NRR Project: 'The War of the Worlds' panic -- Oct 30, 1938

 

NRR Project: ‘The War of the Worlds’

The Mercury Theatre on the Air

Broadcast Oct. 30, 1938

60 min.

The power of radio on the human mind was never so definitively demonstrated than on the night of Oct. 30, 1938. On that night, millions of people across America became convinced that Martians were attacking Earth.

Let’s back up a bit. Orson Welles (1915-1985) was a young genius who, at the unlikely age of 16, became a respected player in theater. He moved into radio, becoming the original voice of The Shadow, a popular thriller series. He mounted numerous plays, which led to him being selected to join the Federal Theatre Project, a government-subsidized arts program meant to offer employment to thousands of underemployed actors and technicians.

In 1936, Welles opened his “voodoo Macbeth” in New York, an adaptation of the play with an all-Black ensemble, which proved a huge success. Welles mounted more plays, growing in fme and reputation. In 1937, he staged a seven-part radio adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables on CBS, which proved to be a hit also. At this early stage in his career, everything he did was golden.

The success of his radio project led him to form, with producer John Houseman, the Mercury Theatre on the Air, a network-sustained hour-long program that adapted key works of literature and dramaturgy. Their first broadcast was Dracula, on July 11, 1938 on CBS.

Welles was a master of conveying meaning and feeling through sound alone. He and his hard-working crew of regulars – including Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, Joseph Cotton, and Agnes Moorehead – whipped up an engaging and ambitious broadcast, week after week. They were competing against the very popular Chase and Sanborn Hour, starring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, which played on NBC at the same time. It was their decision to mount H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on Halloween Eve, 1938, that made them famous – or rather, infamous – overnight.

The writer assigned to the script, Howard Koch, found the adaptation frustrating. How could he convincingly portray an invasion of Earth by the inhabitants of Mars in a realistic and frightening way? Koch, assistant Anne Froelich, Houseman, and associate producer Paul Stewart hammered away at the script desperately, up against a strict deadline. Finally, they hit on setting the invasion in America instead of England, as it was in Wells’ novel, and to make it sound like the invasion was unfolding in real time, with fake news bulletins and eyewitness accounts of the mayhem.

That night, many listeners, having heard Bergen and McCarthy do their opening comedy routine, twiddled the dial to CBS and tuned in to what sounded like a genuine invasion. People panicked. The CBS switchboard lit up with alarmed calls. Thousands hit the streets, or drove frantically away from the supposed origin of the attack – Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.

The first 40 minutes of the program, which had no advertising to interrupt it, continued to sketch scenes of horror as the Martians rapidly took over the planet. At the 40-minute mark, the show’s announcer reminded the audience that it was listening to an adaptation of The War of the Worlds. (A more conventionally narrated conclusion took place after the announcement.) By then it was too late. An incensed crowd of police and reporters jammed the halls of CBS, looking for Welles and company. A shocked and shamefaced Welles emerged from the broadcast studio and apologized for the convincing deception.

The panic was the top story in all the newspapers of the day. Commentators inveighed against Welles. He thought his career was over.

Surprisingly, after a few weeks of world-wide attention, The Mercury Theatre on the Air got a sponsor and became the well-regarded Campbell Playhouse, continuing to put out radio adaptations for another two years. Welles was picked up by Hollywood, and proceeded to make Citizen Kane.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Nest time: Barber’s Adagio for Strings.