American Experience (1988–…): Season 26, Episode 1 - War of the Worlds - full transcript
An account of Orson Welles' 1938 radio drama broadcast that inadvertently started a mass panic.
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MAN:
Come on in.
Have a seat won't you?
MAN:
Thank you, sir.
MAN: We'll begin our
interview in just a moment.
MAN:
Roll camera.
MAN:
Sound speed.
INTERVIEWER: Judge Kennedy,
what is your opinion
of Mr. Welles' radio play?
Well, I certainly have
an opinion.
I think suits should be filed
against him
and the Columbia Broadcasting
System for their wrongdoing.
Welles' performance on the radio
Sunday evening
was a clear demonstration
of his inhuman instincts
and his fiendish joy
in causing distress
and suffering all over
the country.
He is a carbuncle on the rump
of degenerate theatrical
performers
and he should make amends for
his consummate act of asininity.
NARRATOR: Orson Welles'
War of the Worlds---
Never before had a radio
broadcast provoked such outrage,
or such chaos.
Upwards of a million people
convinced, if only briefly,
that the United States was being
laid waste by alien invaders...
and a nation left to wonder
how they possibly could've been
so gullible.
INTERVIEWER: Please tell us,
were you at all surprised
by the reaction
to the radio broadcast?
I think the reaction
was the most damning indictment
of the stupidity of the masses.
Now I appreciate what
CBS and radio have done
for the world.
But why not respect
that appreciation
and not destroy all faith
and confidence we have
in the greatest means
of getting information
about the world-- radio?
NARRATOR:
Brilliantly directed by Welles,
The War of the Worlds
would become, in the end,
the most famous radio program
in history,
known forever after
as the "Panic Broadcast."
Yet it all began unremarkably
at a little past 8:00
in the east, a Sunday evening
like any other in America,
with dinners being finished,
dishes washed,
and radios across the country
turned on more or less
in unison.
(channels tuning in and out)
ANNOUNCER: The Columbia
Broadcasting System
and its affiliated stations
present Orson Welles
and the Mercury Theater
on the air in
The War of the Worlds
by H.G. Wells.
(theme music playing)
Ladies and gentlemen, the
director of the Mercury Theater
and the star of these
broadcasts, Orson Welles.
WELLES". We know now that in the
early years of the 20th century,
this world was being watched
closely by intelligences
greater than man's,
yet as mortal as his own.
We know now that as human
beings busied themselves
about their various concerns...
NARRATOR: It was October
30, the eve of Halloween,
a night known variously
as Mischief Night,
Devil's Night, Hell Night.
A night that for some 200 years
had unleashed
all manner of trickery
on the unsuspecting.
On this night, in 1938,
it would also unleash
the pent-up anxieties
of a nation.
INTERVIEWER:
Now, Miss Hoadley.
Yes?
INTERVIEWER: Can you describe
the events that happened to you
on the evening of the broadcast?
Of course, yes.
Well, returning that evening
from a delightful Vesper service
and a 62-cent dinner at Huylers,
it was delicious,
I changed into my housecoat
and prepared to shorten
my velvet skirt.
Automatically, I reached out
and turned on the radio.
ANNOUNCER: The makers of
Chase and Sanborn Coffee,
the superb blend you know
is fresh, present...
NARRATOR: Of the tens of
millions of Americans
listening to their radios
at 8:00 that Sunday evening,
few were tuned
to The War of The Worlds.
The big draw on the airwaves
that night
was a ventriloquist act:
Edgar Bergen and his
wooden dummy, Charlie McCarthy,
the improbable stars
of NBC's hit variety show,
The Chase and Sanborn Hour.
McCARTHY:♪ A haunting we will
go, a haunting we will go.♪
BERGEN: Hey Charlie,
the word is hunting.
McCARTHY: Well, not on
Halloween it ain't.
(laughter)
BERGEN: Thanks Charlie, but we'll
let Nelson Eddy do the singing.
And ifs the rousing,
rip-roaring
song of the vagabonds...
NARRATOR: But when the opening
comedy routine gave way
to a musical interlude,
millions of listeners
began twirling the dial.
SUSAN DOUGLAS: There was
something called dial twisting-
you know, the radio equivalent
of channel surfing
with the remote.
So people turned the dial...
(different channels tuning in
and out)
And this is just when things
are starting to heat up in The
War of the Worlds broadcast.
They missed the beginning,
they missed the announcement
that this was a play.
(theme music playing)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
we interrupt our program
of dance music to bring you
a special bulletin
from the Intercontinental
Radio News.
At 20 minutes before 8:00,
Central time,
Professor Farrell of the
Mount Jennings Observatory,
Chicago, Illinois, reports
observing several explosions
of incandescent gas,
occurring at regular intervals
on the planet Mars.
The spectroscope indicates
the gas to be hydrogen
and moving toward the earth
with enormous velocity.
MOODY: All of a sudden. a
startling announcement,
professor so and so from
Princeton University
had just observed
several explosions
on the planet Mars shooting out
great jets of blue flame
traveling at a rapid speed
toward Earth.
ANNOUNCER: ...new nearer home
comes a special bulletin
from Trenton, New Jersey.
It is reported that at 8:50
p.m., a huge, flaming object,
believed to be a meteorite,
fell on a farm
in the neighborhood
of Grovers Mill, New Jersey,
22 miles from Trenton.
We have dispatched commentator
Carl Phillips to the scene...
MOODY: Then, suddenly another
announcement, a news bulletin.
MAN: This is Carl Philips out at
the Wilmuth Farm, Grovers Mill...
A farmer in Grovers Mill,
New Jersey,
had reported a meteor
had fallen on his farm.
INTERVIEWER:
And what did he say about it?
He describes a hissing sound
and a streak of greenish light
that hit the earth
with such force it knocked him
from his chair.
So I got the story just when
the radio announcer
was asking the fellow
in New Jersey what it felt like
seeing what happened
in his back yard.
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
you've just heard Mr. Wilmuth,
owner of the farm where
this thing has fallen.
I wish I could convey
the atmosphere,
the background of this
fantastic scene.
Hundreds of cars are parked
in a field in back of us.
Police are trying to rope off
the roadway
leading into the farm,
but it's no use.
POWERS:
The realism got me.
I didn't know then
it was a play,
so I swallowed the whole thing
as it came over the air,
like a new national emergency
or something.
NARRATOR: By now, Americans were
highly attuned to the sound of crisis.
Nearly ten years had passed
since the economic collapse
had pulled the rug out
from under the country,
leaving millions stunned
at their empty pockets
and their bare cupboards
and their new lives
of ceaseless worry.
T.J. JACKSON LEARS:
You have the stock market crash
followed by mass unemployment,
followed by horrendous
bank failures,
bank failures by the hundreds.
Let me assert my firm belief
that the only thing
we have to fear
is fear itself...
LEARS: FDR recognized how
terrified people were
when the bottom dropped out.
ROOSEVELT: . . . nameless ,
unreasoning , unjustified terror,
which paralyzes needed efforts
to convert retreat into advance.
LEARS: He brilliantly saw that
the dominant mood of the country
in the 1930s was not anger
and not resentment
at the capitalist system
or at the bosses
who had laid people off
in record numbers,
but in fact was shame and fear,
more especially fear.
NARRATOR: In the free fall
of the Great Depression,
radio had become a lifeline,
occupying pride of place
in nearly 80%
of American homes by 1938.
Out-of-work Americans
fell behind on the payments
for their cars
and their washing machines.
They gave up their telephones.
But they kept on buying radios
by the millions.
RADIO BULLETIN: We interrupt our
normal schedule briefly to bring you
a special bulletin from
the Press Radio Bureau.
NARRATOR: In recent years, much of
what had drifted through the ether
and into their living rooms
had been bad news.
RADIO BULLETIN: ---the worst storm
in years along the Eastern seaboard
has taken a death toll
estimated at more
than 200 lives.
Untold damages...
NARRATOR: ...stories so
unprecedented and unsettling
they were nearly impossible
to believe,
and yet they were true.
RADIO BULLETIN: The sympathy of the
world goes out to Colonel' Lindbergh
and his devoted wife
in their supreme anguish
at the kidnapping
of their baby son,
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
NARRATOR: They had heard one
eyewitness account after another...
RADIO BULLETIN:
The United Press has tabulated
97 deaths in the 14 flood-swept
states.
NARRATOR: ...disaster after disaster,
and then that terrible accident
in May 1937, when a German
passenger airship,
the Hindenburg, had been
consumed by fire in New Jersey.
ANNOUNCER:
It's burst into flames!
Get this, Scotty!
Get this, Scotty!
It's crashing, terrible!
Oh my, get out of the way,
please.
Ifs burning and bursting
into flames and the...
and it's falling
on the mooring mast.
And all the folks agree
that this is terrible;
this is the one of the worst
catastrophes in the world.
Oh, ifs crashing
to the ground.
Oh, the humanity
and all the passengers...
NARRATOR: And all the
while, in the background,
had been the steady,
ominous drumbeat of war.
RADIO BULLETIN: President
Roosevelt again appeals to Hitler
to preserve peace.
This bulletin is from
the Press Radio...
LEARS: Even worse is what's
beginning to happen abroad,
in the sense that we're not only
threatened
from within our shores,
we're threatened from across
the ocean too.
ANNOUNCER: In Germany, Adolf Hitler
defies the Treaty of Versailles...
NARRATOR:
For 18 days in September 1938,
the airwaves were dominated
by news from Europe,
as Hitler's threats to expand
German territory provoked
a standoff known
as the Munich Crisis,
and pushed the world
to the brink of war.
ANNOUNCER: Hitler has
demanded 11,000 square miles
of Czechoslovakian territory...
DOUGLAS: People were getting up in
the morning listening to Hitler,
you now, foaming at the mouth...
and they would be doing
simultaneous translations
of what Hitler was saying.
News bulletins began to get
more frequent,
Americans by September of 1938
were absolutely used to
news bulletin interruptions,
and it actually made radio
really compelling.
ANNOUNCER: Czechoslovakia will not
yield even though Hitler's armies
should come crashing across the
border before Wednesday night.
LEARS: We are Americans, and we
want to believe that we're going
to be exempt from all of these
tragic conflicts
that are enveloping Europe.
But we also sense the likelihood
that we'll be swept up in them,
too.
ANNOUNCER: ...populaces are
being given gas masks...
LEARS: So, this is a period
of not only great fear
and anxiety but foreboding,
foreboding about the future
and what the future will bring.
ANNOUNCER: Europe's most anxious
days since the World War...
