Tue 12 Nov 2019
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: RADIOLAND MURDERS (1994).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[12] Comments
RADIOLAND MURDERS. Universal, 1994. Brian Benben, Mary Stuart Masterson, Ned Beatty, Scott Michael Campbell, Jeffrey Tambor, Stephen Tobolowsky, Michael Lerner, Anita Morris, and too many comic supporting players to name. Check IMDb. Screenplay by Willard Huyck, from a story by George Lucas. Directed by Mel Smith.
A Financial flop for Universal and Lucasfilms (but I kinda like it), this looks like His Girl Friday layered over Murder at the Vanities, transposed to a glittery world of Technicolor Art Deco.
At the maiden broadcast of a new Radio Network, the owner (Ned Beatty) throws a lavish gala for prospective affiliates and sponsors while an unknown killer methodically murders various executives, announcing each killing in advance with a menacing bit of doggerel over the speakers. Meanwhile the staff hustles frantically to keep things running, scriptwriter Brian Benben struggles to keep his wife (Mary Stuart Masterson) from leaving him, and the various “talents†involved contend with scriptless dramas, dropped cues and a temperamental revolving stage.
Radioland never achieves the bawdy gaudiness of Vanities or the cinematic chemistry of Friday, but what it lacks in charisma it makes up in chaos. Brian Benben spends the whole film dangling from ledges or racing down hallways, chased by cops and/or sponsors, and often in a variety of disguises keyed to whatever musical number is up next.
These musical numbers are a treat in themselves as bandleader Michael McKean re-jiggers his troupe to look like a panoply of Big Bands, from Xavier Cugat to Spike Jones, with stops along the way for dead-on recreations of the Andrews Sisters, young Frank Sinatra, and even Cab Calloway, all done so well I wished we could have stayed with them longer.
But it ain’t so. Radioland keeps moving too fast for more than summary scraps of classic hits—though it does pause a bit longer for the ersatz Spike Jones insanity. Less happily, the Writer’s Room at the studio bubbles over with brilliant comics, none of whom get to do anything funny. Disappointing and wasteful.
So it’s a measure of the movie’s energy that I forgave this mortal sin. Indeed, I barely noticed it. In the scheme of things, Radioland Murders doesn’t amount to much and never will. But it’s definitely a worthwhile time-waster.
November 12th, 2019 at 11:42 pm
I remember the reviews being really terrible, and yet it sounded like my kind of movie. Based on this review, I ought to give it a look.
November 12th, 2019 at 11:52 pm
Dan,
You cannot make His Girl Friday without the talent — Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell and more than a half dozen others. Not to mention Howard Hawks. Too bad.
November 13th, 2019 at 2:44 am
I saw this a few years ago and thought it was so awful, I don’t think I lasted 20 minutes. But I will give it another go. I love Soike Jones. There is nothing like the 1940s originals, or even the Red Skelton Whistling series.
November 13th, 2019 at 8:35 am
Dan: “Yes” to everything you say. One giant chase movie that should have slowed down just long enough for those fantastic musical numbers to finish (only in the closing credits do we get to hear, what, four or five different versions of that splendid Benny Goodman megahit, “And the Angels Sing”).
I’ve heard that George Lucas was in full STAR WARS gear at the time, wanting to cram as much action into each scene, heck, each shot, so as to push the audience’s abilities to perceive what was going on. That might work in sci-fi movies but not a murder mystery.
. . . and I find one minor scene especially annoying: when the killer raises his gun to threaten someone, you hear an audible click, as if he’s pulled back the hammer on his revolver when neither his thumb nor his trigger finger move. A sound effect added to increase tension, I suppose, but still . . . .
November 13th, 2019 at 10:07 am
I’ve certainly never ‘eard of it; but glad to see good ole’ Ned Beatty in the cast. A flop, huh. Reminds me of Steve Martin’s ‘Pennies from Heaven’. In both cases, well: “at least they tried”. A good idea on paper…but maybe audiences today are just growing too detached from history to relate to the material? Michael Lerner, aka Ma Walton: her male-sounding first-name always throws me.
November 13th, 2019 at 11:36 am
Mr. Georgenby:
I’m probably not the first, but …
Ma Walton was Michael Learned (as in studious).
Michael Lerner was (still is, I think) a portly male character actor, usually specializing in pushy blowhards.
Presented as a public service.
November 13th, 2019 at 2:37 pm
Good catch. I don’t mind being corrected on names, thank you very much. I was just looking at Michael Lerner’s page recently as it so happens, and noted the similarity myself. Believe he is no longer with us; but he was in ‘The Candidate’ with Redford (as was, Alan Garfield). Anyway, it all rather reinforces my opinion that women should not be saddled with traditionally male names.
November 14th, 2019 at 8:30 am
Sometimes in movies like these, production values overwhelm the story, the music, the acting, the sheer spirit of what they’re trying to capture. Less is more.
‘American Graffitti’ is an example of getting-it-right (just my opinion). Steven Spielberg’s ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ just barely got it right. ‘American Hot Wax’ just barely got it wrong. All good efforts, but always jeopardized by too much production value. Look what you can do with minimal tech: ‘Killer of Sheep’ for example.
November 14th, 2019 at 9:16 pm
Too frenetic, but it’s like a big puppy that just wants to be loved, and in the end you walk away enjoying it more than you ever expected to — or maybe wanted to
It reminded me of those early mysteries set at radio stations so popular in the thirties and forties. Abbott and Costello even did one.
November 16th, 2019 at 8:05 pm
The movie was noteworthy because all the sets were computer generated and were matted in. I think it was Roger Ebert who speculated it was planned as a commercial for Industrial Light and Magic.
November 23rd, 2019 at 11:06 pm
I remember a really fun comedy mystery starring Red Skelton. He plays a radio-actor known as ‘the Fox’ in a spoof of a then-contemporary radio mystery serial like ‘the Falcon’.
Skelton hams it up wonderfully with little bits-of-business like ‘the cry of the Fox’ (some kind of howl) to market his detective for his network. An actor who ‘plays’ a detective naturally must then solve a ‘real’ mystery; thus the storyline. Faintly recall maybe someone like Ruth Hussey co-starring(?) as the female lead? No idea why it sticks with me but it was a fast-paced and lively treat.
I think I would always rather watch an original like that; rather than a self-conscious homage at this late date. Such as Woody Allen often indulges in.
Of course there are exceptions like Art Carney and Lily Tomlin in ‘The Late Show’.
BTW, one film I’d really like to see reviewed on this site: ‘Lolly-Madonna XXX’. This innocuous spooky flick haunts me for no good reason, wondering if anyone else likes it as much as I do?
Addendum to my previous: my phrasing looks awry (above), but just to clarify: I’m genuinely appreciative to stand corrected on an actor’s name if I ever goof it up. My thanks were sincere!
November 23rd, 2019 at 11:49 pm
The Red Skelton movie you’re thinking of may be WHISTLING IN TH DARK, but there two sequels in which he played the same character, WHISTLING IN DIXIE and WHISTLING IN BROOKLYN. I haven’t seen either one since I was a kid, but back then I thought they were hilarious. As I reca;;, Ann Rutherford was the female lead in all three, but I may be wrong about that.
I’ve always wanted to see LOLLY-MADONNA XXX, partly because it was based on a novel by Sue Grafton, but so far I haven’t. I’d welcome a review too.