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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2019 12:55:31 GMT
Just to get you in the mood for the new TV series on the BBC. It is really good.
Orson Welles - War Of The Worlds - Radio Broadcast 1938 - Complete Broadcast.
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds. The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated "news bulletins", which suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a 'sustaining show' (it ran without commercial breaks), thus adding to the program's quality of realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated. In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage. The program's news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode secured Orson Welles' fame.
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Post by yankee on Oct 7, 2019 13:22:47 GMT
Welles did tinker with the original story, changing the setting from Victorian London to present day America. I know purists generally don't like that sort of thing but in this particular case it worked very well and allows him to insert the innovative plot device of the radio news updates.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2019 13:29:31 GMT
I agree, it worked far better with the tinkering. It shows how tinkering should work. A lot of people tinker with works, and it fails miserably because they don't understand what they are working with, in this case, Orson Welles knew exactly what he was working with.
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