NARRATOR: It had been barely a
month since the Munich Crisis,
a month of uneasy
and profoundly uncertain peace.
And now, from some obscure
hamlet in New Jersey, came this.
ANNOUNCER: We are bringing
you an eyewitness account
of what's happening
on the Wilmuth farm,
Grovers Mill, New Jersey.
MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, this
is the most terrifying thing
I have ever witnessed!
Something wriggling out of the
shadow like a gray snake.
Now it's another one, and
another one and another one.
They look like tentacles to me.
HOADLEY: And before I knew
it, strange creatures
were wafting out of the thing
and they were spraying the crowd
with light rays and the people
were emitting--
no, bellowing--
agonizing noises,
and Phil was screaming
into the mic.
ANNOUNCER: A humped shape
is rising out of the pit.
I can make out a small beam
of light against a mirror.
Wait a minute,
somethings happening.
There's a jet of flame
springing from that mirror,
and it leaps right
at the advancing men.
Good Lord, they're turning
into flame!
(screaming)
Now the whole field's caught
on fire the woods, the barns,
the gas tanks
of the automobiles--
We spreading everywhere.
It's coming this way now,
about 20 yards to my right...
(radio goes silent)
PETER BOGDANOVICH:
The mic went dead.
Silence.
Orson was standing in the middle
of the broadcasting studio
and he just went like that--
hold it--
and he held the pause
for the longest time.
Just, like that.
NARRATOR: It was an inspired
moment for Orson Welles,
the 23-year-old director
of Mercury Theater on the Air.
Standing at the podium
in Studio One, on the 20th floor
of the Columbia Broadcasting
Service in New York City,
with ten actors and a 27-piece
orchestra eagerly awaiting
their next cue, Welles opted
for deafening silence.
BOGDANOVICH:
Orson was probably the greatest
director of radio
and the most innovative.
I mean, he broke all the rules
that didn't even exist.
NARRATOR:
In theatrical circles,
Welles was already widely
considered a major talent.
MAN: There 's no time
to think, Margo,
I'm going to investigate.
NARRATOR: As an actor, he'd
racked up an impressive roster
of radio roles-- appearing,
often anonymously,
in as many as 25 different
programs a week.
MAN: Remember, The Shadow
has never failed you yet.
NARRATOR: Listeners who recognized
his voice likely knew him
as The Shadow,
the enigmatic crimefighter
who was said to possess
the power to cloud men's minds.
WELLES". You maneuvered your
submarine alongside this ship,
just as I planned.
(cackles)
NARRATOR: But it was as a stage
director that he'd made his big splash,
mounting a string
of stunning successes
for the New Deal
Federal Theater Project.
Tyrant, show thy face!
NARRATOR:
Welles' version of Macbeth--
set in Haiti with
an all-black cast,
and performed on a stage
in Harlem-- had earned him
a reputation as both prodigy
and provocateur.
Or, as Time magazine put it,
"the brightest moon
over Broadway."
Now, with his producing partner
John Houseman,
Welles had brought
his unique sensibilities
to the Mercury Theater
on the Air,
a CBS-sponsored hour
featuring radio adaptations
of popular literary works.
ANNOUNCER: The Columbia Network
is proud to give Orson Welles
the opportunity to bring
to the air those same qualities
of vitality and imagination
that have made him
the most talked of theatrical
director in America today.
PAUL HEYER: The idea for War
Of The Worlds actually came
from Welles himself,
who thought this would make
a very interesting radio drama.
His co-producer John Houseman
did not think so,
but Orson told Houseman,
"This is one of my favorite
stories.
I'm a great admirer
of H.G. Wells."
Houseman kind of rolled his eyes
a bit and suspected Welles
had never read the story
but just thought,
"Well, it's an idea
and let's see if it flies."
NARRATOR: In his novel, published
in 1898, British writer H.G. Wells
had woven a terrifying tale
of destruction,
in which Martian invaders
wreaked havoc
upon the English countryside.
For the Mercury adaptation,
Orson Welles had directed
his writer, Howard Koch,
to shift the setting
to the United States.
HEYER: Koch thought this was
a job that was impossible.
He didn't welcome it.
He wanted to do something else,
but, again,
Welles was insistent.
NARRATOR:
On Monday-- seven days before
the broadcast was slated
to air--
a panicked Koch stopped
at a gas station while driving
along the Hudson River,
bought a map of New Jersey,
and later
with his eyes closed
picked out a spot
for the Martian landing.
HEYER: Grovers Mill, New Jersey,
that's where the Martians
were gonna land.
And, today Grovers Mill
is probably one of the most
famous places in America
for a historical event
that never really happened.
NARRATOR: Over the next several
days, with constant badgering
from Houseman, Koch hammered out
the draft script.
And on Thursday, a full company
rehearsal was recorded
to wax disc for Welles.
The disk was hand-delivered
to him at the St. Regis Hotel,
since, as usual,
his frantic schedule
prevented him from
paying attention
to the week's broadcast
until the proverbial 11th hour.
It was 1:00 or 2:00
in the morning on Friday,
fewer than 72 hours before
they went live on the air,
when Welles finally heard
the show and declared it
abysmally dull.
CHRIS WELLES FEDER: So at the original
meeting for The War of the Worlds,
everyone's opinion was,
"Oh, this is going to be so
boring, it's so old fashioned,
"nobody is going to...
what can we do to juice it up,
make it more exciting?"
NARRATOR: Earlier that evening,
Welles had happened to catch
a CBS broadcast of a play
by Archibald MacLeish
entitled Air Raid.
MAN:
There's the siren, the signal,
they've picked him up
at the border.
NARRATOR: The story was fiction,
but the form mimicked the style
of a breaking news flash.
MAN: We've got them
now, we see them,
they're out of the dazzle.
They're flying...
fighting formation in column.
Squadron following squadron,
ten, 15 squadrons;
bombing models, mostly.
DOUGLAS: They're slaving over
this War of the Worlds script
and they're trying to figure out
how to bring it to life
and then they come up with the
idea of using news bulletins.
Why not?
It's one month after
the Munich Crisis.
These news bulletins
were common fodder on the radio
and Welles picked up on that.
ANNOUNCER: This bulletin is
from the Press Radio Bureau.
HEYER: People are on pins
and needles as we are today
every time we see
"We interrupt this program
to bring you a special
news bulletin."
People worried that this
could be serious.
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
here is a bulletin from Trenton.
I mean the concern that this
was going to be some boring,
old-fashioned,
dusty museum piece,
they certainly went to the other
extreme, didn't they?
NARRATOR: On Friday, after
hours of frantic re-writing,
the script was delivered to the
CBS legal department for review.
Fearing liability
for defamation,
network attorneys
flatly prohibited the use
of real names for individuals
and organizations,
and requested no fewer
than 28 changes.
Finally, Sunday came.
At the afternoon
dress rehearsal,
Welles focused on ramping up
the program's realism,
tinkering with the dialogue,
pacing, and music cues.
Meanwhile, actor Frank Readick--
slated to play the part
of the on-the-spot reporter
Carl Phillips--
went down to the CBS
record library
and, for inspiration, listened
to the eyewitness account
of the Hindenburg accident
again and again.
HERBERT MORRISON:
It's burst into flames!
Get this, Scotty!
Get this, Scotty!
It's crashing!
It's crashing, terrible.
Oh my, get out of the way,
please.
It's burning and bursting into
flames and it's falling...
PHILLIPS: Good Lord, they're
turning into flame!
Now the whole field's caught
on fire-- the woods, the barns,
the gas tanks
of the automobiles--
We spreading everywhere.
It's coming this way now,
about 20 yards to my right...
(radio silence)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and
gentlemen, due to circumstances
beyond our control,
we are unable to continue
the broadcast
from Grovers Mill.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me the
most frightening moment for you?
The awful silence
of the broadcaster.
I presumed he had fallen
with the dead
because he stayed to witness
the awful sight
until the last moment,
at his own risk,
to do his duty and be of service
to the world.
Well, the organ music
had just started
when it was cut off
and this voice was saying,
"The cylinder lies
in a deep crater.
"No signs of life evident.
Blackened corpses
are strewn about."
Well, my lower jaw's down
on my chest
and I'm baring my ears out
to assure I'm hearing right.
ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentleman,
I have a grave announcement
to make.
Incredible as it may seem,
both the observations of
science
and the evidence of our eyes
lead to the inescapable
assumption
that those strange beings
who landed
in the Jersey farmlands tonight
are the vanguard of an invading
army from the planet Mars.
HEYER: When it actually
emerged during the broadcast
that this was
a Martian invasion,
some people found
that completely implausible
and decided this was
a radio drama.
Other people thought,
"Well, maybe, maybe there
is intelligent life on Mars
and this is them coming
to eat us, literally."
My neighbor came to the door
excitedly.
"Come quickly," she said,
"there's something on the radio
I want you to hear."
"What is it about?" I asked.
I was starting to get curious.
"Mars men," came her reply.
That was her reply.
"Mars men," she said.
I was still skeptical,
but not for long.
Hasn't science proved
that there is life on Mars,
through their observations?
ERIC RABKIN: In 1938, the vast
majority of people didn't live
with light pollution.
They could walk out
of their house at night
and they could look up
in the sky.
And for those of us who have
looked up in the sky,
Mars has always been unique
because its color is there.
NARRATOR: Visible as an eerie
red glow, Mars had inspired
perplexed fascination
for centuries.
ROBERT CROSSLEY: Mars is just
far enough away from the Earth
that we can see it pretty well.
You were able to see enough
to get a sense that maybe
this was an Earth-like planet,
but you couldn't see
quite enough to be sure
what was there.
So there was an intriguing sense
of mystery about the planet.
NARRATOR: In the early
1900s, the speculation
had turned frenzied,
sparked by astronomer Giovanni
Schiaparelli's observation
of faint geometric lines
crisscrossing
the planet's surface.
Schiaparelli called them canali,
Italian for "channels,"
which was mistranslated
as "canals."
CROSSLEY: Once canali got
translated into English as canals,
it brought along all the baggage
that we associate with canals
and particularly
in the 19th century,
which was a canal-building
century.
It's a word that inherently
suggests engineering.
If there are canals,
there must be canal builders.
NARRATOR: Even as most
scientists dismissed it,
the idea of an industrious
Martian race
captured imaginations around
the world, fueling wild theories
and filtering into fiction,
popular song and film.
MAN:
It's no use, Flash.
MAN: You mean we are
going to crash on Mars?
Look Doc, we're heading
straight into the beam.
