The Narrator (Woody Allen) tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. In the New York City of the late 1930s to the New Year’s Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator’s experiences with contemporary anecdotes and urban legends of the radio stars.

A bored wife, who is planning to run away from her minister husband, is taken hostage in a bank robbery. However, she sees the thrill in being involved in the chase and becomes an accomplice to helping the younger robber escape his pursuers. As things progress, she learns he pulled the robbery to get enough money to help his pregnant girlfriend leave a home for unwed mothers. The two have a brief flirtation, but it is clear the housewife just needs something to enliven her life.