Everyone has their guilty movie pleasures, and this is mine. If you have not heard of it, no surprise: it was a complete and utter flop.
If you enjoy the madcap comedies of the 1930s, though, such as Bringing Up Baby and My Girl Friday then you will enjoy this movie as much as I do. The cast is actually a who's-who of Hollywood, and there isn't a character on screen that won't make you yell, "Hey! Wasn't he in that movie…???" The pace is frantic and the comedy is broad but not coarse; this is a movie that is smirking at itself, and winking at you. Anyone with a knowledge of Hollywood before WWII and the movies that were made then will easily recognize many of the "types" onscreen. Anyone with a knowledge of radio history in that same era will get the jokes that are, at times, obscure to a TV generation. It is a lot of fun!
This was produced by George Lucas and was apparently a "love child" for him, which is how he got so many known actors and character actors into the cast. Brian Benben was a minor TV star in the mid-90s, and other than that I don't know a thing about him, but he carries this movie with a great, sarcastic shrug of good humor. The plot really is far too convoluted to explain, but the title says it all: peole get murdered at Radioland.
The critics panned it (a bad year for comedy?) but that is being ungenerous and unkind. As a homage to madcap comedy and the great Golden Era of Radio, this is perfect!
At IMDB: Radioland Murders
