Orson Welle's: The War Of The Worlds

Panic, hysteria, alien invasions all part of a day's work for Orson Welles in 1938.

On October 30th, 1938 a radio broadcast would go on to leave a lasting impression on not only the annals of Science Fiction history but on the american history books as well. Orson Welles is most well known to many as the man who was responsible for bringing one of the greatest movies of all time to the screen in Citizen Kane, but none of that would have been possible if it wasn't for the fame that Mr. Welles' garnered for scaring the daylights out of radio listeners with his infamous War Of The World's radio show.

The original broadcast wasn't originally intended to be a fourth wall breaking bit of fright and terror,but CBS the radio station that employed Welles' thought it would be fun thing to do for Halloween to write a script based on H.G. Wells famous novel, The War Of The Worlds that depicted the events as if they were actually happening via fake newscasts. When the show was aired on Mercury Theater On The Air on October 30th of 1938, The first two-thirds of the 60 minute play was a contemporary retelling of events of the novel, presented as news bulletins interrupting another program. As the show went on more and more people started to believe that Aliens really were in their backyards and some actually went as far to as packing up their things and getting out of dodge. The number of people who fell for this fake newscast was highly exaggerated. A fact that was not really mentioned that much in the American History documentary. A lot of the guilable audience members and their actions were embellished by the media in order to sell more papers. But the effect of the spoken word real or not did get to quite a few people and caused quite a stir. So much of a stir that CBS executives had to interrupt the radio play to tell the listeners that what they are listening to is not true and it's all just a show. There are no Aliens in New Jersey. 

After the play which ended exactly like Wells' novel did with the Aliens succumbing to the earth's bacterias, Welles informally breaks character to remind listeners that the broadcast was a Halloween concoction, the equivalent, as he puts it, "of dressing up in a sheet, jumping out of a bush and saying, 'Boo!'". Popular mythology says that this "disclaimer" was hastily added to the broadcast at the insistence of CBS executives as they became aware of panic inspired by the program, but in fact, it had appeared in Koch's working script for the play.

The Aftermath of the radio play is in many ways even more memorable than the night War Of The Worlds aired. Rumors spread like wildfire of legal actions against CBS. And historians and scholars used the information gathered that thousands of americans fell for a joke broadcast hook line and sinker as examples of how "gullable" we are. Hundreds of letters poured into the CBS offices ranging from all different types of people and reactions. Some listeners loved the show and as the documentary pointed out wanted to send Mr. Welles' a bottle of Scotch as a reward for his excellent entertaining ruse. Others weren't so happy and wished that Orson would get his ass to mars where he belongs.

But in the end everything worked out fine for both CBS and Orson Welles. Orson did his best acting job of his career in front of a courtroom full of people and displayed his humility for the broadcast and what he had wrought upon a handful of listeners who were foolish enough to believe such nonsense. And everyone bought his charade, which is really hard to believe they did, especially since when you look at his face and the footage of his hearing nowadays? He over exaggerates every little thing and he looks like a complete ham. But the charges against him were dropped, CBS got a new sponsor for the Mercury Theater On The Air in Campbell's Soup a first in Radio broadcasting history, and Orson Welles got to live his dream in Hollywood signing a record setting contract with RKO pictures which resulted in him garnering even more infamy and worldwide fame with his film Citizen Kane. 

Orson Welles' career would never reach the heights of Citizen Kane or his War Of The Worlds radio broadcast ever again after his ill fated trip to south America to shoot the documentary "It's All True" in 1941 a film that was shut down by RKO during production to over abundant production costs among other things. Orson himself would go onto blame a Voodoo curse placed on him by one of the Witch Doctor's of a tribe he was filming as the cause of the documentary's cancellation and the death of his career as a director in Hollywood. For the rest of the WWII era anyway. After "It's All True" his career as an actor continued to build steam and by the end of the war he was back in the director's chair as a sought after hot commodity again. Some voodoo curse. Maybe the witch doctor should have used the Extra Strength curse instead. Orson would continue to get acclaim and work until his death in October 10th of 1985. One of his last roles as an actor was voice over work for Unicron in Transformers: The Movie in 1985. Unicron is what I will always remember Orson for the most.

Listening to this broadcast now in the 21st century, it all seems quite tame and obviously fake, but at the same time entertaining and fascinating to listen to. The best way to appreciate this landmark of science fiction and american history is to try your best to put yourself in an american's shoes on that fateful day of October 30th, 1938. If you can find a way to do that in today's technological age you will be rewarded with a genuinely fun blast from the past. 

 Citizen Kane? Bah! War Of The Worlds? Lame. Transformers: The Movie. Now that is the real masterpiece of Orson Welles' career.