The Martians are Coming!: The True Story of Orson Welles' 1938 ...

The Martians are Coming!: The True Story of Orson Welles' 1938 Panic Broadcast
It was Halloween 1938 when twenty-three year-old Orson Welles fooled America into thinking it had been invaded by aliens. The Mercury Theatre on the Air production of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is one of the most talked-about radio broadcasts in history. The realistic retelling of Wells' original story resulted in mass panic across America. People ran into the streets screaming that the world was ending. Churches were emptied of their congregations, cinemas of their audiences, restaurants of their patrons. Panic-stricken families rushed to their cars and drove like lunatics in a bid to escape Martian annihilation. It seemed as if everyone in America knew about the 'invasion' that night, except of course the actors taking part in the live drama - they had no idea what was happening until the NYPD raided the recording studio. The Martians Are Coming! is the story of how a play that few people believed in came to be written, cast, rehearsed and finally broadcast to a credulous nation. Set against the background of America's economic depression and rumbles of another world war coming from across the Atlantic, the book sets The War of the Worlds in the context of what ordinary Americans were thinking and feeling on the night their world almost - but not quite - came to an end.
Community Reviews
The true story of the Orson Welles, Mercury Theatre production of HG Wells' The War of the Worlds on CBS radio in 1938 that led to panic in the New York and New Jersey areas, and resulted in real injuries, chaos and significant disturbances on the night which reverberated across the United States, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy and around the entire world. A wonderful true story that demonstrated the reach and power of radio in the 1930s... as well as the genius of the man Orson Welles. 7 out of 12
I first heard about the 1938 radio broadcast of The War of The Worlds through a 1975 (I think) TV movie called The Night That Panicked America. I first heard the actual many years later when it was given away as a gift by a magazine. It is hard to believe now that the show could possibly have caused such a furore, but this slim tome neatly lays out the perfect storm that caused it to happen.
There isn't too much history about the people who made it happen, partly because they were all in their early careers. There is just enough to introduce the characters. The background and the event itself are portrayed in a highly-readable and entertaining fashion, with lots of researched quotes and excerpts from contemporary reviews, newspaper articles and interviews, both archived and actual, with the people who made it happen.
And for anyone who thinks that it could never happen again, think about the furore about the BBC TV show Ghostwatch in 1992 or the rumours around the movie The Blair Witch Project in 1999, not to mention just about everything being said in politics around the world at the moment.
In a way, I'd have liked the book to be longer and to delve into the meaning of what happened and how it relates to today as much as it covers what happened in 1938, but what there is of it is well worth a read.
This is a fascinating history of the epic War of the Worlds radio broadcast. There were lots of facts I had never heard before. The author tells us what happened to each of the people involved with producing this broadcast. It also goes into detail about the effects of the broadcast around the country.