Tapes on this page: 5 new, 1 already catalogued (R-1350 on REEL 1350. MERCURY THEATRE ON THE ...)
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REEL 1350. MERCURY THEATRE ON THE AIR
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "Treasure Island" 7/18/38 Host: Orson Wells
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "Tale of Two Cities" 7/25/38
(30) MERCURY THEATRE "Lost Horizons" w/Ronald Coleman 1939
(30) MERCURY THEATRE "The Count of Monte Cristo"
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "I'm a Fool" 8/8/38
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "The Man who was Thursday" 9/5/38
(30) MERCURY THEATRE "Moat Farm Murder" 1938
(25) MERCURY WONDER SHOW from the L.A. Port of Embarcation 1943
w/Lana Turner & Dr. Keenan Wynn
REEL 1351. MERCURY THEATRE ON THE AIR (1938)
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "Abraham Lincoln" (6lux) 8/15/38
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "Hell on Ice" 10/9/38
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "A Passenger to Bali" 11/13/38
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "Thirty-Nine Steps" Pgm. # 4, 7/22/38
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" 9/26/38
(60) MERCURY THEATRE "War of the World's" 10/30/38
'War of the Worlds'
Facts behind broadcast uncovered
"Run-Through, A Memoir,"
-by John Houseman; Simon & Schuster; Illustrated, 297 pp., $3.95
A really astonishing fact about Orson Welles' radio play of a Martian invasion wasn't that it panicked millions of Americans, but that it ever got on the air at all.
Another is that of law suits totaling more than $750,000 for damages ranging from mental anguish through injury to miscarriage, not one litigant from coast to coast ever collected a penny.
This inside stuff on the famous (or infamous) radio adaptation of "War of the Worlds," by H. G. Wells, comes from John Houseman, now a vigorous 74, who with Orson Welles was the play's co-producer.
Mercury Theater of the Air was at the bottom of the play barrel for its 17th weekly production in late October, 1938. The choice was between just extremely dreary version of "Lorna Doone" and "War-of the Worlds."
Houseman relates in "Run-Through" how he opted for the Martian piece, and turned it over to a adept and reliable script writer, Howard Koch.
Koch "slaved" three days to make something out of the Wells novel; then, late on a
Orson Welles
Anything But 'Lorna Doone'
Tuesday night (Sunday was play night), he frantically phoned Houseman and said he was ready to give up.
But anything rather than "Lorna Doone"; Houseman urged Koch to try again - but fast. Koch came through, and on Thursday came first rehearsal, and a record was cut for listening purposes.
Written Houseman:
"We listened to it rather gloomily... in Orson's room at (New York's) St. Regis ... He was dead tired and thought it was a dull show. We all agreed that its only chance of coming off (on Sunday night) lay in emphasizing its newscast style - its simultaneous eyewitness quality."
It was rehearsed again with sound effects Saturday night - without Welles, and the players left the studio. Welles phoned a few minutes later, got a sound man, and asked how it came out, Houseman relates. The sound man said it "just didn't come off."
Twenty seven hours later," Houseman continues, "quite a few of his employers would have found themselves a good deal happier if he had turned out to be right."
Sunday, Oct. 30, 8 p.m., in a Columbia Broadcasting System studio "littered with coffee cartons and sandwich paper, Orson swallowed a second container of pineapple juice, put on his earphones, raised his long, white fingers, and threw the cue for the Mercury (musical) theme ... 'War of the Worlds' was on the air. Writes Houseman:
"Within a few minutes, people all over the United States were praying, crying, fleeing frantically to escape death from the Martians. Some remembered to rescue loved ones, others telephoned farewells or warnings, hurried to inform neighbors, sought information from newspapers or radio stations, summoned ambulances and police cars."
Trouble was, Houseman says, that Mercury's play started off deceptively slowly; also that a poll showed only 3.6 percent of the listening audience tuned to Mercury, while 34.7 was tuned to Edgar Bergen and his ventriloquist stooge, Charlie McCarthy. Finally, Bergen, at 8:12 p.m. introduced "a new and not very popular singer." Radio dials were turned - most apparently to Welles Mercury Theater - but unfortunately in the middle of violent action without knowledge of the earlier explanatory matter.
Houseman blames two factors for the state of listeners' nerves: That the play came a month after the harrowing experiences of peace vs. war which brought the Munich "settlement"; and that the show's "sheer technical brilliance" was due in large part to the newly developed radio technique of breathless "on-the-spot" reporting. Thus the reality factor was radically heightened. ("I could have been carried off in no other medium but radio.") - Victor Wilson, Chicago Daily News.
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REEL 1352. ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE w/Riders of the Purple Sage
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Billy the Kid" (Tex Ritter) 1/10/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Missy goes West" (J. Rogers) 7/11/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Rose of San Antone" (J. Wakley) 8/18/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Back to Old Wyoming" (E. Dean) 9/1/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Dude Rance Serenade" (D. Evans) 9/8/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Clem Norman" (K. Curtis) 9/15/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Drifty" (Jennifer, Tim & Jack HOLT) (muffled) 9/22/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "Cowboy Dentist" (Smiley Burnette) 9/29/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "I came from Texas" (Tex Ritter) 10/13/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "The Man from Alabama" (J. M. Brown) 10/24/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "At Sundown" (A. Lane) 11/46
(30) ALL STAR WESTERN THEATRE "The Bandit" (Jackie Cooper) 11/46
REEL 1353. FORT LARAMIE w/Raymond Burr
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Playing Indian" 1/22/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Boatwright's Story" 1/29/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Squaw Man" 2/5/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Woman at Horse Creek" 2/12/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Captain's Widow" 2/26/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "The Shavetail" 3/4/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Hattie Pelfrey" 3/11/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "The Beasley Girls" 3/18/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "The Coward" 3/25/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "The Lost Child" 4/1/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Stagecoach Stop" 4/15/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "The New Recruit" 4/22/56
"The dramatic story of Lee Quince, Captain of Cavalry."
REEL 1354. FORT LARAMIE w/Raymond Burr
(30) FORT LARAMIE "The Capture" 4/29/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Never the Twain" 5/6/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "War Correspondent" 5/13/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Gold" 5/20/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Sargeant's a Baby" 5/27/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Don't kick my Horse" 6/3/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Young Trooper" 6/10/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Winter Soldier" 6/17/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Loving Cup" 6/24/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Trooper's Widow" 7/1/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Talented Recruits" 7/8/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Old Enemy" 7/15/56
REEL 1355. FORT LARAMIE w/Raymond Burr
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Spotted Tail Returns" 7/22/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Nature Boy" 7/29/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Massacre" 8/5/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Assembly Line" 8/12/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Goodbye Willa" 8/19/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Chaplain" 8/26/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Return of Hattie Pelfrey" 9/2/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Buffalo Hunters" 9/9/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "The Payroll" 9/16/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Small Beginning" 9/30/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Galvanized Yankee" 10/7/56
(30) FORT LARAMIE "Still Waters" 10/14/56