The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)


Orson Welles tells reporters that no one connected
with the broadcast had any idea that it would cause
panic (October 31, 1938).

Narrated by: Orson Welles
Recording studio: Columbia Broadcasting Building, 485 Madison Avenue, New York
Original release: October 30, 1938, 8 – 9 pm ET
Opening theme: Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

"The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween episode at 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 30, 1938, over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The episode became famous for causing panic among its listening audience, although the scale of panic is disputed inasmuch as the program had had relatively few listeners.

The one-hour program began with the theme music for the Mercury Theatre on the Air and an announcement that the evening's show was an adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Orson Welles then read a prologue which was closely based on the opening of H. G. Wells' novel modified slightly to move the story's setting to 1939. For about the next twenty minutes, the broadcast was presented as a typical evening of radio programming being interrupted by a series of news bulletins. The first few news flashes occur during a presentation of "live" music and describe a series of odd explosions observed on Mars, followed by a seemingly unrelated report of an unusual object falling on a farm in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. The musical program returns briefly before being interrupted by a live report from Grover's Mill, where police officials and a crowd of curious onlookers have surrounded the strange cylindrical object that fell from the sky. The situation escalates when Martians emerge from the cylinder and attack using a heat-ray, which the panicked reporter at the scene describes until his audio feed abruptly goes dead. This is followed by a rapid series of increasingly alarming news updates detailing a devastating alien invasion taking place around the country and the futile efforts of the U.S. military to stop it. The first portion of the show climaxes with another live report from a Manhattan rooftop as giant Martian war machines release clouds of poisonous smoke across New York City. The reporter mentions in passing that Martian cylinders have landed all over the country as he describes desperate New Yorkers fleeing and "dropping like flies", the smoke inexorably approaching his location. Eventually he coughs and falls silent, and a lone ham radio operator is heard mournfully calling "Is there anyone on the air? Isn't there... anyone?" with no response. Only then did the program take its first break, a full thirty-eight minutes after Welles's introduction.

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The Mercury Theatre on the Air


Orson Welles (July 1938)

Narrated by: Orson Welles
Original release: July 11 – December 4, 1938
Opening theme: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor by Tchaikovsky

The Mercury Theatre on the Air is a radio series of live radio dramas created and hosted by Orson Welles. The weekly hour-long show presented classic literary works performed by Welles's celebrated Mercury Theatre repertory company, with music composed or arranged by Bernard Herrmann. The series began July 11, 1938, as a sustaining program on the CBS Radio network, airing Mondays at 9 pm ET. On September 11, the show moved to Sundays at 8 pm.

The show made headlines with its "The War of the Worlds" broadcast on October 30, one of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio due to the panic it allegedly caused, after which the Campbell Soup Company signed on as sponsor. The Mercury Theatre on the Air made its last broadcast on December 4 of that year, and The Campbell Playhouse began five days later, on December 9.

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Orson Welles - War Of The Worlds - Radio Broadcast 1938 - Complete Broadcast.
3,102,695 views Dec 16, 2010

David Webb
24.3K subscribers

Orson Welles - War Of The Worlds - Radio Broadcast 1938 - Complete Broadcast.

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No1 by Mikhail Pletnev (One of the best renditions)
94,836 views Jan 27, 2017

Frederic's guilty pleasure
7.97K subscribers

Mikhail Pletnev's performance of this concerto in 1991 has something I can't describe that stands out from all the other versions I've listened to, I can also enjoy other versions, but I always come back to this one.

33-year-old Mikhail Pletnev plays Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in b flat minor, Opus. 23, with Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Fedoseyev.

00:00 First Movement
21:04 Second Movement
28:04 Third Movement