it's imminent demise with the coming new year.

Allen tapped into some magical creative period with RADIO DAYS and the other films. Of the four films, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS is the only modern one. But with ZELIG, PURPLE ROSE, and RADIO DAYS, he seems sentimental, revisiting childhood memories in one sense but also exploring the first half of the 20th Century and its newest diversions -- cinema and the radio. ZELIG is really his only special effects movie with Allen as Zelig inserted into historical newsreel footage and hobnobbing with historical figures, celebrities, and sports figures from the 1920's. In THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO celluloid star Jeff Daniels literally jumps out of the screen and into the real life of Depression-era waitress Mia Farrow. With RADIO DAYS, he's waxing nostalgia for his youth, the music and stars of the radio reminding him of events and stories in his formative years.

Actors from other Woody Allen films make small appearances in RADIO DAYS: Diane Keaton (ANNIE HALL), Tony Roberts (MANHATTAN), and Jeff Daniels (THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO) all appear in bit parts. If you look closely, you will also see William H. Macy and Larry David in brief roles. Woody  Allen dated his leading ladies and RADIO DAYS is the only film that has his previous girlfriend Diane Keaton and his then current girlfriend Mia Farrow in the same film.

Filmmaking is a collaborative process and I think Allen's success during this period can also be attributed to his editor Susan Morse, cinematographer Carlo Di Palma, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland, and casting director Juliet Taylor who were involved in RADIO DAYS as well as some or all of the other three films. There is a synchronicity that happens when a director works with the same actors and crew. Creative sparks happen and everyone does their best work.

If RADIO DAYS was the end of Woody Allen's sentimental phase, his next phase would become a bit darker both artistically and professionally.  CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989) and HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992) to name a couple of films made after RADIO DAYS are meaner films about destructive relationships as people cheat on each other.  Allen would eventually leave Mia Farrow for Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn in 1992. And in my opinion, Allen's films got less interesting for a period of time after RADIO DAYS. But it looks like Woody Allen may have refound his magic again with MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011) which again has him mixing reality with fantasy. It was a style that he found success with during the mid-80's which RADIO DAYS can be counted as one of those hits.

Rio Grande (1950)

Some time in the last 10 years, I developed a man crush on the film collaboration between actor John Wayne and film director John Ford. Wayne and Ford's greatest masterpiece would be the 1956 classic western THE SEARCHERS but altogether, the two of them made 13 films together. Recently, actor Robert DeNiro and director Martin Scorsese combined on eight films together.  Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have worked together on seven films to date.

One of my favorite Wayne/Ford collaborations was their 'Cavalry Trilogy' - consisting of FORT APACHE (1948), SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (1949), and RIO GRANDE (1950).  All were shot around Moab, Utah and Monument Valley. All are about life in the U.S. Cavalry, usually set in distant outposts, surrounded by warring Indians. FORT APACHE is probably the most epic of the three. Henry Fonda plays a General Custer-like officer who leads his troops on a doomed raid against the Indians.  SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (the only one in color) is a character study of an aging Captain (John Wayne) counting off his last days in the army while trying to head off an Indian war.  RIO GRANDE is a culmination of many of the themes from the first two films - honor, duty, friendship, and most of all family.

Director Ford created a film family throughout his career, often using the same actors over and over again. In the Cavalry Trilogy, actors John Wayne and Victor McLaglen appear in all three Cavalry films. John Agar, George O'Brien, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr, and Grant Withers appear in two of the three films. Several other Ford stock actors make uncredited appearances in many of them as well. Actors McLaglen and Johnson even have the same character name in two of the films but different military ranks. In RIO GRANDE, the Yorke family is at the center of the story, screen play by James Kevin McGuinness, based on a Saturday Evening Post story by James Warner Bellah. Bellah also provided the stories for both FORT APACHE and SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON.

RIO GRANDE opens with Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke (John Wayne) and his troop returning from another patrol along the Rio Grande, bringing with them a captured Apache chief and some other rebellious Indians. As the Cavalry settles back in to regular Army life, some new recruits show up including Yorke's son Trooper Jefferson Yorke (Claude Jarman, Jr). Jefferson, newly kicked out of West Point Military Academy for poor grades, has barely met or ever known his father. Their reunion is a coincidence. The family dynamics get even more complicated when Jefferson's mother (and Col Yorke's estranged wife) Kathleen Yorke (Maureen O'Hara) arrives from the East Coast to bring her son Jefferson back home.

Within this framework, director Ford introduces the supporting characters and explores subplots, something he does so expertly throughout the Cavalry trilogy. Young Jefferson will bond with new recruits Trooper Travis Tyree (Ben Johnson) and Trooper Daniel "Sandy" Boone (Harry Carey, Jr), a friendship that will come in handy at the film's climax. Tyree harbors a secret (he may have killed a man in self defense in Texas) that the U.S. Deputy Marshal (Grant Withers) wants to arrest him for. The recruits are under the watchful eye of the fatherly Sgt. Major Timothy Quincannon  (Victor McLaglen), who provides the requisite Irish humor that is found in many of Ford's films.

