"The War of the Worlds" was a Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air which was broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938 over the CBS Radio Network. The episode was directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds and is infamous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was actually taking place.
The first half of the program was delivered in a realistic "breaking news" format. Since the Mercury Theatre on the Air had few commercial interruptions, the first break came after fictional reporters had described a devastating alien invasion and the fall of New York City. This apparently caused some confusion and fear among its listeners, though the scale of the panic is disputed. Popular legend holds that some of the radio audience may have been listening to the much more highly rated show The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen on NBC and switched to "The War of the Worlds" during a musical interlude, thereby missing Welles's introduction of his show as a work of science fiction. However, modern research suggests that this happened only in rare instances.
Officials with CBS became aware of the public's growing reaction while the show was still being performed live, and though there was some pressure to stop the production, it continued to its planned conclusion. There was widespread media outrage in the hours and days that followed. The program's news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the broadcasters and calls for regulation by the FCC. Welles apologized at a hastily called news conference the next morning, and no punitive action was taken. The broadcast and subsequent publicity brought the 23-year-old Welles to the attention of the general public and gave him the reputation of an innovative storyteller and "trickster".
Synopsis The episode begins with an introductory monologue based closely on the opening of the source novel, after which the program takes on the format of an evening of typical radio programming being periodically interrupted by news bulletins.
The first few bulletins interrupt a program of live music and are relatively calm reports of unusual explosions on Mars, followed by a seemingly unrelated report of an unknown object falling on a farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The crisis escalates dramatically when an on-scene reporter at Grovers Mill describes creatures emerging from what is evidently an alien spacecraft. The aliens employ a heat ray against police and onlookers, and the radio correspondent describes the attack in increasing panic until his audio feed abruptly goes dead.
A rapid series of news updates follows, detailing the beginning of a devastating alien invasion and the US military's futile efforts to stop it. The first portion of the episode climaxes with a live report from a rooftop in Manhattan, from where a correspondent describes citizens fleeing from poison smoke released by towering Martian "war machines" until he coughs and falls silent. Only then does the program take its first break, about thirty minutes after Welles's introduction.
The second portion of the show shifts to a more conventional radio drama format that follows a survivor (played by Welles) dealing with the aftermath of the invasion and the ongoing Martian occupation of Earth. The final segment lasts about 16 minutes; like the original novel, it concludes with the revelation that the Martians were defeated by microbes rather than by humans. The broadcast ends with a brief "out of character" announcement by Welles, in which he compares the show to "dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying 'boo!
Production "The War of the Worlds" was the 17th episode of the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, and was broadcast at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938. H. G. Wells's original novel tells the story of a Martian invasion of Earth. The novel was adapted for radio by Howard Koch, who changed the primary setting from 19th-century England to the 20th-century United States, with the landing point of the first Martian spacecraft changed to rural Grovers Mill, an unincorporated village in West Windsor, New Jersey.
The program's format is a simulated live newscast of developing events. The first two-thirds of the hour-long play is a contemporary retelling of events of the novel, presented as news bulletins interrupting programs of dance music. "I had conceived the idea of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening," said Welles, "and would be broadcast in such a dramatized form as to appear to be a real event taking place at that time, rather than a mere radio play." This approach was similar to Ronald Knox's radio hoax Broadcasting the Barricades that was broadcast by the BBC in 1926, which Welles later said gave him the idea for "The War of the Worlds". A 1927 drama aired by Adelaide station 5CL depicted an invasion of Australia using the same techniques and inspired reactions similar to those of the Welles broadcast.Invasion Panic This Week; Martians Coming Next, Radio Recall, April 2013.
Welles was also influenced by the Columbia Workshop presentations "The Fall of the City", a 1937 radio play in which Welles played the role of an omniscient announcer, and "Air Raid", an as-it-happens drama starring Ray Collins that aired October 27, 1938. Welles had previously used a newscast format for "Julius Caesar" (September 11, 1938), with H. V. Kaltenborn providing historical commentary throughout the story. "The War of the Worlds" broadcast used techniques similar to those of The March of Time, the CBS news documentary and dramatization radio series. Welles was a member of the program's regular cast, having first performed on it in March 1935. The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The March of Time shared many cast members and sound effects chief Ora D. Nichols.
Welles discussed his fake newscast idea with producer John Houseman and associate producer Paul Stewart; together, they decided to adapt a work of science fiction. They considered adapting M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud and Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World before purchasing the radio rights to The War of the Worlds. Houseman later suspected Welles had never read it. Koch worked on adapting novels and wrote the first drafts for the Mercury Theatre broadcasts "Hell on Ice" (October 9), "Seventeen" (October 16), and "Around the World in 80 Days" (October 23).Wood, Bret, Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1990 On October 24, he was assigned to adapt The War of the Worlds for broadcast the following Sunday night.
