In 1938, kids had just come home from finding frogs and skipping rocks across the water. Mom had cooked supper, and it was sitting on the dining room table. Dad had changed his shoes into slippers and was reading the newspaper with a pipe in his mouth when a broadcast came over the radio.
That’s when all hell broke loose over The War of the Worlds.
Generations today most likely will only know Steven Spielberg’s 2005 sci-fi action film starring Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and Tim Robbins. It’s a great film about an alien invasion that sends the world into absolute terror. That terror was real in 1938, at least in the minds of everyone who heard the radio broadcast. It felt real. Hearts started beating. No one knew what to do. That’s because they made it seem so real in a time when the audience was so innocent, that they completely lost their minds.
Happy anniversary, Orson Welles!
A Martian invasion? That’s hilarious! What we know today is that there are no Martians, and Elon Musk is trying to populate Mars with humans. However, that doesn’t mean that there are no aliens. Are they out there? Have they already made contact? Are they nice or will they come to destroy us? All this and more in the next episode of…okay, moving on.
With eyes closed, listen as if the world is outside. The curtains are shut. An authoritative voice is giving a news announcement much like today when there’s a breaking story.
When historians look back on this, the news broadcast made it very clear that this was a story. They had commercials. They introduced the characters. They even introduced an orchestra. Seriously, if something real had been going down, a reporter wouldn’t have stopped to talk about the importance of hemorrhoid lotion.
It was an adaption of H. G. Wells’ novel, The War of the Worlds. Orson Welles thought he’d bring it to life by breaking through with a newscast that made a Martian invasion seem so real. People left their homes. They got in their cars and drove to safety, not knowing where safety was, or even looking around to see for themselves that absolutely nothing was happening. In their cars, they put the radio on to keep up to date on the Martian attack that was still just a dramatization.
Looking back and laughing on it now is easy. Welles did an amazing job, and that’s what entertainment is about. It’s not supposed to shove the nation into chaos, but it’s best when it’s believable, and he did that impressively.