The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)
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| - | "[[Orson Welles]] first gained wide American notoriety 70 years ago today for his [[October 30]], [[1938]] [[The War of the Worlds (radio)| radio broadcast]] of [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The War of the Worlds]]''. Adapted to sound like a contemporary [[news broadcast]], it caused a large number of listeners to [[panic]], now commonly and somewhat euphemistically referred to as [[mass hysteria]]. Welles and his biographers subsequently claimed he was exposing the [[gullibility]] or [[naïveté]] of American audiences in the tense preamble to the [[World War II|Second World War]]."--Sholem Stein | + | "[[Orson Welles]] first gained wide American notoriety on [[October 30]], [[1938]] [[The War of the Worlds (radio)| radio broadcast]] of [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The War of the Worlds]]''. Adapted to sound like a contemporary [[news broadcast]], it caused a large number of listeners to [[panic]], now commonly and somewhat euphemistically referred to as [[mass hysteria]]. Welles and his biographers subsequently claimed he was exposing the [[gullibility]] or [[naïveté]] of American audiences in the tense preamble to the [[World War II|Second World War]]."--Sholem Stein |
| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9VWC8eB9ic | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9VWC8eB9ic | ||
Revision as of 15:38, 11 May 2022
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"Orson Welles first gained wide American notoriety on October 30, 1938 radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Adapted to sound like a contemporary news broadcast, it caused a large number of listeners to panic, now commonly and somewhat euphemistically referred to as mass hysteria. Welles and his biographers subsequently claimed he was exposing the gullibility or naïveté of American audiences in the tense preamble to the Second World War."--Sholem Stein |
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The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds.
The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a 'sustaining show' (i.e., it ran without commercial breaks), thus adding to the dramatic effect. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic, careful research has shown that while thousands were frightened, there is no evidence that people fled their homes or otherwise took action. The news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode launched Welles to fame.
Welles's adaptation was one of the Radio Project's first studies.
