On the Air: A strange, musical relic

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, you probably already know if you are the type of person who will like On the Air. If you spend your weekends hunting down obscure 1930s musical variety films, you will have a grand time. If you need a movie that actually has, you know, a plot that keeps moving, you might want to skip this one entirely. It's a bit of a slog.

The whole thing feels less like a movie and more like a series of stage acts that someone accidentally filmed. The premise of radio stars taking a holiday only to end up helping a village vicar is just an excuse to get people singing and dancing on screen. It works, sort of.

The vibe

The pacing is all over the place. One minute you are watching a genuine performance, and the next you are stuck in a scene that feels like it has been dragging on for an eternity. The dialogue is mostly just filler between the music numbers, and it shows. Sometimes I felt like the actors were just waiting for their cue to start singing again.

• The music is actually decent, if you like that sort of thing.
• The village setting is charming in a very 1934 kind of way.
• Max Wall is doing the heavy lifting here, and he knows it.

It lacks the weird, dark energy you find in something like White Zombie, which is honestly a shame. Everything here is very polite and very British. It is almost too clean. I found myself wishing someone would just trip over a prop or something, just to break the monotony. The silence between songs feels awkward.

There is a moment near the middle where the film tries to convince you the concert is in real danger of failing. It feels incredibly low stakes. You just don't care if the vicar gets his show or not. The movie doesn't even seem to care that much!

It reminds me a bit of the weird, disjointed feeling you get in The Movies, where the focus is so scattered that you lose track of why you are even watching. At least the performers are talented. You can tell they have been doing this stuff on stage for years. They are professionals, even when the script gives them absolutely nothing to do.

I wouldn't call this a 'classic' by any stretch. It is more of a curiosity. A little window into a time when variety radio stars were the biggest things on the planet. Just don't go in expecting a masterpiece. 📻