Pretty much everyone's childhood no doubt is bathed in a golden hue, including, almost literally, Woody Allen's in this cavalcade of pre-teen reminiscences to the backdrop of the music of popular radio.
That nostalgic glow is everywhere, to the extent that there are no bad characters to cloud the atmosphere and the insertion of a blatantly sad story (a little girl dies off-screen down a well) seems unwelcome and indeed out of place. Allen paints an attractively quirky set of characters, no doubt drawn from memory, of a hard-working extended Jewish family and contrasts this with the glamour and glitz of radio show performers with whose lives they occasionally interact and certainly aspire to. He leaves us in no doubt however as to who's the richer, metaphorically speaking.
Interestingly, although the film is narrated by Allen through his childhood self, his character isn't the emotional centre of the film. That, for me, is Dianne Wiest's nicely played Aunt Bea, forever carrying a torch for a mixed assortment of men. As a "Rhoda" fan from the mid 70's I was pleased to see Julie Kavner in a prominent role (pre Marge Simpson, of course) although she still seems too young for her part as family matriarch. That said, I much prefer Allen's films when he's not employing "flavour of the month" big names (who of course would all "just die" to be in a Woody film) and instead gets more out of lesser known but no less capable baggage-less actors like here - Tony Roberts even gets a look-in.
The comedy is smile rather than laugh inducing and some of the scenes have been done before (Bill Forsyth for one, beat him to the punch in "Gregory's Girl" with the school-kids accidental viewing of their future teacher's nude dancing in her apartment), but the film's evocation of New York in the war years is beautifully managed and certainly draws comparison to Scorcese's earlier "New York New York".
And that sure is a pretty shot at the end as the neon hat is doffed to us to send us on our way, no doubt with thoughts of our own hopefully happy childhoods, wherever they were.
That nostalgic glow is everywhere, to the extent that there are no bad characters to cloud the atmosphere and the insertion of a blatantly sad story (a little girl dies off-screen down a well) seems unwelcome and indeed out of place. Allen paints an attractively quirky set of characters, no doubt drawn from memory, of a hard-working extended Jewish family and contrasts this with the glamour and glitz of radio show performers with whose lives they occasionally interact and certainly aspire to. He leaves us in no doubt however as to who's the richer, metaphorically speaking.
Interestingly, although the film is narrated by Allen through his childhood self, his character isn't the emotional centre of the film. That, for me, is Dianne Wiest's nicely played Aunt Bea, forever carrying a torch for a mixed assortment of men. As a "Rhoda" fan from the mid 70's I was pleased to see Julie Kavner in a prominent role (pre Marge Simpson, of course) although she still seems too young for her part as family matriarch. That said, I much prefer Allen's films when he's not employing "flavour of the month" big names (who of course would all "just die" to be in a Woody film) and instead gets more out of lesser known but no less capable baggage-less actors like here - Tony Roberts even gets a look-in.
The comedy is smile rather than laugh inducing and some of the scenes have been done before (Bill Forsyth for one, beat him to the punch in "Gregory's Girl" with the school-kids accidental viewing of their future teacher's nude dancing in her apartment), but the film's evocation of New York in the war years is beautifully managed and certainly draws comparison to Scorcese's earlier "New York New York".
And that sure is a pretty shot at the end as the neon hat is doffed to us to send us on our way, no doubt with thoughts of our own hopefully happy childhoods, wherever they were.