This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Halloween only days away, my thoughts turn to Grover’s Mill, the community located not far outside of Princeton, NJ, that became the focal point of Orson Welles’ notorious radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds.”
On October 30, 1938, Welles’ Mercury Theatre presented the classic’s dramatization after the manner of “breaking news,” with simulated live reports interrupting a program of regularly scheduled dance music. What the alleged reports described was chilling – a Martian invasion of rural America by hostile aliens bearing fiery weapons and poisonous gas. The whole story was authenticated, in real time, by a “Professor Richard Pierson of Princeton Observatory.”
Those who tuned in late or were only half-listening completely freaked out, and reacted in a manner unimaginable in an era of social media. Panicked mobs choked the streets, phone lines were jammed, and police flooded CBS Studios. Welles had dropped the biggest firecracker right in the middle of a United States already on edge, thanks to widespread access to radio reports of mounting tensions in Europe.
You might say Welles’ (and Wells’) fame skyrocketed. Orson Welles would match his early notoriety a few years later with his Hollywood debut, as producer, director, co-writer, and star of “Citizen Kane,” which inflamed William Randolph Hearst, while H.G. Wells’ novel has remained his most popular, the work having been adapted to film several times.
To mark the 85th anniversary of the radio broadcast and the 125th anniversary of the publication of the novel, we’ll hear music from a classic film, released 70 years ago, in 1953, produced by George Pal, with music by Leith Stevens; also, from the Steven Spielberg blockbuster, from 2005 (titled, simply, “War of the Worlds”), with music by John Williams.
The remainder of the hour will be devoted largely to other Wells creations, including “First Men in the Moon,” from 1964, with music by Laurie Johnson; “The Shape of Things to Come,” from 1936, with music by Arthur Bliss; and “The Time Machine,” from 1960, with music by Russell Garcia.
The capper will be a loosely-related thriller from 1979, called “Time After Time,” which is not actually based on any of Wells’ writings; however, Wells appears in the film as a character, and his Time Machine plays a very important role.
The screenplay is by Nicholas Meyer, who also directed. Meyer knew a thing or two about having fun with revisionist takes on well-worn, even iconic material, as evidenced by his earlier novel, “The Seven Percent Solution,” a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, which was made into a film, directed by Herbert Ross, in 1976.
Here, H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper across time to modern day San Francisco. Malcolm MacDowell plays Wells, David Warner the Ripper, and Mary Steenburgen, the banker who assists Wells in the present. The music is by Miklós Rózsa, a brilliant choice, and the composer provides one of the better scores from the twilight of his career.
All’s well that’s based on Wells this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)
Stream them here!
