RADIOLAND MURDERS
A film review by Jeffrey Graebner
Copyright 1994 Jeffrey Graebner
Despite his immense popularity and acclaim, George Lucas has never been a particularly prolific filmmaker. His projects often seem to remain in various stages of development for many years. Once they do go before the cameras, he puts a lot of love and care into the films usually paying an exceptional amount of attention to detail. Still, his films don't always seem to work. At his best, he creates films like AMERICAN GRAFITTI and the STAR WARS and Indiana Jones trilogies. Other times, he can end up making a MORE AMERICAN GRAFITTI or even a HOWARD THE DUCK. The slow rate with which Lucas makes films and the incredible care that go into them always make these failures feel particularly disappointing. Unfortunately, RADIOLAND MURDERS, Lucas' first film in 5 years, joins this group of carefully crafted, lovingly created disappointments.
The film is a frantically paced farce set in 1929 during the premiere broadcast of a brand new Chicago-based radio network. The standard opening night problems are largely overshadowed by a series of mysterious murders that keep occurring during the broadcast. Penny Henderson (Mary Stuart Masterson), the network's "general secretary", desperately struggles to keep the broadcast going while her estranged husband Roger (Brian Benben), the network's head writer, searches for the real killer after becoming the prime suspect. This plot is virtually lost in a constant barrage of sight gags and breathlessly delivered one-liners.
Lucas first expressed his intention to eventually make this film shortly after making AMERICAN GRAFITTI in the early 1970s. The film has occasionally appeared on Universal and Lucasfilm's production schedule many times over those years. The script is credited to GRAFITTI authors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (who also worked with Lucas on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and HOWARD THE DUCK) along with TV writers Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn. The story is credited to Lucas himself. The result was a script that tries to do *far* too much in too little time. It seems like all of these writers contributed a whole bunch of ideas and gags, all of which were left in.
The potentially interesting plot and characters seem to be entirely lost in the shuffle. Since the gags aren't involving characters that we care (or even *know*) anything about or a plot that is particularly well developed, there is very little about it that is actually funny. The murder mystery aspect is also ineffective since we never learn anything about the killer's motivations until the standard confession that comes *after* we learn the identity. It is hard to care about a mystery when you can't even think of who might be a suspect. When we do learn the killer's motivations, it is easy to see that there were some interesting ideas at the core of Lucas' story, but that they seemed to be lost somewhere along the way. Even after the killer's identity is revealed, the film goes on to an elaborate action climax that starts off somewhat cliched but eventually turns downright weird and inexplicable.
The movie also has some major problems with pacing. For farce to really work, the troubles need to slowly escalate over the course of the story. This movie maintains a breakneck pace from the very first scene, never slowing down. The movie is played like a series of punchlines without any setups. Slapstick always works best if it comes suddenly and as something of a surprise. Someone being knocked over by a swinging door can be funny if it is unexpected. It quickly ceases to be funny when pretty much every character is *repeatedly* knocked over by every door they encounter. Director Mel Smith sticks almost entirely to *very* brief takes with constant cuts. The result is often confusing with most of the gags off-screen before they even have a chance to register.
The cast includes many fine comedic actors, but most are given absolutely nothing to do. Such varied performers as Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, George Burns, Ned Beatty, Jeffrey Tambor, Rosemary Clooney and Anita Morris (in her final film role) drift through various scenes without ever really doing much. The actors playing the radio network's writing staff include talented comic actors Harvey Korman, Robert Klein, and Peter MacNichol, but none of them are even given much in the way of dialog. Only Bobcat Goldthwait is given much screen time in this group and he does generate a few laughs even though he is strictly playing his standard character.
Masterson and Benben do the very best they can given the limited opportunities. Benben is essentially playing a variation on his character from the HBO sitcom "Dream On", but he does manage to be likable and convincing. Even better is Masterson who manages to maintain a strong aire of dignity throughout all of this. In a few scenes, we actually see some interesting chemistry between Masterson and Benben and it is a shame that the film doesn't spend more time on their relationship. The movie resolves the main conflict in their relationship far too early, eventually resulting in the two characters snapping at each other for no apparent reason.
Easily the best performance in the film is given by Michael Lerner as the police detective who is investigating the murders. He constantly rises above the material to create the one character that seems to actually have a little bit of depth. He is often playing the straight man here, but that allows him to stay out of the way of some of the insanity.
As is expected in a George Lucas movie, the technical aspects of this film are very strong. The film was reportedly made on a very low budget, but it looks much more expensive. There are a couple of elaborate action sequences (mostly involving Benben climbing around outside the studios) that are very convincing and inventively photographed (mainly thanks to the folks at ILM). Like all of Lucas' movies, this one is handsomely photographed in scope.
The film also does a very good job at creating an appropriate period look and feel. The sets, costumes, production design, and Joel McNeely's music all seem to fit in perfectly. A little suspension of disbelief is required to get past the fact that some of the programs shown seem a little overly visual for radio, but that is pretty easily accepted because they are being performed for a live audience. I wish they film would have spent more time showing the actual radio broadcasts. These created most of the film's most enjoyable moments.
It is probably appropriate to comment a little bit about the audience's reaction to the movie. Much to my surprise, the other people in the audience seemed to be laughing a lot more than I was. At times, other people in the theater were rather loudly laughing at points when I didn't notice that anything was particularly funny. I don't know if I am starting to become somewhat over-critical or if it was simply a case of comedy being highly subjective, but the rest of the audience did seem to enjoy the movie a lot more than I did.
I went into this movie *really* wanting to like it as I am a huge George Lucas fan and the subject matter and cast are all very appealing to me. Unfortunately, it just didn't work for me and I was left extrmely disappointed.
-- Jeffrey P. Graebner Columbus, Ohio
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