Radioland Murders

1994

Action / Comedy / Crime / Drama / Musical / Mystery / Romance

10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 33% · 18 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 60% · 2.5K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.2/10 10 4144 4.1K

radio station radio writer director

Director

Mel Smith Photo
Mel Smith

Top cast

Robert C. Treveiler Photo
Robert C. Treveiler as Cop #13
Anne De Salvo Photo
Anne De Salvo as Female Writer
Stephen Tobolowsky Photo
Stephen Tobolowsky as Max Applewhite
Rosemary Clooney Photo
Rosemary Clooney as Anna
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
948.45 MB
1280*544
English 2.0
PG
Subtitles
23.976 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds 3
1.68 GB
1920*816
English 2.0
PG
Subtitles
23.976 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds 6

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by LCShackley 7 / 10

A minor treasure

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).
Reviewed by badass-6 5 / 10

Try "My Favorite Year" instead.

Going in, Radioland Murders has some key elements that could of made for an entertaining story: all-star cast in a screwball comedy and an nostalgic storyline that could put to use a colorful set.But it all failed. The joke delivery was flat and some of the casting choices were peculiar. Watching Mary Stuart Masterson struggle through the lead female role made me long for Jennifer Jason Leigh's brilliant, high-spirited, cigarette-chomping, Hepburn-inspired career girl in the Coens' Hudsucker Proxy.Also Brian Benben, most notable from HBO's "Dream On" series, doesn't give viewers any of maligned everyman he popularized in the older series.This movie attempts many times to emulate that 40s-era world, with its Art Deco imagery, but the characters come off more cartoonish than swashbuckling. There are far better period comedies, I suggest "My Favorite Year" starring Peter O'Toole; "Radio Days" by Woody Allen and the aforementioned Hudsucker just to name a few. Those films succeed where Radioland fails, pulling viewers into these bygone eras to feel an inkling of what those times felt and sounded like.
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