NARRATOR: As recently as 1924, the U.S.
Army Signal Corps
had asked radio stations
across the country to shut down
so that its engineers might
listen for signals
from the Red Planet.
And just three days before
the War of the Worlds broadcast,
the Christian Science Monitor
had run a statement
by a prominent Scandinavian
astronomer,
confirming the existence
of "living things... on Mars."
RABKIN: Mars kept popping
up again and again.
So, by the time Martians
are reported to come down
outside of New York City
in 1938,
it's not as if Mars isn't
something
that people could imagine.
ANNOUNCER: We take you now
to field headquarters
of the state militia
near Grovers Mill, New Jersey.
MAN: This is Captain Lansing
of the Signal Corps attached
to the state militia now
engaged in military operations
in the vicinity
of Grovers Mill.
Cylindrical object lies
in a pit
directly below our position,
surrounded on all sides
by eight battalions
of infantry.
Looks almost like a real war.
NARRATOR: By a quarter
past 8:00 Eastern time,
telephones were ringing madly
all across the country,
as concerned Americans tried
to determine the whereabouts
of relatives, warn friends
and acquaintances,
and, most of all, corroborate
what they were hearing.
A what?
Wait a minute.
NARRATOR: For the next several
hours, newspapers, radio stations
and police precincts
from coast to coast
would be swamped with calls.
Well, I can't help that ma'am,
we just don't know
anything about it.
Did I say something about
a quiet Sunday evening?
What's going on anyway?
NARRATOR: Soon, strange
bulletins began coming in
over the press service wires.
In Bergenfield, New Jersey,
just north of Grovers Mill,
some 20 families turned up
at a police station,
with all of their household
possessions
piled into their cars.
In Indianapolis,
a woman rushed the pulpit
in a Methodist church,
shouting that the end
of the world had come.
And in Washington state,
a spectacularly ill-timed
power failure plunged
the small town of Concrete
into darkness and sent
terrified residents
fleeing into the mountains.
ANNOUNCER: The battle which took
place tonight at Grover Mills
has ended in one of
the most startling defeats
ever suffered by an army
in modern times;
7,000 men armed with rifles
and machine guns pitted against
a single fighting machine
of the invaders from Mars.
120 known survivors.
HAYDEN:
Well, my wife she came in,
my wife, just wringing her hands
and wailing away,
her eyeballs about to pop out
onto her lap going,
"What is it?
"What is it?
"What could it be?
Is it the Germans?"
Well, she hadn't heard that word
"Martians," but I had.
ANNOUNCER: ...a brief statement
informing us that the charred body
of Carl Phillips
has been identified
in a Trenton hospital.
DAVID ROPEIK: We think
that we're really smart,
but if there's a cue out there
that could possibly
be dangerous,
we're going to react to it
protectively, autonomically,
instinctively.
Fear first,
and reason and fact second.
ANNOUNCER: The central portion
of New Jersey is blacked out...
ROPEIK: And a stressed
people back in those days
by the Depression and talk
of war and so forth
is already pre-wired to be more
sensitive to danger signals.
Those drums are already beating.
ANNOUNCER: The rest strewn
over the battle area
from Grovers Mill
to Plainsboro,
crushed and trampled to death
under the metal feet
of the monster,
or burned to cinders
by its heat ray.
Their apparent objective
is to crush resistance,
paralyze communication
and disorganize human society.
We all felt it was the end
of the world.
It was a wonder my heart
didn't fail me,
because I'm nervous anyway.
So I just ran out the house.
I guess I didn't know
what I was doing.
I kept saying over and over
again to everybody I met:
"Don't you know?
New Jersey is destroyed by
the Germans; it's on the radio."
Alien, army, invader,
in the late '30s,
was quickly translatable
from Martian to German.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: The German
army crossed into Austria...
ROPEIK: Because we default
to what we already know.
We've developed
these mental shortcuts.
We search our mental files
of what we already know
to see what it represents.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Hitler liked
to start invasions on weekends.
It was a way he said of catching
other nations napping.
ROPEIK: And those clues,
they used all this language
in the first few minutes
of the broadcast.
We're very powerfully controlled
by these things.
They're mostly subconscious.
They're mostly not a matter
of free will.
ANNOUNCER: The monster is now in
control of the middle section
of New Jersey
and has effectively cut
the state through its center.
Communication lines are down
from Pennsylvania
to the Atlantic Ocean.
Railroad tracks are torn
and service from New York
to Philadelphia is
discontinued.
When I got home,
I woke my nephew up.
I looked in the icebox
and saw some chicken
left from Sunday dinner.
I said to my nephew, "We may
as well eat this chicken.
We won't be here
in the morning."
ANNOUNCER: Highways to the north,
south and west are clogged
with frantic human traffic.
NARRATOR: The clock in Studio
One now read half past eight.
Over the previous 12 minutes,
Welles and his company
had killed Carl Phillips,
slaughtered the militia
in New Jersey, and unleashed
a full-scale Martian invasion
of the United States.
HEYER: One of the unbelievable
things about the first part
of the broadcast is how quickly
everything happened.
We know today that would
never happen that quickly,
the Army ready in 15 minutes
and so on,
but Welles set people up
for this by the pacing.
And people suspended
their disbelief.
The Svengali effect Welles
had of hypnotizing
millions of people over the
airwaves made things appear
as if they were taking place
in real time.
NARRATOR:
With the crisis at its peak,
actor Kenneth Delmar stepped
up close to the mic,
and, as Welles had directed,
delivered his best impersonation
of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
DELMAR: Citizens of the nation:
I shah' not try to conceal
the gravity of the situation
that confronts the country,
nor the concern of your
government in protecting...
HEYER:
People knew that voice.
And even though this voice
was announced
as the Secretary of the
Interior, people said,
"We heard the president.
We heard the president."
It was a case of,
in their moment of anxiety,
the non-verbal overwhelming
the verbal.
NARRATOR:
Midway through Delmar's speech,
a telephone rang
in the control room.
The CBS supervisor in charge
of the broadcast took the call
and hurried out of the studio.
When he returned
a few moments later,
as John Houseman recalled,
he was "pale as death."
Network executives had ordered
the broadcast be interrupted
with an identifying station
break at once.
The CBS switchboards
were overwhelmed;
listeners had to be told
it was only a play.
Welles was then at the mic,
the room was his,
and at that point in the show,
there was no stopping him.
ANNOUNCER: Newark, New Jersey,
Newark, New Jersey...
Warning!
Poisonous black smoke pouring
in from Jersey marshes.
BROWN:
My mouth, my mouth dropped open
as I listened
to the incoming announcements.
The familiar names of cities:
Bayonne,
and then New York
and New Jersey cut off.
Gas masks are useless.
Men are dropping like flies.
ANNOUNCER: New York City, the
bells you hear are ringing
to warn people to evacuate
the city as Martians approach.
Estimated in last two hours
three million people
have moved out along the roads.
I had become so frightened
that I began to cry.
I immediately ran downstairs,
and grabbed my mother,
my coat and key.
I kept coughing and crying,
"Mother, we are all going to die
tonight.
"Mother, the black smoke
is getting the best of me,
can't you smell it too?"
And over and over in my mind
these facts kept racing:
take highways to open spaces,
keep cool and calm,
and beware of gas.
ANNOUNCER:
Warning!
Poisonous black smoke pouring
in from Jersey marshes.
Earth's population move
into open spaces.
Bob, turn around, go back.
Go back, Bob,
I want to go home.
ANNOUNCER:
Avoid congested areas.
ROPEIK:
They could smell smoke.
They could hear things.
They could see things.
This sounds so irrational,
wacky, dumb.
It's not.
It is, if you think
that the brain
is this perfectly rational
organ.
That's not how the brain works.
It takes the facts,
it runs them through feelings,
and it comes up with judgments.
And the feelings of fear
have a very powerful, visceral,
physical effect
on people's perceptions.
ANNOUNCER: Martian cylinders are
falling all over the country.
One outside of Buffalo,
one in Chicago,
St. Louis, seem to be timed
and spaced...
DOUGLAS: There were listeners
who looked out their windows
and if they saw a lot of cars
on the street, they were like,
"Oh my God, everybody
is getting out of here.
We better get out of here too."
There were people who looked
out at the streets
and the streets were empty
and were like,
"Oh my God, everybody
has already left,
we better get out of here."
I insisted to Mr. Zimmer
that we drive anywheres.
Either into the phenomenons
or away from them
if that were possible.
I grabbed my picture albums.
I guess I figured I could
show them to St. Peter,
like "before and after"
pictures, cause I figured
when I saw him,
I'd just be a charred piece.
We at this point had begun
to measure our time on earth
in a matter of a few hours,
and then we changed
to a special broadcast from
a cathedral in New York City,
describing five war machines
that had lined up
on the Hudson River preparing
to destroy the city.
The streets are jammed,
the bridges crowded,
people jumping into the river
like rats.
ANNOUNCER:
It's reached Times Square.
People are trying to run away
from it but it's no use...
they are falling like flies...
NARRATOR: At 42 minutes past the
hour, Welles finally delivered
the station break--
a good ten minutes after CBS
had demanded it.
ANNOUNCER: You are listening
to a CBS presentation
of Orson Welles
and the Mercury Theater on Air
in an original dramatization...
NARRATOR: Of course, many
who had been listening
were at that point
otherwise occupied.
FEDER: By the time the second half
of the show rolled on the air,
people were packing their bags,
jumping into their cars,
heading for the hills,
so I don't know how many people
actually heard the second half.
I would think not many.
ANNA FARRELL: My sister and I
started out for Long Island.
And we hailed a cab
and then we went to a cafe
near 52nd on 8th Avenue.
And I told the bartender
about the end of the world.
He tried to calm the pair of us
down by saying,
"Well, if the end
of the world is here,
why not take it with a smile?"
And we did!
We had a scotch highball
a piece.
(chuckles)
We felt good that we were gonna
die around a few men.
Then we had the second one.
(chuckles)
Then at that time,
we knew the Lord had sent us
to the right place.
(laughs)
INTERVIEWER:
Indeed.
ANNOUNCER". I thought that I may
be the last living man on Earth.
NARRATOR: As Welles ran out the
broadcast, the deluge of calls continued
to light up switchboards
across the country.
In some quarters,
there were even vague reports
of suicides
and panic-related deaths.
WELLES". This is Orson Welles,
ladies and gentlemen,
out of character to assure you
that The War of The Worlds
has no further significance
than as the holiday offering
it was intended to be:
the Mercury Theatre 's own radio
version of dressing up
in a sheet and jumping out
of a bush and saying, "Boo!"