As the three Yorke family members begin to reacquaint themselves with each other, an Apache party swoops in one night and breaks out the captured Indians. Yorke and his men give chase but the renegade Indians make it back across the Rio Grande.  Yorke meets up with a small contingent of the Mexican army on a sand bar in the middle of the river, hoping for permission to cross into Mexico and fight the various tribes that are congregating. The Mexican general politely declines his request. Yorke reports back to his commanding officer, Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan (J. Carroll Naish) who makes a daring decision. Sheridan gives Yorke permission to cross into Mexico. He's tired of the Indians "hit and run" tactics.  Sheridan's decision foreshadows the U.S. Army brass ninety years later giving unauthorized permission to cross into Laos or Cambodia to chase the Viet Cong.

York assigns his son Jeff to escort his mother Kathleen and the rest of the women and children to Fort Bliss, away from harm's way.  But the Indians ambush the wagon train and kidnap all the children. Tyree, now a fugitive but hiding on the outskirts of the outpost, rejoins with Lt. Yorke and his men with vital information. He knows where the Indians are hanging out and volunteers for a rescue mission to rescue the children from an old Mexican church with the help of Jeff and Sandy.  As the three troopers sneak into the dusty Mexican town and secure the church and children, Yorke and his cavalry ride in for a showdown with the warring Indian tribes.

The Rio Grande is a great metaphor, representing the division of many things throughout the film. The river physically divides the U.S. from Mexico and the U.S. Cavalry from the various Indian marauders. But the river also represents the psychological split in Yorke's family. Yorke's separation from his wife Kathleen and his son Jeff. Family life versus the U.S. Cavalry life. Neither mother or son know Kirby very well. "He's a lonely man," Kathleen tells her son. RIO GRANDE also explores the divide of a nation from war and the healing process of the young United States of America. The Civil War is almost a dozen years past and the Cavalry is full of both Yankees and Rebels, living and fighting together under one flag. Once enemies, the men and women are all united again but the wounds are deep. From what I could gather, Kirby, Quincannon, and Sheridan fought for the North in the Civil War and under orders, burned down a southern plantation crop that happened to belong to Kathleen's family. That's how Kirby and Kathleen met. Not exactly the smoothest romance.

Whether in THE QUIET MAN (1952) or RIO GRANDE, actors Wayne and O'Hara are a strong pair of lovers. No one play independent one moment and vulnerable the next better than O'Hara. Ford said he didn't know Wayne could really act until he saw him in Howard Hawks' RED RIVER (1948) but I think Wayne is fantastic in RIO GRANDE and the other Cavalry films.  The shots of Wayne watching his son with pride from afar or his concern for his son's safety at times are touching. At the film's climax, Kirby takes an arrow in the chest. It's son Jefferson who pulls the arrow out, releasing all the years of hostility and resentment built up for his father, bonding them forever. Director Ford makes great use of the Regimental Musicians (Sons of the Pioneers), a quartet that sings throughout the film and seem to express the feelings that Kirby and Kathleen have as they try to reconcile their complicated relationship.

Most of the showdowns that director Ford stages in his films like FORT APACHE or THE SEARCHERS are usually out in the wide open. But in RIO GRANDE, the climax is in a dusty Mexican border town with its lone white church.  It's a nice change and separates GRANDE from the other Cavalry films.  Spaghetti western director Sergio Leone must have liked it to as he definitely borrows the sparse town and white church motif in A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965). Even though the Indians are the bad guys, Ford respects them and never treats them as caricatures or stock characters. At the end of the film, General Sheridan awards medals to the brave Troopers Jeff, Sandy, and Tyree but another medal for bravery is awarded to an Indian scout.

Ford wants authenticity in his Cavalry films, what life was like on the outpost. He shows the wives washing the soldiers' clothes in the river. If two recruits have a dispute, they settle it by the rules of Soldier's fight (with Quincannon as referee). One of the most amazing sequences is when Quincannon shows the new recruits how the U.S. Cavalry ride horses like the ancient Romans i.e. the Cavalry man stands on two horses (a foot on each horse's back) and rides around a ring, upright, and even jumping over six-foot bars.  It's an unbelievable sight.

Besides Wayne and O'Hara, all the actors in RIO GRANDE are excellent with every one of them having an opportunity to shine. A couple I might single out that might not normally be praised include Harry Carey, Jr as Trooper Sandy Boone. Carey played a rival for Joanna Dru's affections in SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON but didn't have many lines but his deadpan quips in GRANDE are funny.  The other unsung standout is Chill Willis as Dr. Wilkins, an unorthodox regimental surgeon who provides Quincannon with his liquor and has no trouble letting Trooper Tyree escape from his doctor's quarters to the chagrin of the U.S. Marshal.

Each of the Cavalry films is unique enough to stand on its own but if you can try to watch all three of them. RIO GRANDE is a nice culmination of themes and images that Ford began with FORT APACHE and SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON. Ford and Wayne may have saved the best for last.