On the night of October 25, 36 hours before rehearsals were to begin, Koch telephoned Houseman in what the producer characterized as "deep distress": Koch said he could not make The War of the Worlds interesting or credible as a radio play, a conviction echoed by his secretary Anne Froelick, a typist and aspiring writer whom Houseman had hired to assist him. With only his own abandoned script for Lorna Doone to fall back on, Houseman told Koch to continue adapting the Wells fantasy. He joined Koch and Froelick to work on the script through the night. On the night of October 26, the first draft was finished on schedule.
On October 27, Stewart held a cast reading of the script, with Koch and Houseman making necessary changes. That afternoon, Stewart made an acetate recording without music or sound effects. Welles, immersed in rehearsing the Mercury stage production of Danton's Death scheduled to open the following week, played the record at an editorial meeting that night in his suite at the St. Regis Hotel. After hearing "Air Raid" on the Columbia Workshop earlier that same evening, Welles thought the "War of the Worlds" script was dull, and he advised the writers to add more news flashes and eyewitness accounts to create a stronger sense of urgency and excitement.
Houseman, Koch, and Stewart reworked the script that night, increasing the number of news bulletins and using the names of real places and people whenever possible. On October 28, the script was sent to Davidson Taylor, executive producer for CBS, and the network legal department. Their response was that the script was "too" credible and its realism had to be toned down. As using the names of actual institutions could be actionable, CBS insisted on about 28 changes in phrasing. "Under protest and with a deep sense of grievance we changed the Hotel Biltmore to a nonexistent Park Plaza, Transamerica Radio News to Inter-Continental Radio News, the Columbia Broadcasting Building to Broadcasting Building," Houseman wrote. "The United States Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C." was changed to "The Government Weather Bureau", "Princeton University Observatory" to "Princeton Observatory", "McGill University" in Montreal to "Macmillan University" in Toronto, "New Jersey National Guard" to "State Militia", "United States Signal Corps" to "Signal Corps", "Langley Field" to "Langham Field", and "St. Patrick's Cathedral" to "the cathedral".
On October 29, Stewart rehearsed the show with the sound effects team and gave special attention to crowd scenes, the echo of cannon fire, and the sound of boat horns in New York Harbor. In the early afternoon of October 30, Bernard Herrmann and his orchestra arrived in the studio, where Welles had taken over production of that evening's program. To create the role of reporter Carl Phillips, Frank Readick went to the record library and repeatedly played the recording of Herbert Morrison's dramatic radio report of the Hindenburg disaster. Stewart worked with Herrmann and the orchestra to sound like a dance band, and became the person Welles later credited as being largely responsible for the quality of "The War of the Worlds" broadcast.McBride, Joseph, What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2006,
Welles wanted the music to play for unbearably long stretches of time.Leaming, Barbara, Orson Welles, A Biography. New York: Viking, 1985 The studio's emergency fill-in, a solo piano playing Debussy and Chopin, was heard several times. "As it played on and on," Houseman wrote, "its effect became increasingly sinister—a thin band of suspense stretched almost beyond endurance. That piano was the neatest trick of the show." The dress rehearsal was scheduled for 6 pm. Houseman wrote, "Our actual broadcasting time, from the first mention of the meteorites to the fall of New York City, was less than forty minutes. During that time, men travelled long distances, large bodies of troops were mobilized, cabinet meetings were held, savage battles fought on land and in the air. And millions of people accepted it—emotionally if not logically."
Cast The cast of "The War of the Worlds" appears in order as first heard in the broadcast. Announcer – Dan SeymourTreaster, Joseph B. "Dan Seymour, Ex-Announcer And Advertising Leader, Dies", The New York Times, July 29, 1982. Accessed December 3, 2017. "Mr. Seymour was the announcer who, in Orson Welles's famous 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, terrified listeners with realistic bulletins on Martian invaders." Narrator – Orson Welles First studio announcer – Paul Stewart Meridian Room announcer – William Alland Reporter Carl Phillips – Frank Readick Professor Richard Pierson – Orson Welles Second studio announcer – Carl Frank Mr. Wilmuth – Ray Collins Policeman at Wilmuth farm – Kenny Delmar Brigadier General Montgomery Smith – Richard Wilson Mr. Harry McDonald, vice president in charge of radio operations – Ray Collins Captain Lansing of the Signal Corps – Kenny Delmar Third studio announcer – Paul Stewart Secretary of the Interior – Kenny Delmar