My wife and I were driving
through the redwood forest
in Northern California
when the broadcast came over
our car radio.
I forgot we were low on gas.
In the middle of the forest,
our gas ran out.
There was nothing to do.
We just sat there holding hands,
expecting any minute
to see those Martian monsters
appear over the tops
of the trees.
All we could think of was
to try and get back
to Los Angeles to see
our children once more.
When Orson said it was
a Halloween prank,
it was like being reprieved
on the way to the gas chamber.
It was 11:00
when we heard it announced
that it was only a play.
(chuckles)
It sure felt good, just like
a burden had been lifted off.
(sighs)
NARRATOR: At CBS, meanwhile, the
ordeal was only just beginning.
HEYER: Immediately after the
broadcast the studio was inundated
with police,
and news reporters,
and they cornered Welles
and his co-producer,
John Houseman, and made it seem
like the events
were more serious:
"Do you know about all those
deaths on the highway
as people were leaving
New Jersey?"
And they thought they were gonna
be put into prison.
NARRATOR: "The following
hours were a nightmare,"
Houseman would later say.
"We were hurried
out of the studio, downstairs,
"into a back office.
"There we sat incommunicado
while network employees
"were busily collecting,
destroying, or locking up
all scripts and records
of the broadcast."
By the next morning,
October 31,
the Panic Broadcast
was front-page news
from coast to coast, with
reports of traffic accidents,
near-riots, hordes of panicked
people in the streets--
all because of a radio play.
FLORENCE ROHM:
It was like in a packed theater
and an announcement was made
that the theater was afire.
Something like that would lead
to the arrest and imprisonment
of somebody.
I don't know if that program
violated any set laws,
but it certainly was an example
of "Wolf! Wolf!"
NARRATOR: On Capitol Hill,
Iowa Senator Clyde Herring
called for legislation
to create a national board
of radio censors.
And the chief of the Federal
Communications Commission
ordered an investigation
into CBS's conduct.
Worse still, though it had been
mere hours since the broadcast,
the network had received scores
of outraged complaints,
and some were forecasting
a flood of lawsuits
soon to follow.
I've had almost no sleep
and I know less about
this than you do.
I haven't read the papers.
NARRATOR: With contrition the
only sensible card to play,
CBS executives hastily convened
a press conference.
Of course we are deeply shocked
and deeply regretful
about the results
of last night's broadcast.
HEYER: The press conference was
one of Welles' great performances
as an actor.
And he knew that his whole
career was on the line here.
So he knew that he had
to do something
and show that he was sincere,
which, according to Houseman,
he wasn't that sincere.
He was pretty pleased
with what he had unleashed
with the broadcast.
Do you think there ought
to be a law against
such enactments as we had
last night, as a result of that?
I don't know what
the legislation would be.
I know that almost everybody
in radio would do
almost anything to avert the
kind of thing that has happened,
myself included.
NARRATOR: Pale and unshaven-
"Looking," as he later put it,
"like an early
Christian saint"-
Welles was masterful
in his astonishment.
FEDER: You know, when somebody
is as smart as my father was,
it was very difficult for him
to understand
how anyone could fall for this.
How could they?
MAN: Do you think you might have
taken advantage of the public?
I simply don't know.
I can't imagine an invasion
from Mars would find
ready acceptance.
I was...
FEDER: At the moment that he
was shocked and dismayed,
he was also aware that suddenly
his name was on the front page
of every newspaper all over
the world,
that overnight he had become
internationally famous
as a result of this broadcast.
I don't think he was sorry
about that.
NARRATOR: For Welles, the
only tangible consequence
of the entire episode would come
in the form of a reward.
BOGDANOVICH: Orson said, "We
always thought it was one
of our lesser shows."
(laughs)
Of course it scared
half the country,
but what happened as far as
the show was concerned,
the Mercury Theatre on the Air
finally got a sponsor.
HEYER:
Eventually Campbell Soup came in
and it became
the Campbell Playhouse.
If Orson Welles could sell
millions of people on the idea
of a Martian invasion,
imagine what he could do
for Campbell Soup.
FEDER: The War Of The World broadcast
was really the turning point
in my father's career because
before the broadcast,
he had been known in New York
as a theater director.
He had been known
as a radio personality,
but he was not
an international star.
And suddenly Hollywood
was after him in a big way.
NARRATOR: Welles deftly
parlayed his notoriety
into an unprecedented
Hollywood deal,
signing a contract
with RKO Studios to write,
produce, direct and star
in one film a year.
The groundbreaking Citizen Kane
would soon follow.
FEDER: When the Hollywood studios
originally approached my father,
they wanted him to replicate
in a movie the War Of The Worlds
radio broadcast.
But of course once my father
got to Hollywood,
the last thing he wanted to do
was to make a movie
based on the War Of The Worlds.
He wanted to do something new
and fresh.
He was very excited
about this new medium.
NARRATOR: The War of the Worlds
would remain a defining moment
for Orson Welles,
and for the nation
he'd scared out of its wits.
BROWN:
Sincerely, when I hear
a news bulletin coming
over the radio,
in the future I shall say,
"Gerta, this is just another one
of Orrie Welles' hallucinations,
you know, think nothing of it,"
whereupon I shall definitely
be soothed.
NARRATOR: In the wake
of the Panic Broadcast,
thousands of ordinary Americans
wrote letters--
to the FCC, to CBS,
and to Welles himself--
offering praise
for the program.
HOADLEY: Gentlemen, an orchid
to you, and to all the cast
of War of the Worlds.
Also, shame on you for giving me
the scare of my life.
WOMAN: Let me congratulate
you on your broadcast.
MAN: Thanks again for
a wow of a thrill.
MAN 2:
More power to you.
WOMAN 2: ...the Martians'
visitation upon this earth
was a masterpiece of realism.
NARRATOR: ...as well as
bitter condemnation.
ROHM: ...a horrible prank to play
on innocent, unsuspecting people.
MOODY:
...a very grave mistake...
ZIMMER: ...having spent the
most horrifying night...
HARRIS: It think the safest
place for you is Mars.
Take a rocket and get going.
LOUIS HEIDENRICH: For those
of us that love our country,
we don't want that kind of hoax
put over the air.
We want government-regulated
radio.
We are opposed to every
little city in this country
getting a radio station
and putting whatever they want
over the air.
We need a radio dictator.
NARRATOR: But what rankled many
was not the broadcast itself,
but what the reaction revealed
about the American people.
INTERVIEWER: So you yourself
did not believe the hoax?
No, those who were deceived
by dramatic reenactment would,
in an ideal society, be
sterilized and disenfranchised.
Such damn fools.
It shakes one's faith
in democracy to think
that such hysteria and panic
can affect those
who are supposed to vote
intelligently next week.
NARRATOR: It was a complaint
echoed in the newspaper coverage
of the broadcast,
which continued unabated
for two full weeks
and amounted to some 12,500
articles in total.
Over and over again, editorial
pages blamed the listener.
To journalist Dorothy Thompson,
who applauded Welles
in her widely read column,
the episode had cleverly proved
the power of propaganda.
As she put it,
"Hitler managed to scare all
Europe to its knees a month ago,
"but at least he had an army
and an air force to back up
"his shrieking words...
"Mr. Welles scared thousands
into demoralization
with nothing at all."
LEARS: Radio is able to
convey a single voice
to an enormous mass audience
where unprecedented numbers
of people can be addressed
at the same time,
for the same purpose,
to the same end,
by the same spellbinding orator.
And it remains to be seen what
the consequences of that may be.
In the working out
of a great national program...
LEARS: They may be as
benign as a fireside chat,
which whips up support
for Social Security,
or they may be
the Nuremberg rallies.
(cheers and applause)
Or they may simply be
the fearful family
huddled together around
the radio listening to reports
of the Munich Crisis or the men
from Mars landing in New Jersey.
ANNOUNCER: Scouting planes
report enemy machines
increasing speed northward,
kicking over houses and trees
in their evident haste...
LEARS: People who are
concerned about democracy
and about vigorous public debate
begin to think,
"This is scary, you know,
that propaganda can work
so effectively, and we Americans
have gotta figure out ways
to resist it, to create
institutions
that will resist it."
NARRATOR: In the end, all
the national hand-wringing
would come to nothing.
On December 5,
five weeks after the broadcast,
the FCC concluded
its investigation,
announcing,
to CBS's great relief,
that it would take no punitive
action against the network.
CBS, in fact, had voluntarily
promised restraint already,
making what amounted
to a gentleman's agreement
with the FCC to avoid the use
of dramatized,
simulated newscasts
in the future.
Of the many suits brought
against Welles and CBS,
meanwhile, none resulted
in the payment of damages.
Ultimately, the very extent
of the panic would come
to be seen as having been
exaggerated by the press.
But there was no disputing
that something had happened
that night in 1938--
and it would haunt the nation
for decades to come.
LEARS: It's such a key
moment in the history
of American emotional life
in the 1930s.
The atmosphere of fear
and anxiety,
the longing for reassurance,
but the sense that at any moment
destruction might come
from the sky, come from abroad,
or come from within
this country,
I think the War Of The Worlds
spoke directly to those fears
and anxieties.
The reaction wasn't just
entertainingly irrational.
I think it's hard to fault
the people who overreacted
to the program.
The systems for survival
easily, readily, emotionally,
powerfully,
overwhelm the rational.
That's a really powerful
physical reality that came
from something that's intrinsic
in the human animal.
It's a truth about us all.
I know I will remember the night
of Sunday, October 30, 1938
for as long as I live.
And no one can share my feelings
because I cannot explain them.
(sighs)
But I hope that no one,
not even the worst of people,
ever feels the way I did
last night.
And I hope and pray that I never
hear anything like it again
because it was the most awful
thing I've ever heard.
WELLES". So goodbye everybody,
and remember, please,
for the next day or so
the terrible lesson
you learned tonight:
that grinning, glowing,
globular invader
of your living room
is an inhabitant
of the pumpkin patch,
and if your doorbell rings
and nobody's there,
that was no Martian.
It's Halloween.
"Dear Mr. Orson Welles,
enclosed please find a bill
"for the amount of $2.10,
which is for six highballs.
"Now don't get angry, I think
some one must give you a laugh.
"L will settle for a pair
of tickets to your theater
"or the Kate Smith hour.
"Isn't that fair enough?
(laughs)
"Respectfully,
Mrs. Anna Farrell.
