I love old time radio.
Forget Tom Cruise and his new movie, War of the Worlds. Listen instead to the 1938 radio broadcast based on the 1898 novel by H.G. Wells. Download the broadcast here. If that link doesn’t help you, try this one, although it takes forever to download. Or you can read the script.
The radio show about aliens from Mars landing on earth to wipe out earthlings, performed by director Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater on the Air, produced mass hysteria. I’ve listened to the show and find it difficult to imagine why it caused people to panic. The immediacy of radio at the time and pre-WWII jitters probably had a lot to do with it.
So save your money and listen to old time radio. But if you’re compelled to part with cash, buy the book.
Sources: Screen shot of the New York Times front page and the story itself below; Orson Welles’s obituary; more links; and Wikipedia, of course.
Speaking of radio, don’t forget to tune in to Pundit Review radio this Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. EDT.
Addendum: Read about Citizen Kane (with Orson Welles), considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. Also visit the Internet Movie Database and Wikipedia, of course.
{ 24 comments }
I’m a sucker for “eye-candy” action pictures. Plus, I’m pretty loyal to Steven Spielberg. Can’t stand Tom Cruise. But, this is one I’ve got to go see. It’ll probably be garbage, but I love “destruction-on-a-massive-scale” event movies.
Thanks for the link to the original radio show. I’d never heard this!
Orson Welles was THE man. “Citizen Kane” is one of my all-time favorite movies! If any of you have never seen it, rent it.
LOVE “Citizen Kane.” Some of the suspense was gone because I’d read so much about it before I saw it, but still good.
Spielberg lost me with AI, and when he pulled the guns out of ET.
SCSI, I agree..
As for favorite all time movies, mine has to be
“Gaslight” with Ingrid Bergman…
LOVE that movie…But LaShawn, the War of the Worlds Broadcast is definitely better than anything you could put to celluloid.
Dan
Hard to comprehend what it was like during radio’s heyday, much like it is hard for us to comprehend a world before the internet, dvd’s, vcr’s, cellphone’s etc.
I can easily see why people got so hysterical. This was an age before most of the country even had electricity!!!
La Shawn:
A&E had a whole week with Orson Welles movies daily – awesome; Touch of Evil, Citizen Kane, Othello, Jane Eyre, and others.
As good as anything made today.
I picked up Citzen Kane (Gold Edition) and WOTW films on video cassette in some dollar bin, among other classics. I agree, you just can’t beat the Goldie-Oldies even at today’s prices.
I think “War of the Worlds” should be shot as a period piece, set in the 1890s, like the book. That would be a lot more fun than what they’re trying to feed us.
The creativity of the producer can take the cheapest (inexpensive) material and make a classic. That’s why War of the Worlds caused such a stir.
One day I hope to panic the world as well.
Uh…with my production that is.
*whew*
My father used to tell us the story of how his family heard the broadcast. The power went out, and when it came back on, this program was on the air.
Had them a little concerned for a while….
I got the book called “The Complete War of the Worlds” and it is fantastic. It has the original novel, with the original magazine illustrations, a copy of the Radio broadcast on CD as well as the printed script, as well as a lot of pictures. It is a great collection to have if you love the story.
You can see it here
I love the “soundtrack” that came out years ago. We used it many times in my years of competitive dance.
You’d love The Shadow radio shows and they’re pretty available still.
I so agree, LaShawn. We had to listen to War of the Worlds in one of my acting classes when I was 15 or 16 … and it absolutely blew my MIND!!
Remember that War of The Worlds started here in New Jersey.The aliens are still alive, Corzine, Lautenberg, and MacGreevy.
LaShawn: Slightly off topic, but I’d like to put in an Wellsian plug for “The Time Machine.” When thinking of the present (and future) of Europe, I think of the lazy, uninspired Eloi, descendants of the contemporary (for Wells) Victorian leisure class.
Not only can historians, political scientists, and sociologists gain important insight from “standard” novels, there’s much to be learned from science fiction.
In relation to the Eloi, Isaac Asimov’s selfish “Spacers” of his “Robot” novels also come to mind as far as Europe–and it’s future.
La Shawn:
I agree with Mike M. – I will probably go see Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” as well.
I have heard the taped version of Orson Wells WAR OF THE WORLDS its pretty convincing and well it happened on oct 30 1938 and becuase many peoplwere hearing about what was happening in europe and with hitler many were convinced that we were being invaded by mars
I must agree, I first saw Citizen Kane in College, was forced to in “Art of the Cinema Class”. I am glad I was “forced” to watch it. I loved it ever since and have seen it numerous times. It is truly one of my all time favorites.
Rosebud.
I have an mp3 file of the original 1938 Mercury Theater broadcast with Orson Welles. It is from a 78rpm recording and is very scratchy. If anyone would like to hear it I would be happy to email it as an attachment…it is virus free and 9.2mb in size. My email is correct.
Oops! I thought my email was correct. Oh well, it is aok39REMOVE@earthlink.net. Obviously remove the capitals.
Coincidentally, I just blogged about “Citizen Kane” the other day. I was in my early 40’s when I finally saw this movie and found out what the fuss was all about. Welles was way ahead of his time cinematically. Of course, “Rosebud” was named one of the top 100 movie quotes of all time by the American Film Institute.
They just don’t make ‘em like they used to…:(
Acording to Edward Jay Epstein:
“The ‘mass hysteria’ of October 30, 1938″ as it was portrayed in newspapers, books, movies and rock musicals is a fictoid. The accounts of suicides, heart attacks, traffic collisions and flights all proved to be unfounded. The subsequent examination of the statistical date from that night show that there were no abnormal fatalities, hospital admissions, or traffic accidents. And there was no exodus from Harlem. The picture in Life of a farmer with a rifle was posed.
There were, to be sure, a large number of telephone inquiries to CBS, New York Times and local police. Such telephone calls, however, are not necessarily evidence of “mass hysteria.†They are the expected response to media reports, real of fictive, that describe an emergency. It is hardly surprising some percent of the radio audience– less than one-tenth of one percent– attempted to determine if a bulletin they heard on the radio was true or false (whether it concerned the cancellation of a world series game or an invasion of aliens) by telephoning the station that broadcast it or their local paper.”
From Fictoid #7 at edwardjayepstein.com. An excellent site.
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