Orson Welles’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS turns 70 today
October 30th, 2008 by Scott Marks
Listening to Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds 70 years after the fact, it’s hard to imagine the mass hysteria induced by a dramatized broadcast about Martian invasion. Welles presented the show as the Halloween episode of his successful Mercury Theatre on the Air. The anthology series ran as was what was once called a “sustaining program,” or one that plays uninterrupted without commercials. Welles’ “We Interrupt This Program” technique led almost a third of the 6 million listeners to believe that America was actually under attack by space invaders. The fact that America was on the verge of war didn’t help matters. Many listeners panicked for fear that it was the Germans, not Martians, that were attacking. (Adolf Hitler referred to the ensuing panic as “evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy.”)
For decades rumors circulated that the terrified masses fled their homes and in some cases committed suicide. While thousands, maybe millions, were spooked there is no evidence, short of sensational newspaper accounts, that any of this took place. CBS stood behind Welles and the broadcast reminding officials that listeners were frequently informed throughout the broadcast that the show was a performance.
According to Wikipedia, “When a meeting between H.G. Wells and Orson Welles was broadcast on Radio KTSA San Antonio on October 28, 1940, Wells expressed a lack of understanding of the apparent panic and that it was, perhaps, only pretense, like the American version of Halloween, for fun. The two men and their radio interviewer joked about the matter, though with embarrassment. KTSA, as a CBS affiliate, had carried the broadcast.”
Listen to the entire broadcast (and all of the other Mercury Theatre on the Air productions) here.
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3 Responses to “Orson Welles’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS turns 70 today”
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Watch as a bearded Orson tries to explain the broadcast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho_9XTnlJKM
who was the the person or persons who commited suicide while the radio broadcast was on air?
No one, Mac. If you read carefully it says: “there is no evidence, short of sensational newspaper accounts, that any of this took place.”