"P.S. Have since given a laugh
to hundreds who did not hear
the broadcast and many who
still think we're nuts!"
(laughs)
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MAN:
Come on in.
Have a seat won't you?
MAN:
Thank you, sir.
MAN: We'll begin our
interview in just a moment.
MAN:
Roll camera.
MAN:
Sound speed.
INTERVIEWER: Judge Kennedy,
what is your opinion
of Mr. Welles' radio play?
Well, I certainly have
an opinion.
I think suits should be filed
against him
and the Columbia Broadcasting
System for their wrongdoing.
Welles' performance on the radio
Sunday evening
was a clear demonstration
of his inhuman instincts
and his fiendish joy
in causing distress
and suffering all over
the country.
He is a carbuncle on the rump
of degenerate theatrical
performers
and he should make amends for
his consummate act of asininity.
NARRATOR: Orson Welles'
War of the Worlds---
Never before had a radio
broadcast provoked such outrage,
or such chaos.
Upwards of a million people
convinced, if only briefly,
that the United States was being
laid waste by alien invaders...
and a nation left to wonder
how they possibly could've been
so gullible.
INTERVIEWER: Please tell us,
were you at all surprised
by the reaction
to the radio broadcast?
I think the reaction
was the most damning indictment
of the stupidity of the masses.
Now I appreciate what
CBS and radio have done
for the world.
But why not respect
that appreciation
and not destroy all faith
and confidence we have
in the greatest means
of getting information
about the world-- radio?
NARRATOR:
Brilliantly directed by Welles,
The War of the Worlds
would become, in the end,
the most famous radio program
in history,
known forever after
as the "Panic Broadcast."
Yet it all began unremarkably
at a little past 8:00
in the east, a Sunday evening
like any other in America,
with dinners being finished,
dishes washed,
and radios across the country
turned on more or less
in unison.
(channels tuning in and out)
ANNOUNCER: The Columbia
Broadcasting System
and its affiliated stations
present Orson Welles
and the Mercury Theater
on the air in
The War of the Worlds
by H.G. Wells.
(theme music playing)
Ladies and gentlemen, the
director of the Mercury Theater
and the star of these
broadcasts, Orson Welles.
WELLES". We know now that in the
early years of the 20th century,
this world was being watched
closely by intelligences
greater than man's,
yet as mortal as his own.
We know now that as human
beings busied themselves
about their various concerns...
NARRATOR: It was October
30, the eve of Halloween,
a night known variously
as Mischief Night,
Devil's Night, Hell Night.
A night that for some 200 years
had unleashed
all manner of trickery
on the unsuspecting.
On this night, in 1938,
it would also unleash
the pent-up anxieties
of a nation.
INTERVIEWER:
Now, Miss Hoadley.
Yes?
INTERVIEWER: Can you describe
the events that happened to you
on the evening of the broadcast?
Of course, yes.
Well, returning that evening
from a delightful Vesper service
and a 62-cent dinner at Huylers,
it was delicious,
I changed into my housecoat
and prepared to shorten
my velvet skirt.
Automatically, I reached out
and turned on the radio.
ANNOUNCER: The makers of
Chase and Sanborn Coffee,
the superb blend you know
is fresh, present...
NARRATOR: Of the tens of
millions of Americans
listening to their radios
at 8:00 that Sunday evening,
few were tuned
to The War of The Worlds.
The big draw on the airwaves
that night
was a ventriloquist act:
Edgar Bergen and his
wooden dummy, Charlie McCarthy,
the improbable stars
of NBC's hit variety show,
The Chase and Sanborn Hour.
McCARTHY:♪ A haunting we will
go, a haunting we will go.♪
BERGEN: Hey Charlie,
the word is hunting.
McCARTHY: Well, not on
Halloween it ain't.
(laughter)
BERGEN: Thanks Charlie, but we'll
let Nelson Eddy do the singing.
And ifs the rousing,
rip-roaring
song of the vagabonds...
NARRATOR: But when the opening
comedy routine gave way
to a musical interlude,
millions of listeners
began twirling the dial.
SUSAN DOUGLAS: There was
something called dial twisting-
you know, the radio equivalent
of channel surfing
with the remote.
So people turned the dial...
(different channels tuning in
and out)
And this is just when things
are starting to heat up in The
War of the Worlds broadcast.
They missed the beginning,
they missed the announcement
that this was a play.
(theme music playing)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
we interrupt our program
of dance music to bring you
a special bulletin
from the Intercontinental
Radio News.
At 20 minutes before 8:00,
Central time,
Professor Farrell of the
Mount Jennings Observatory,
Chicago, Illinois, reports
observing several explosions
of incandescent gas,
occurring at regular intervals
on the planet Mars.
The spectroscope indicates
the gas to be hydrogen
and moving toward the earth
with enormous velocity.
MOODY: All of a sudden. a
startling announcement,
professor so and so from
Princeton University
had just observed
several explosions
on the planet Mars shooting out
great jets of blue flame
traveling at a rapid speed
toward Earth.
ANNOUNCER: ...new nearer home
comes a special bulletin
from Trenton, New Jersey.
It is reported that at 8:50
p.m., a huge, flaming object,
believed to be a meteorite,
fell on a farm
in the neighborhood
of Grovers Mill, New Jersey,
22 miles from Trenton.
We have dispatched commentator
Carl Phillips to the scene...
MOODY: Then, suddenly another
announcement, a news bulletin.
MAN: This is Carl Philips out at
the Wilmuth Farm, Grovers Mill...
A farmer in Grovers Mill,
New Jersey,
had reported a meteor
had fallen on his farm.
INTERVIEWER:
And what did he say about it?
He describes a hissing sound
and a streak of greenish light
that hit the earth
with such force it knocked him
from his chair.
So I got the story just when
the radio announcer
was asking the fellow
in New Jersey what it felt like
seeing what happened
in his back yard.
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
you've just heard Mr. Wilmuth,
owner of the farm where
this thing has fallen.
I wish I could convey
the atmosphere,
the background of this
fantastic scene.
Hundreds of cars are parked
in a field in back of us.
Police are trying to rope off
the roadway
leading into the farm,
but it's no use.
POWERS:
The realism got me.
I didn't know then
it was a play,
so I swallowed the whole thing
as it came over the air,
like a new national emergency
or something.
NARRATOR: By now, Americans were
highly attuned to the sound of crisis.
Nearly ten years had passed
since the economic collapse
had pulled the rug out
from under the country,
leaving millions stunned
at their empty pockets
and their bare cupboards
and their new lives
of ceaseless worry.
T.J. JACKSON LEARS:
You have the stock market crash
followed by mass unemployment,
followed by horrendous
bank failures,
bank failures by the hundreds.
Let me assert my firm belief
that the only thing
we have to fear
is fear itself...
LEARS: FDR recognized how
terrified people were
when the bottom dropped out.
ROOSEVELT: . . . nameless ,
unreasoning , unjustified terror,
which paralyzes needed efforts
to convert retreat into advance.
LEARS: He brilliantly saw that
the dominant mood of the country
in the 1930s was not anger
and not resentment
at the capitalist system
or at the bosses
who had laid people off
in record numbers,
but in fact was shame and fear,
more especially fear.
NARRATOR: In the free fall
of the Great Depression,
radio had become a lifeline,
occupying pride of place
in nearly 80%
of American homes by 1938.
Out-of-work Americans
fell behind on the payments
for their cars
and their washing machines.
They gave up their telephones.
But they kept on buying radios
by the millions.
RADIO BULLETIN: We interrupt our
normal schedule briefly to bring you
a special bulletin from
the Press Radio Bureau.
NARRATOR: In recent years, much of
what had drifted through the ether
and into their living rooms
had been bad news.
RADIO BULLETIN: ---the worst storm
in years along the Eastern seaboard
has taken a death toll
estimated at more
than 200 lives.
Untold damages...
NARRATOR: ...stories so
unprecedented and unsettling
they were nearly impossible
to believe,
and yet they were true.
RADIO BULLETIN: The sympathy of the
world goes out to Colonel' Lindbergh
and his devoted wife
in their supreme anguish
at the kidnapping
of their baby son,
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
NARRATOR: They had heard one
eyewitness account after another...
RADIO BULLETIN:
The United Press has tabulated
97 deaths in the 14 flood-swept
states.
NARRATOR: ...disaster after disaster,
and then that terrible accident
in May 1937, when a German
passenger airship,
the Hindenburg, had been
consumed by fire in New Jersey.
ANNOUNCER:
It's burst into flames!
Get this, Scotty!
Get this, Scotty!
It's crashing, terrible!
Oh my, get out of the way,
please.
Ifs burning and bursting
into flames and the...
and it's falling
on the mooring mast.
And all the folks agree
that this is terrible;
this is the one of the worst
catastrophes in the world.
Oh, ifs crashing
to the ground.
Oh, the humanity
and all the passengers...
NARRATOR: And all the
while, in the background,
had been the steady,
ominous drumbeat of war.
RADIO BULLETIN: President
Roosevelt again appeals to Hitler
to preserve peace.
This bulletin is from
the Press Radio...
LEARS: Even worse is what's
beginning to happen abroad,
in the sense that we're not only
threatened
from within our shores,
we're threatened from across
the ocean too.
ANNOUNCER: In Germany, Adolf Hitler
defies the Treaty of Versailles...
NARRATOR:
For 18 days in September 1938,
the airwaves were dominated
by news from Europe,
as Hitler's threats to expand
German territory provoked
a standoff known
as the Munich Crisis,
and pushed the world
to the brink of war.
ANNOUNCER: Hitler has
demanded 11,000 square miles
of Czechoslovakian territory...
DOUGLAS: People were getting up in
the morning listening to Hitler,
you now, foaming at the mouth...
and they would be doing
simultaneous translations
of what Hitler was saying.
News bulletins began to get
more frequent,
Americans by September of 1938
were absolutely used to
news bulletin interruptions,
and it actually made radio
really compelling.
ANNOUNCER: Czechoslovakia will not
yield even though Hitler's armies
should come crashing across the
border before Wednesday night.
LEARS: We are Americans, and we
want to believe that we're going
to be exempt from all of these
tragic conflicts
that are enveloping Europe.
But we also sense the likelihood
that we'll be swept up in them,
too.
ANNOUNCER: ...populaces are
being given gas masks...
LEARS: So, this is a period
of not only great fear
and anxiety but foreboding,
foreboding about the future
and what the future will bring.
ANNOUNCER: Europe's most anxious
days since the World War...
NARRATOR: It had been barely a
month since the Munich Crisis,
a month of uneasy
and profoundly uncertain peace.
