Orson Welles on the Columbia Broadcasting System.
The PBS American Experience documentary on Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which aired three years ago, is being streamed online for free for a limited time.
In a Facebook page posting on Saturday, American Experience said that the free streaming would last for two weeks.
It’s worth noting that the excellent documentary on the Oct. 20, 1938 broadcast can also be purchased on DVD or via iTunes.
The PBS documentary was co-written by A. Brad Schwartz, who two years later would author the acclaimed book Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News.
The American Experience episode was based in part on research from Schwartz’s senior honors thesis at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His paper caught the attention of PBS, which hired him to co-write the episode, and led to the subsequent book deal with Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The American Experience episode can be viewed at pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/worlds
As the 78th anniversary of The War of the Worlds broadcast on nears, here are highlights on what you can find on Wellesnet:
- Streaming audio of the Oct. 30, 1938 radio broadcast
- Transcript of the Mercury Theatre On the Air broadcast written by Howard Koch
- Welles’ Halloween press conference; Radio Guide magazine, 1938
- Orson Welles’ Sketch Book from 1955 on ‘The Martian Invasion’ – transcript and BBC video
- Chris Welles Feder reflect on her father’s famed broadcast
- National Archives: The FCC and ‘The War of the Worlds’
- Wellesnet veteran Glenn Anders (aka Alex Fraser) remembers the ‘War’
- Video: AT&T operators recalls ‘The War of the Worlds’
- Excerpts from David Acord’s book When Mars Attacked – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4
- PBS director-producer Cathleen O’Connell talks about her ‘The War of the Worlds’ documentary
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