On Tuesday, October 29, PBS’ Emmy Award winning history series “American Experience” will turn back the clock 75 years and examine Orson Welles’ infamous “The War of the Worlds” broadcast.
Director-producer Cathleen O’Connell has not only made use of interviews with historians; Welles’ eldest daughter, Chris Welles Feder; and director and Welles confidante Peter Bogdanovich, but also created realistic dramatizations of letters sent to Welles by radio listeners and preserved by his loyal aide, the late Richard Wilson. Those letters are now part of the Richard Wilson Collection at the University of Michigan.
O’Connell fielded several questions about the upcoming PBS documentary for Wellesnet.
How important was the Richard Wilson Collection in shaping “American Experience: War of the Worlds”?
The Richard Wilson Collection was invaluable. Our film incorporates a dozen or so letters that were written to Welles and the Mercury Theater from this collection. We also used a couple of letters from the FCC collection at the National Archives, but the bulk of the letters are from the Wilson Collection. A former student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where the collection is held, A. Brad Schwartz, had written a history thesis using the letters as his primary source material, so he was our guide through the Wilson materials – pointing out particularly relevant and evocative letters.
We wanted to find a way to tell this story that brought some freshness to it, and because the broadcast was 75 years ago, there aren’t a lot of folks who heard the broadcast that we could talk to. But we thought – what if we could go back in time and talk to people right after they heard the broadcast? So we used these letters as a way to deliver first person accounts of the night of the broadcast. Rather than just relying on generic reports that appeared in newspapers, the letters allowed us to incorporate real people explaining their very real reactions to the broadcast. These letters are the backbone of our story, so the Richard Wilson Collection was key to making this film.
What did Chris Welles Feder and Peter Bogdanovich bring to the table?
Peter Bogdanovich is incredibly busy – he teaches, he was in pre-production for a movie when we met up with him – and he was very kind to take time to talk to us. He knew Orson Welles personally and was able to share some of Orson’s memories of that night with us. And as director himself, Bogdanovich is in a great position to both appreciate and comment on Orson’s directorial prowess in bringing “The War of the Worlds” to life.
Welles’ daughter, Chris Welles Feder was born in 1938, so of course, she did not hear the broadcast that night, but over the years, she would listen to her father and John Housman talking about the night, and was kind enough to share some of her own family stories with us.
As people who had personal relationships with Orson Welles, Peter and Chris were really “the next best thing,” short of sitting down with Welles himself, to talk about that night, and we were so honored by their participation.
Was there a deliberate decision not to use footage of Welles in his later years recalling the 1938 broadcast?
Yes. In the decades after the broadcast, Welles certainly did comment on that night, but he offered a few different “takes” on it in different interviews – so it was hard to sort out the truth from “spin.” Welles post facto accounts sometimes claimed an intent and agency, and other times didn’t – so we decided to let the broadcast speak for itself. We did, however, include Welles’ press conference the day after the broadcast – which is a wonderful piece of archival material. We also talked a lot about that press conference in editorial meetings – how much of that press conference is true remorse and how much is performance. I think probably it’s a little of both!
Do you believe that Welles intended to cause a panic?
That is the million-dollar question and we talked a lot about this in editorial meetings during production of the film. I personally think that Welles did not have a deliberate agenda to create a panic. I believe he set out to create a work of art that was engaging, fresh and edgy. I think he certainly wanted to entertain his audience, and himself as well, but I don’t think he set out in a calculated way to engineer a panic, nor could he in any way have predicted the response to the radio program. That being said, I think he was a very canny entertainer and a brilliant self-promoter and certainly was not displeased in the publicity and attention that the broadcast brought to him.
Just a note on the word panic – the extent of the panic remains unknown – while certainly some people panicked that night, and we share letters from those who did, many listeners did not believe the program. The exact numbers will never be truly known.
Did newspapers exaggerate the impact to disparage a new medium?
Certainly the newspapers, as they do today, knew a good story when they heard it, and ran with it. There is some great scholarship being done now that is looking at that very question – did the newspapers exaggerate the response and to what end. I think there is no question that wire service stories that were repeated around the country served to over-amplify the response, making the panic seem broader than it may have actually been.
But again, the number of people who were fooled by the broadcast remains a debated figure – but there is no question that some people panicked that night.
What role did economic despair and war weariness play in convincing listeners the invasion was real?
In some way, the broadcast was a “Perfect Storm” of events. In the film we describe the historical context – listeners were at the tail end of an exhausting and demoralizing economic Depression. The world was on the brink of a world war – people were simply on edge. The contemporary analogy is how perhaps America felt after 9/11 – waiting for the next crisis and on a hair trigger of sorts. So people may have been more receptive and more gullible to the broadcast because it occurred at a time of heightened anxiety and fearfulness.
Before beginning this documentary, what was your knowledge of Welles and the broadcast? How has it changed?
Before I began this project, I was certainly aware of Welles’ career as a film director and actor. “Citizen Kane” is a masterpiece; his performance in “The Third Man” is one of my favorites. When I was in Vienna a few years ago, I made it a point to visit the Riesenrad – the Ferris wheel featured in that film. But, as I think many people are, I was much less familiar with his early career as a theatrical director and radio personality. I’m thrilled that our film throws a spotlight on this lesser-known part of his life, as this is an incredibly fertile and creative time of his career where he’s experimenting with some of the techniques he will use later in motion pictures.
The fact that he was 23 when he did the War of the Worlds stuck with me the most I think. Today we have wunderkinds like Mark Zuckerberg, who have made such an impact on our lives – Welles is totally in this category of culture maker extraordinaire, he’s definitely a prodigy.
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