And now, from some obscure
hamlet in New Jersey, came this.
ANNOUNCER: We are bringing
you an eyewitness account
of what's happening
on the Wilmuth farm,
Grovers Mill, New Jersey.
MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, this
is the most terrifying thing
I have ever witnessed!
Something wriggling out of the
shadow like a gray snake.
Now it's another one, and
another one and another one.
They look like tentacles to me.
HOADLEY: And before I knew
it, strange creatures
were wafting out of the thing
and they were spraying the crowd
with light rays and the people
were emitting--
no, bellowing--
agonizing noises,
and Phil was screaming
into the mic.
ANNOUNCER: A humped shape
is rising out of the pit.
I can make out a small beam
of light against a mirror.
Wait a minute,
somethings happening.
There's a jet of flame
springing from that mirror,
and it leaps right
at the advancing men.
Good Lord, they're turning
into flame!
(screaming)
Now the whole field's caught
on fire the woods, the barns,
the gas tanks
of the automobiles--
We spreading everywhere.
It's coming this way now,
about 20 yards to my right...
(radio goes silent)
PETER BOGDANOVICH:
The mic went dead.
Silence.
Orson was standing in the middle
of the broadcasting studio
and he just went like that--
hold it--
and he held the pause
for the longest time.
Just, like that.
NARRATOR: It was an inspired
moment for Orson Welles,
the 23-year-old director
of Mercury Theater on the Air.
Standing at the podium
in Studio One, on the 20th floor
of the Columbia Broadcasting
Service in New York City,
with ten actors and a 27-piece
orchestra eagerly awaiting
their next cue, Welles opted
for deafening silence.
BOGDANOVICH:
Orson was probably the greatest
director of radio
and the most innovative.
I mean, he broke all the rules
that didn't even exist.
NARRATOR:
In theatrical circles,
Welles was already widely
considered a major talent.
MAN: There 's no time
to think, Margo,
I'm going to investigate.
NARRATOR: As an actor, he'd
racked up an impressive roster
of radio roles-- appearing,
often anonymously,
in as many as 25 different
programs a week.
MAN: Remember, The Shadow
has never failed you yet.
NARRATOR: Listeners who recognized
his voice likely knew him
as The Shadow,
the enigmatic crimefighter
who was said to possess
the power to cloud men's minds.
WELLES". You maneuvered your
submarine alongside this ship,
just as I planned.
(cackles)
NARRATOR: But it was as a stage
director that he'd made his big splash,
mounting a string
of stunning successes
for the New Deal
Federal Theater Project.
Tyrant, show thy face!
NARRATOR:
Welles' version of Macbeth--
set in Haiti with
an all-black cast,
and performed on a stage
in Harlem-- had earned him
a reputation as both prodigy
and provocateur.
Or, as Time magazine put it,
"the brightest moon
over Broadway."
Now, with his producing partner
John Houseman,
Welles had brought
his unique sensibilities
to the Mercury Theater
on the Air,
a CBS-sponsored hour
featuring radio adaptations
of popular literary works.
ANNOUNCER: The Columbia Network
is proud to give Orson Welles
the opportunity to bring
to the air those same qualities
of vitality and imagination
that have made him
the most talked of theatrical
director in America today.
PAUL HEYER: The idea for War
Of The Worlds actually came
from Welles himself,
who thought this would make
a very interesting radio drama.
His co-producer John Houseman
did not think so,
but Orson told Houseman,
"This is one of my favorite
stories.
I'm a great admirer
of H.G. Wells."
Houseman kind of rolled his eyes
a bit and suspected Welles
had never read the story
but just thought,
"Well, it's an idea
and let's see if it flies."
NARRATOR: In his novel, published
in 1898, British writer H.G. Wells
had woven a terrifying tale
of destruction,
in which Martian invaders
wreaked havoc
upon the English countryside.
For the Mercury adaptation,
Orson Welles had directed
his writer, Howard Koch,
to shift the setting
to the United States.
HEYER: Koch thought this was
a job that was impossible.
He didn't welcome it.
He wanted to do something else,
but, again,
Welles was insistent.
NARRATOR:
On Monday-- seven days before
the broadcast was slated
to air--
a panicked Koch stopped
at a gas station while driving
along the Hudson River,
bought a map of New Jersey,
and later
with his eyes closed
picked out a spot
for the Martian landing.
HEYER: Grovers Mill, New Jersey,
that's where the Martians
were gonna land.
And, today Grovers Mill
is probably one of the most
famous places in America
for a historical event
that never really happened.
NARRATOR: Over the next several
days, with constant badgering
from Houseman, Koch hammered out
the draft script.
And on Thursday, a full company
rehearsal was recorded
to wax disc for Welles.
The disk was hand-delivered
to him at the St. Regis Hotel,
since, as usual,
his frantic schedule
prevented him from
paying attention
to the week's broadcast
until the proverbial 11th hour.
It was 1:00 or 2:00
in the morning on Friday,
fewer than 72 hours before
they went live on the air,
when Welles finally heard
the show and declared it
abysmally dull.
CHRIS WELLES FEDER: So at the original
meeting for The War of the Worlds,
everyone's opinion was,
"Oh, this is going to be so
boring, it's so old fashioned,
"nobody is going to...
what can we do to juice it up,
make it more exciting?"
NARRATOR: Earlier that evening,
Welles had happened to catch
a CBS broadcast of a play
by Archibald MacLeish
entitled Air Raid.
MAN:
There's the siren, the signal,
they've picked him up
at the border.
NARRATOR: The story was fiction,
but the form mimicked the style
of a breaking news flash.
MAN: We've got them
now, we see them,
they're out of the dazzle.
They're flying...
fighting formation in column.
Squadron following squadron,
ten, 15 squadrons;
bombing models, mostly.
DOUGLAS: They're slaving over
this War of the Worlds script
and they're trying to figure out
how to bring it to life
and then they come up with the
idea of using news bulletins.
Why not?
It's one month after
the Munich Crisis.
These news bulletins
were common fodder on the radio
and Welles picked up on that.
ANNOUNCER: This bulletin is
from the Press Radio Bureau.
HEYER: People are on pins
and needles as we are today
every time we see
"We interrupt this program
to bring you a special
news bulletin."
People worried that this
could be serious.
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
here is a bulletin from Trenton.
I mean the concern that this
was going to be some boring,
old-fashioned,
dusty museum piece,
they certainly went to the other
extreme, didn't they?
NARRATOR: On Friday, after
hours of frantic re-writing,
the script was delivered to the
CBS legal department for review.
Fearing liability
for defamation,
network attorneys
flatly prohibited the use
of real names for individuals
and organizations,
and requested no fewer
than 28 changes.
Finally, Sunday came.
At the afternoon
dress rehearsal,
Welles focused on ramping up
the program's realism,
tinkering with the dialogue,
pacing, and music cues.
Meanwhile, actor Frank Readick--
slated to play the part
of the on-the-spot reporter
Carl Phillips--
went down to the CBS
record library
and, for inspiration, listened
to the eyewitness account
of the Hindenburg accident
again and again.
HERBERT MORRISON:
It's burst into flames!
Get this, Scotty!
Get this, Scotty!
It's crashing!
It's crashing, terrible.
Oh my, get out of the way,
please.
It's burning and bursting into
flames and it's falling...
PHILLIPS: Good Lord, they're
turning into flame!
Now the whole field's caught
on fire-- the woods, the barns,
the gas tanks
of the automobiles--
We spreading everywhere.
It's coming this way now,
about 20 yards to my right...
(radio silence)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and
gentlemen, due to circumstances
beyond our control,
we are unable to continue
the broadcast
from Grovers Mill.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me the
most frightening moment for you?
The awful silence
of the broadcaster.
I presumed he had fallen
with the dead
because he stayed to witness
the awful sight
until the last moment,
at his own risk,
to do his duty and be of service
to the world.
Well, the organ music
had just started
when it was cut off
and this voice was saying,
"The cylinder lies
in a deep crater.
"No signs of life evident.
Blackened corpses
are strewn about."
Well, my lower jaw's down
on my chest
and I'm baring my ears out
to assure I'm hearing right.
ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentleman,
I have a grave announcement
to make.
Incredible as it may seem,
both the observations of
science
and the evidence of our eyes
lead to the inescapable
assumption
that those strange beings
who landed
in the Jersey farmlands tonight
are the vanguard of an invading
army from the planet Mars.
HEYER: When it actually
emerged during the broadcast
that this was
a Martian invasion,
some people found
that completely implausible
and decided this was
a radio drama.
Other people thought,
"Well, maybe, maybe there
is intelligent life on Mars
and this is them coming
to eat us, literally."
My neighbor came to the door
excitedly.
"Come quickly," she said,
"there's something on the radio
I want you to hear."
"What is it about?" I asked.
I was starting to get curious.
"Mars men," came her reply.
That was her reply.
"Mars men," she said.
I was still skeptical,
but not for long.
Hasn't science proved
that there is life on Mars,
through their observations?
ERIC RABKIN: In 1938, the vast
majority of people didn't live
with light pollution.
They could walk out
of their house at night
and they could look up
in the sky.
And for those of us who have
looked up in the sky,
Mars has always been unique
because its color is there.
NARRATOR: Visible as an eerie
red glow, Mars had inspired
perplexed fascination
for centuries.
ROBERT CROSSLEY: Mars is just
far enough away from the Earth
that we can see it pretty well.
You were able to see enough
to get a sense that maybe
this was an Earth-like planet,
but you couldn't see
quite enough to be sure
what was there.
So there was an intriguing sense
of mystery about the planet.
NARRATOR: In the early
1900s, the speculation
had turned frenzied,
sparked by astronomer Giovanni
Schiaparelli's observation
of faint geometric lines
crisscrossing
the planet's surface.
Schiaparelli called them canali,
Italian for "channels,"
which was mistranslated
as "canals."
CROSSLEY: Once canali got
translated into English as canals,
it brought along all the baggage
that we associate with canals
and particularly
in the 19th century,
which was a canal-building
century.
It's a word that inherently
suggests engineering.
If there are canals,
there must be canal builders.
NARRATOR: Even as most
scientists dismissed it,
the idea of an industrious
Martian race
captured imaginations around
the world, fueling wild theories
and filtering into fiction,
popular song and film.
MAN:
It's no use, Flash.
MAN: You mean we are
going to crash on Mars?
Look Doc, we're heading
straight into the beam.
NARRATOR: As recently as 1924, the U.S.
