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|senior_editor = |editor = |producer = |exec_producer = Davidson Taylor (for CBS) |narrated = Orson Welles |rec_location = Columbia Broadcasting Building, 485 Madison Avenue, New York |first_aired = |num_series = |num_episodes = |audio_format = |composer = Bernard Herrmann |opentheme = Piano Concerto No. 1, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky |othertheme = |endtheme = |website = |podcast = }} "The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air''. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on Sunday, October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel ''The War of the Worlds'' (1898). It became famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the reality of this mass panic is disputed as the program had relatively few listeners. The first two thirds of the one-hour broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested 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 without commercial interruptions, adding to the program's realism. Popular legend holds that some of the radio audience may have been listening to Edgar Bergen and tuned in to "The War of the Worlds" during a musical interlude, thereby missing the clear introduction that the show was a drama, but recent research suggests this only happened in rare instances. In the days following the adaptation, there was widespread outrage in the media. The program's news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.〔 The episode secured Welles's fame as a dramatist. ==Production== H. G. Wells's original novel tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth. The novel was adapted by Howard E. Koch for the 17th episode of the CBS Radio series ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'', broadcast at 8 p.m. EST on Sunday, October 30, 1938.〔Houseman, John, ''Run Through: A Memoir''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972, ISBN 0-671-21034-3〕 The program's format was a simulated live newscast of developing events. The setting was switched from 19th-century England to contemporary Grover's Mill, an unincorporated village in West Windsor Township, New Jersey in the United States. The first two-thirds of the hour-long play is a contemporary retelling of events of the novel, presented as news bulletins interrupting another program. "I had conceived the idea of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening," Welles later said, "and would be broadcast in such a dramatized form as to appear to be a real event taking place at that time, rather than a mere radio play. This approach was similar to Ronald Knox's satirical newscast of a riot overtaking London broadcast by the BBC in 1926,〔(Museum of Hoaxes: The BBC Radio Panic, 1926 )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title='Bolsheviks are attacking the Palace and Big Ben has been destroyed': The fake BBC radio bulletin that terrified listeners in 1926 )〕 which Welles later said gave him the idea for "The War of the Worlds".〔Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, ''This is Orson Welles''. HarperAudio, September 30, 1992. ISBN 1-55994-680-6 Audiotape 4A 6:25–6:42. Welles said, "I got the idea from a BBC show that had gone on the year before () when a Catholic priest told how some Communists had seized London and a lot of people in London believed it. And I thought that'd be fun to do on a big scale, let's have it from outer space—that's how I got the idea."〕 A 1927 drama aired by Adelaide station 5CL depicted an invasion of Australia via the same techniques and inspired reactions similar to those of the Welles broadcast.〔(Invasion Panic This Week; Martians Coming Next ), ''Radio Recall'', April 2013.〕 He was also influenced by the ''Columbia Workshop'' presentations "The Fall of the City", a 1937 radio play in which Welles played the role of an omniscient announcer, and "Air Raid", a vibrant as-it-happens drama starring Ray Collins that aired October 27, 1938.〔 Welles had previously used a newscast format for "Julius Caesar" (September 11, 1938), with H. V. Kaltenborn providing historical commentary throughout the story.〔 "The War of the Worlds" broadcast used techniques similar to those of ''The March of Time'', the CBS news documentary and dramatization radio series.〔Fielding, Raymond, ''The March of Time, 1935–1951''. New York: Oxford University Press 1978 hardcover ISBN 0-19-502212-2 page 13〕 Welles was a member of the program's regular cast, having first performed on ''The March of Time'' in March 1935.〔Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum, ''This is Orson Welles''. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9〕 ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' and ''The March of Time'' shared many cast members, as well as sound effects chief Ora D. Nichols.〔 Welles discussed his fake newscast idea with producer John Houseman and assistant director Paul Stewart; together they decided to adapt a work of science fiction. They considered adapting M. P. Shiel's ''The Purple Cloud'' and Arthur Conan Doyle's ''The Lost World'' before purchasing the radio rights to ''The War of the Worlds''. Houseman later wrote that he suspected Welles had never read it.