‘Playing in the FM Band’ Review: A Free-Form Radio Legend

Taking its title from a book written by its subject, “Playing in the FM Band: The Steve Post Story” memorializes Post, a New York radio personality who, the movie insists, helped define what became known as free-form radio — a kind of programming without a strict format, in which the D.J. chooses the music and riffs on whatever they like, often soliciting call-in listener responses — beginning at the FM station WBAI in the late 1960s.

The documentary posits him as a pioneer but struggles to pin down how he was unique. We hear that he was influenced by Jean Shepherd, the radio personality whose wry storytelling brought him to prominence in the 1950s. And, sure enough, sometimes Post sounds an awful lot like Shepherd. Early in the movie, the director, Rosemarie Reed, chooses to highlight Post’s humor by playing a skit Post did with the character actor Marshall Efron, in which Efron impersonates a swami and speaks with a straight up offensive accent. As the audio runs, Reed presents shots of statues that seem to depict South Asian deities.

These shots, like those of the talking heads of colleagues and friends who speak of Post, are enveloped in a black that seems ready to swallow the movie whole. The film’s texts are white on the same shade of black. This visual mode renders the movie drab, a condition not ameliorated by the introduction of animated sequences illustrating Post’s stories. Combine that with poor narrative organization, and you have a movie that’s hard to sit through.

“Playing” latches onto a couple of interesting grooves in its last twenty minutes. Descriptions of how great Post was during radio station pledge drives are intriguing, and a tale of how Post got onto a 39th-floor ledge in the middle of a broadcast is hair-raising.

Playing in the FM Band: The Steve Post Story
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.