Army Signal Corps
had asked radio stations
across the country to shut down
so that its engineers might
listen for signals
from the Red Planet.
And just three days before
the War of the Worlds broadcast,
the Christian Science Monitor
had run a statement
by a prominent Scandinavian
astronomer,
confirming the existence
of "living things... on Mars."
RABKIN: Mars kept popping
up again and again.
So, by the time Martians
are reported to come down
outside of New York City
in 1938,
it's not as if Mars isn't
something
that people could imagine.
ANNOUNCER: We take you now
to field headquarters
of the state militia
near Grovers Mill, New Jersey.
MAN: This is Captain Lansing
of the Signal Corps attached
to the state militia now
engaged in military operations
in the vicinity
of Grovers Mill.
Cylindrical object lies
in a pit
directly below our position,
surrounded on all sides
by eight battalions
of infantry.
Looks almost like a real war.
NARRATOR: By a quarter
past 8:00 Eastern time,
telephones were ringing madly
all across the country,
as concerned Americans tried
to determine the whereabouts
of relatives, warn friends
and acquaintances,
and, most of all, corroborate
what they were hearing.
A what?
Wait a minute.
NARRATOR: For the next several
hours, newspapers, radio stations
and police precincts
from coast to coast
would be swamped with calls.
Well, I can't help that ma'am,
we just don't know
anything about it.
Did I say something about
a quiet Sunday evening?
What's going on anyway?
NARRATOR: Soon, strange
bulletins began coming in
over the press service wires.
In Bergenfield, New Jersey,
just north of Grovers Mill,
some 20 families turned up
at a police station,
with all of their household
possessions
piled into their cars.
In Indianapolis,
a woman rushed the pulpit
in a Methodist church,
shouting that the end
of the world had come.
And in Washington state,
a spectacularly ill-timed
power failure plunged
the small town of Concrete
into darkness and sent
terrified residents
fleeing into the mountains.
ANNOUNCER: The battle which took
place tonight at Grover Mills
has ended in one of
the most startling defeats
ever suffered by an army
in modern times;
7,000 men armed with rifles
and machine guns pitted against
a single fighting machine
of the invaders from Mars.
120 known survivors.
HAYDEN:
Well, my wife she came in,
my wife, just wringing her hands
and wailing away,
her eyeballs about to pop out
onto her lap going,
"What is it?
"What is it?
"What could it be?
Is it the Germans?"
Well, she hadn't heard that word
"Martians," but I had.
ANNOUNCER: ...a brief statement
informing us that the charred body
of Carl Phillips
has been identified
in a Trenton hospital.
DAVID ROPEIK: We think
that we're really smart,
but if there's a cue out there
that could possibly
be dangerous,
we're going to react to it
protectively, autonomically,
instinctively.
Fear first,
and reason and fact second.
ANNOUNCER: The central portion
of New Jersey is blacked out...
ROPEIK: And a stressed
people back in those days
by the Depression and talk
of war and so forth
is already pre-wired to be more
sensitive to danger signals.
Those drums are already beating.
ANNOUNCER: The rest strewn
over the battle area
from Grovers Mill
to Plainsboro,
crushed and trampled to death
under the metal feet
of the monster,
or burned to cinders
by its heat ray.
Their apparent objective
is to crush resistance,
paralyze communication
and disorganize human society.
We all felt it was the end
of the world.
It was a wonder my heart
didn't fail me,
because I'm nervous anyway.
So I just ran out the house.
I guess I didn't know
what I was doing.
I kept saying over and over
again to everybody I met:
"Don't you know?
New Jersey is destroyed by
the Germans; it's on the radio."
Alien, army, invader,
in the late '30s,
was quickly translatable
from Martian to German.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: The German
army crossed into Austria...
ROPEIK: Because we default
to what we already know.
We've developed
these mental shortcuts.
We search our mental files
of what we already know
to see what it represents.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Hitler liked
to start invasions on weekends.
It was a way he said of catching
other nations napping.
ROPEIK: And those clues,
they used all this language
in the first few minutes
of the broadcast.
We're very powerfully controlled
by these things.
They're mostly subconscious.
They're mostly not a matter
of free will.
ANNOUNCER: The monster is now in
control of the middle section
of New Jersey
and has effectively cut
the state through its center.
Communication lines are down
from Pennsylvania
to the Atlantic Ocean.
Railroad tracks are torn
and service from New York
to Philadelphia is
discontinued.
When I got home,
I woke my nephew up.
I looked in the icebox
and saw some chicken
left from Sunday dinner.
I said to my nephew, "We may
as well eat this chicken.
We won't be here
in the morning."
ANNOUNCER: Highways to the north,
south and west are clogged
with frantic human traffic.
NARRATOR: The clock in Studio
One now read half past eight.
Over the previous 12 minutes,
Welles and his company
had killed Carl Phillips,
slaughtered the militia
in New Jersey, and unleashed
a full-scale Martian invasion
of the United States.
HEYER: One of the unbelievable
things about the first part
of the broadcast is how quickly
everything happened.
We know today that would
never happen that quickly,
the Army ready in 15 minutes
and so on,
but Welles set people up
for this by the pacing.
And people suspended
their disbelief.
The Svengali effect Welles
had of hypnotizing
millions of people over the
airwaves made things appear
as if they were taking place
in real time.
NARRATOR:
With the crisis at its peak,
actor Kenneth Delmar stepped
up close to the mic,
and, as Welles had directed,
delivered his best impersonation
of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
DELMAR: Citizens of the nation:
I shah' not try to conceal
the gravity of the situation
that confronts the country,
nor the concern of your
government in protecting...
HEYER:
People knew that voice.
And even though this voice
was announced
as the Secretary of the
Interior, people said,
"We heard the president.
We heard the president."
It was a case of,
in their moment of anxiety,
the non-verbal overwhelming
the verbal.
NARRATOR:
Midway through Delmar's speech,
a telephone rang
in the control room.
The CBS supervisor in charge
of the broadcast took the call
and hurried out of the studio.
When he returned
a few moments later,
as John Houseman recalled,
he was "pale as death."
Network executives had ordered
the broadcast be interrupted
with an identifying station
break at once.
The CBS switchboards
were overwhelmed;
listeners had to be told
it was only a play.
Welles was then at the mic,
the room was his,
and at that point in the show,
there was no stopping him.
ANNOUNCER: Newark, New Jersey,
Newark, New Jersey...
Warning!
Poisonous black smoke pouring
in from Jersey marshes.
BROWN:
My mouth, my mouth dropped open
as I listened
to the incoming announcements.
The familiar names of cities:
Bayonne,
and then New York
and New Jersey cut off.
Gas masks are useless.
Men are dropping like flies.
ANNOUNCER: New York City, the
bells you hear are ringing
to warn people to evacuate
the city as Martians approach.
Estimated in last two hours
three million people
have moved out along the roads.
I had become so frightened
that I began to cry.
I immediately ran downstairs,
and grabbed my mother,
my coat and key.
I kept coughing and crying,
"Mother, we are all going to die
tonight.
"Mother, the black smoke
is getting the best of me,
can't you smell it too?"
And over and over in my mind
these facts kept racing:
take highways to open spaces,
keep cool and calm,
and beware of gas.
ANNOUNCER:
Warning!
Poisonous black smoke pouring
in from Jersey marshes.
Earth's population move
into open spaces.
Bob, turn around, go back.
Go back, Bob,
I want to go home.
ANNOUNCER:
Avoid congested areas.
ROPEIK:
They could smell smoke.
They could hear things.
They could see things.
This sounds so irrational,
wacky, dumb.
It's not.
It is, if you think
that the brain
is this perfectly rational
organ.
That's not how the brain works.
It takes the facts,
it runs them through feelings,
and it comes up with judgments.
And the feelings of fear
have a very powerful, visceral,
physical effect
on people's perceptions.
ANNOUNCER: Martian cylinders are
falling all over the country.
One outside of Buffalo,
one in Chicago,
St. Louis, seem to be timed
and spaced...
DOUGLAS: There were listeners
who looked out their windows
and if they saw a lot of cars
on the street, they were like,
"Oh my God, everybody
is getting out of here.
We better get out of here too."
There were people who looked
out at the streets
and the streets were empty
and were like,
"Oh my God, everybody
has already left,
we better get out of here."
I insisted to Mr. Zimmer
that we drive anywheres.
Either into the phenomenons
or away from them
if that were possible.
I grabbed my picture albums.
I guess I figured I could
show them to St. Peter,
like "before and after"
pictures, cause I figured
when I saw him,
I'd just be a charred piece.
We at this point had begun
to measure our time on earth
in a matter of a few hours,
and then we changed
to a special broadcast from
a cathedral in New York City,
describing five war machines
that had lined up
on the Hudson River preparing
to destroy the city.
The streets are jammed,
the bridges crowded,
people jumping into the river
like rats.
ANNOUNCER:
It's reached Times Square.
People are trying to run away
from it but it's no use...
they are falling like flies...
NARRATOR: At 42 minutes past the
hour, Welles finally delivered
the station break--
a good ten minutes after CBS
had demanded it.
ANNOUNCER: You are listening
to a CBS presentation
of Orson Welles
and the Mercury Theater on Air
in an original dramatization...
NARRATOR: Of course, many
who had been listening
were at that point
otherwise occupied.
FEDER: By the time the second half
of the show rolled on the air,
people were packing their bags,
jumping into their cars,
heading for the hills,
so I don't know how many people
actually heard the second half.
I would think not many.
ANNA FARRELL: My sister and I
started out for Long Island.
And we hailed a cab
and then we went to a cafe
near 52nd on 8th Avenue.
And I told the bartender
about the end of the world.
He tried to calm the pair of us
down by saying,
"Well, if the end
of the world is here,
why not take it with a smile?"
And we did!
We had a scotch highball
a piece.
(chuckles)
We felt good that we were gonna
die around a few men.
Then we had the second one.
(chuckles)
Then at that time,
we knew the Lord had sent us
to the right place.
(laughs)
INTERVIEWER:
Indeed.
ANNOUNCER". I thought that I may
be the last living man on Earth.
NARRATOR: As Welles ran out the
broadcast, the deluge of calls continued
to light up switchboards
across the country.
In some quarters,
there were even vague reports
of suicides
and panic-related deaths.
WELLES". This is Orson Welles,
ladies and gentlemen,
out of character to assure you
that The War of The Worlds
has no further significance
than as the holiday offering
it was intended to be:
the Mercury Theatre 's own radio
version of dressing up
in a sheet and jumping out
of a bush and saying, "Boo!"