〔〔 〔 Howard Koch had written the first drafts for the Mercury Theatre broadcasts "Hell on Ice" (October 9), "Seventeen" (October 16)〔 and "Around the World in 80 Days" (October 23).〔Wood, Bret, ''Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1990 ISBN 0-313-26538-0〕 Monday, October 24, he was assigned to re-script "The War of the Worlds" for broadcast the following Sunday night.〔 Tuesday night, 36 hours before rehearsals were to begin, Koch telephoned Houseman in what the producer characterized as "deep distress". Koch said he could not make ''The War of the Worlds'' interesting or credible as a radio play, a conviction echoed by his secretary Anne Froelick, a typist and aspiring writer that Houseman had hired to assist him. With only his own abandoned script for ''Lorna Doone'' to fall back on, Houseman told Koch to continue adapting the Wells fantasy. He joined Koch and Froelick and they worked on the script throughout the night. On Wednesday night the first draft was finished on schedule.〔 On Thursday associate producer Paul Stewart held a cast reading of the script, with Koch and Houseman making necessary changes. That afternoon, Stewart made an acetate recording, with no music or sound effects. Welles, immersed in rehearsing the Mercury stage production of ''Danton's Death'' scheduled to open the following week, played the record at an editorial meeting that night in his suite at the St. Regis Hotel. After hearing "Air Raid" on the ''Columbia Workshop'' earlier that same evening, Welles viewed the script as dull. He stressed the importance of inserting news flashes and eyewitness accounts into the script to create a sense of urgency and excitement.〔 Houseman, Koch and Stewart reworked the script that night,〔 increasing the number of news bulletins and using the names of real places and people whenever possible. Friday afternoon the script was sent to Davidson Taylor, executive producer for CBS, and the network legal department. Their response was that the script was ''too'' credible and its realism had to be toned down. As using the names of actual institutions could be actionable, CBS insisted upon some 28 changes in phrasing.〔 "Under protest and with a deep sense of grievance we changed the Hotel Biltmore to a nonexistent Park Plaza, Trans-America to Inter-Continent, the Columbia Broadcasting Building to Broadcasting Building," Houseman wrote.〔 "The United States Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C." was changed to "The Government Weather Bureau", "Princeton University Observatory" to "Princeton Observatory", "McGill University" to "Macmillan University", "New Jersey National Guard" to "State Militia", "United States Signal Corps" to "Signal Corps", "Langley Field" to "Langham Field", and "St. Patrick's Cathedral" to "the cathedral".〔 On Saturday, Stewart rehearsed the show with the sound effects team, giving special attention to crowd scenes, the echo of cannon fire and the sound of the boat horns in New York Harbor.〔 Early Sunday afternoon Bernard Herrmann and his orchestra arrived in the studio, where Welles had taken over production of that evening's program.〔 To create the role of reporter Carl Phillips, actor Frank Readick went to the record library and played the recording of Herbert Morrison's radio report of the ''Hindenburg'' disaster over and over.〔 Working with Bernard Herrmann and the orchestra that had to sound like a dance band fell to Paul Stewart,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=For the Heart at Fire's Center – Paul Stewart )〕 the person Welles would later credit as being largely responsible for the quality of "The War of the Worlds" broadcast.〔McBride, Joseph, ''What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career''. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2006, ISBN 0-8131-2410-7〕 Welles wanted the music to play for unbearably long stretches of time.〔Leaming, Barbara, ''Orson Welles, A Biography''. New York: Viking, 1985 ISBN 0-670-52895-1〕 The studio's emergency fill-in, a solo piano playing Debussy and Chopin, was heard several times. "As it played on and on," Houseman wrote, "its effect became increasingly sinister—a thin band of suspense stretched almost beyond endurance. That piano was the neatest trick of the show."〔 Dress rehearsal was scheduled for 6 p.m.〔 "Our actual broadcasting time, from the first mention of the meteorites to the fall of New York City, was less than forty minutes," wrote Houseman. "During that time men travelled long distances, large bodies of troops were mobilized, cabinet meetings were held, savage battles fought on land and in the air. And millions of people accepted it—emotionally if not logically.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The War of the Worlds (radio drama)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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