I also rank this as my favorite Woody Allen film, though it's in an exact tie with "Hannah and Her Sisters" (released the previous year) depending on which one I have more recently seen.
One of life's greatest pleasures for me is watching a new Woody Allen film in a theater, all by myself (preferably at a matinee where the theatre is almost empty). Somehow the first viewing of an Allen picture, especially the more gentle ones such as Hannah... and Radio Days. I still remember seeing this in such a circumstance in 1987, when I was only 23. I have always been the "nostalgic type" and at that time I had not quite found my way into the adult world, so I was looking for an escape to a different world and this turned out to be the perfect thing.
At the time, my parents still lived in the same town I did, and when I next spoke to them, I asked if they had seen it and told them they had to, as they are the EXACT age to most appreciate this movie, the music, and the times it recreates. They did love it, and my dad couldn't fathom how I could have liked it since I wasn't born until 20 years after it takes place, but I found that silly, as it's such a wonderful, perfect example of a "time capsule" that part of the point is that it shows those of us who were NOT there, what those days were like.
I just finished watching it on DVD for the umpteenth time, though it had been awhile, Now I'm not far from the age my parents were then, and try to imagine a movie about MY childhood years (late 60s/70s) coming out now and whether it would be just as strikingly nostalgic, but it is impossible to compare, because there have been so many TV shows and other movies since then about those decades, while there had been very little, and certainly not in such a blatantly nostalgic manner, done about the living on the home front during WWII; just actual War movies. I once again say, Thank you, Woody.
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