My wife and I were driving
through the redwood forest
in Northern California
when the broadcast came over
our car radio.
I forgot we were low on gas.
In the middle of the forest,
our gas ran out.
There was nothing to do.
We just sat there holding hands,
expecting any minute
to see those Martian monsters
appear over the tops
of the trees.
All we could think of was
to try and get back
to Los Angeles to see
our children once more.
When Orson said it was
a Halloween prank,
it was like being reprieved
on the way to the gas chamber.
It was 11:00
when we heard it announced
that it was only a play.
(chuckles)
It sure felt good, just like
a burden had been lifted off.
(sighs)
NARRATOR: At CBS, meanwhile, the
ordeal was only just beginning.
HEYER: Immediately after the
broadcast the studio was inundated
with police,
and news reporters,
and they cornered Welles
and his co-producer,
John Houseman, and made it seem
like the events
were more serious:
"Do you know about all those
deaths on the highway
as people were leaving
New Jersey?"
And they thought they were gonna
be put into prison.
NARRATOR: "The following
hours were a nightmare,"
Houseman would later say.
"We were hurried
out of the studio, downstairs,
"into a back office.
"There we sat incommunicado
while network employees
"were busily collecting,
destroying, or locking up
all scripts and records
of the broadcast."
By the next morning,
October 31,
the Panic Broadcast
was front-page news
from coast to coast, with
reports of traffic accidents,
near-riots, hordes of panicked
people in the streets--
all because of a radio play.
FLORENCE ROHM:
It was like in a packed theater
and an announcement was made
that the theater was afire.
Something like that would lead
to the arrest and imprisonment
of somebody.
I don't know if that program
violated any set laws,
but it certainly was an example
of "Wolf! Wolf!"
NARRATOR: On Capitol Hill,
Iowa Senator Clyde Herring
called for legislation
to create a national board
of radio censors.
And the chief of the Federal
Communications Commission
ordered an investigation
into CBS's conduct.
Worse still, though it had been
mere hours since the broadcast,
the network had received scores
of outraged complaints,
and some were forecasting
a flood of lawsuits
soon to follow.
I've had almost no sleep
and I know less about
this than you do.
I haven't read the papers.
NARRATOR: With contrition the
only sensible card to play,
CBS executives hastily convened
a press conference.
Of course we are deeply shocked
and deeply regretful
about the results
of last night's broadcast.
HEYER: The press conference was
one of Welles' great performances
as an actor.
And he knew that his whole
career was on the line here.
So he knew that he had
to do something
and show that he was sincere,
which, according to Houseman,
he wasn't that sincere.
He was pretty pleased
with what he had unleashed
with the broadcast.
Do you think there ought
to be a law against
such enactments as we had
last night, as a result of that?
I don't know what
the legislation would be.
I know that almost everybody
in radio would do
almost anything to avert the
kind of thing that has happened,
myself included.
NARRATOR: Pale and unshaven-
"Looking," as he later put it,
"like an early
Christian saint"-
Welles was masterful
in his astonishment.
FEDER: You know, when somebody
is as smart as my father was,
it was very difficult for him
to understand
how anyone could fall for this.
How could they?
MAN: Do you think you might have
taken advantage of the public?
I simply don't know.
I can't imagine an invasion
from Mars would find
ready acceptance.
I was...
FEDER: At the moment that he
was shocked and dismayed,
he was also aware that suddenly
his name was on the front page
of every newspaper all over
the world,
that overnight he had become
internationally famous
as a result of this broadcast.
I don't think he was sorry
about that.
NARRATOR: For Welles, the
only tangible consequence
of the entire episode would come
in the form of a reward.
BOGDANOVICH: Orson said, "We
always thought it was one
of our lesser shows."
(laughs)
Of course it scared
half the country,
but what happened as far as
the show was concerned,
the Mercury Theatre on the Air
finally got a sponsor.
HEYER:
Eventually Campbell Soup came in
and it became
the Campbell Playhouse.
If Orson Welles could sell
millions of people on the idea
of a Martian invasion,
imagine what he could do
for Campbell Soup.
FEDER: The War Of The World broadcast
was really the turning point
in my father's career because
before the broadcast,
he had been known in New York
as a theater director.
He had been known
as a radio personality,
but he was not
an international star.
And suddenly Hollywood
was after him in a big way.
NARRATOR: Welles deftly
parlayed his notoriety
into an unprecedented
Hollywood deal,
signing a contract
with RKO Studios to write,
produce, direct and star
in one film a year.
The groundbreaking Citizen Kane
would soon follow.
FEDER: When the Hollywood studios
originally approached my father,
they wanted him to replicate
in a movie the War Of The Worlds
radio broadcast.
But of course once my father
got to Hollywood,
the last thing he wanted to do
was to make a movie
based on the War Of The Worlds.
He wanted to do something new
and fresh.
He was very excited
about this new medium.
NARRATOR: The War of the Worlds
would remain a defining moment
for Orson Welles,
and for the nation
he'd scared out of its wits.
BROWN:
Sincerely, when I hear
a news bulletin coming
over the radio,
in the future I shall say,
"Gerta, this is just another one
of Orrie Welles' hallucinations,
you know, think nothing of it,"
whereupon I shall definitely
be soothed.
NARRATOR: In the wake
of the Panic Broadcast,
thousands of ordinary Americans
wrote letters--
to the FCC, to CBS,
and to Welles himself--
offering praise
for the program.
HOADLEY: Gentlemen, an orchid
to you, and to all the cast
of War of the Worlds.
Also, shame on you for giving me
the scare of my life.
WOMAN: Let me congratulate
you on your broadcast.
MAN: Thanks again for
a wow of a thrill.
MAN 2:
More power to you.
WOMAN 2: ...the Martians'
visitation upon this earth
was a masterpiece of realism.
NARRATOR: ...as well as
bitter condemnation.
ROHM: ...a horrible prank to play
on innocent, unsuspecting people.
MOODY:
...a very grave mistake...
ZIMMER: ...having spent the
most horrifying night...
HARRIS: It think the safest
place for you is Mars.
Take a rocket and get going.
LOUIS HEIDENRICH: For those
of us that love our country,
we don't want that kind of hoax
put over the air.
We want government-regulated
radio.
We are opposed to every
little city in this country
getting a radio station
and putting whatever they want
over the air.
We need a radio dictator.
NARRATOR: But what rankled many
was not the broadcast itself,
but what the reaction revealed
about the American people.
INTERVIEWER: So you yourself
did not believe the hoax?
No, those who were deceived
by dramatic reenactment would,
in an ideal society, be
sterilized and disenfranchised.
Such damn fools.
It shakes one's faith
in democracy to think
that such hysteria and panic
can affect those
who are supposed to vote
intelligently next week.
NARRATOR: It was a complaint
echoed in the newspaper coverage
of the broadcast,
which continued unabated
for two full weeks
and amounted to some 12,500
articles in total.
Over and over again, editorial
pages blamed the listener.
To journalist Dorothy Thompson,
who applauded Welles
in her widely read column,
the episode had cleverly proved
the power of propaganda.
As she put it,
"Hitler managed to scare all
Europe to its knees a month ago,
"but at least he had an army
and an air force to back up
"his shrieking words...
"Mr. Welles scared thousands
into demoralization
with nothing at all."
LEARS: Radio is able to
convey a single voice
to an enormous mass audience
where unprecedented numbers
of people can be addressed
at the same time,
for the same purpose,
to the same end,
by the same spellbinding orator.
And it remains to be seen what
the consequences of that may be.
In the working out
of a great national program...
LEARS: They may be as
benign as a fireside chat,
which whips up support
for Social Security,
or they may be
the Nuremberg rallies.
(cheers and applause)
Or they may simply be
the fearful family
huddled together around
the radio listening to reports
of the Munich Crisis or the men
from Mars landing in New Jersey.
ANNOUNCER: Scouting planes
report enemy machines
increasing speed northward,
kicking over houses and trees
in their evident haste...
LEARS: People who are
concerned about democracy
and about vigorous public debate
begin to think,
"This is scary, you know,
that propaganda can work
so effectively, and we Americans
have gotta figure out ways
to resist it, to create
institutions
that will resist it."
NARRATOR: In the end, all
the national hand-wringing
would come to nothing.
On December 5,
five weeks after the broadcast,
the FCC concluded
its investigation,
announcing,
to CBS's great relief,
that it would take no punitive
action against the network.
CBS, in fact, had voluntarily
promised restraint already,
making what amounted
to a gentleman's agreement
with the FCC to avoid the use
of dramatized,
simulated newscasts
in the future.
Of the many suits brought
against Welles and CBS,
meanwhile, none resulted
in the payment of damages.
Ultimately, the very extent
of the panic would come
to be seen as having been
exaggerated by the press.
But there was no disputing
that something had happened
that night in 1938--
and it would haunt the nation
for decades to come.
LEARS: It's such a key
moment in the history
of American emotional life
in the 1930s.
The atmosphere of fear
and anxiety,
the longing for reassurance,
but the sense that at any moment
destruction might come
from the sky, come from abroad,
or come from within
this country,
I think the War Of The Worlds
spoke directly to those fears
and anxieties.
The reaction wasn't just
entertainingly irrational.
I think it's hard to fault
the people who overreacted
to the program.
The systems for survival
easily, readily, emotionally,
powerfully,
overwhelm the rational.
That's a really powerful
physical reality that came
from something that's intrinsic
in the human animal.
It's a truth about us all.
I know I will remember the night
of Sunday, October 30, 1938
for as long as I live.
And no one can share my feelings
because I cannot explain them.
(sighs)
But I hope that no one,
not even the worst of people,
ever feels the way I did
last night.
And I hope and pray that I never
hear anything like it again
because it was the most awful
thing I've ever heard.
WELLES". So goodbye everybody,
and remember, please,
for the next day or so
the terrible lesson
you learned tonight:
that grinning, glowing,
globular invader
of your living room
is an inhabitant
of the pumpkin patch,
and if your doorbell rings
and nobody's there,
that was no Martian.
It's Halloween.
"Dear Mr. Orson Welles,
enclosed please find a bill
"for the amount of $2.10,
which is for six highballs.
"Now don't get angry, I think
some one must give you a laugh.
"L will settle for a pair
of tickets to your theater
"or the Kate Smith hour.
"Isn't that fair enough?
(laughs)
"Respectfully,
Mrs. Anna Farrell.
"P.S. Have since given a laugh
to hundreds who did not hear
the broadcast and many who
still think we're nuts!"
(laughs)
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Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
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