Invaders From Mercury: Halloween Challenge Night 6

 

Halloween is a time of spooks and creatures - but it has for a long while also been a time of alien visitors. 

I'm not sure which version of The War of the Worlds I first encountered. I was probably aware of the book first, and it can't have been long afterward that I became aware of the audio version. Or versions, really, because this was the Seventies and boy, did that decade have a treat for the Marsophile in me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I first encountered Orson Welles' Mercury Theater adaptation of the H G Wells classic in an A4ish, orange-covered, likely Scholastic Book Club book on monsters and monster movies. Man, I loved that book. It had quizzes, pictures, more facts than my childhood mind could absorb, and it was just the perfect primer for a lifelong interest. Over subsequent years I'd return to the soundtrack of Jeff Wayne's Musical Adaptation (tm)  - and I'd retain an interest in the Welles radio play. Would I ever get to hear it?

Of course I would. On the cover of my first copy of Empire magazine (issue 71, 7 may 1995) a cassette version was sellotaped. And our university library had a scholarly (but possibly since improved and debunked) analysis of the alleged 'panic' that ensued with Welles and his pals' little prank. Two years previously TVNZ had screened The Night That Panicked America, a TV movie event and, well, suffice it to say that any time there's a look back at that night - legend or fact, I'm interested.

By chance or design, this month one of our cable channels played a mor recent documentary - part dramatisation (hmm), enough fact-filling. Despite obsession, Mrs Simian wasn't up on the story behind the infamous evening, so we were in for a nice hour's diversion, with an Oliver Platt narration and some ropey overacting of 'people of the time' (actually actors of our time). 

American Experience: War of the Worlds (PBS Documentary, 2013)

The doco skewed just the right side of an entertaining yarn with a bit of the legend to spice things up. The earlier TV movie had played a little loose with the dramatised anecdotes also, but this newer version had enough to put things in perspective. No Martians to be seen, but plenty of grainy back and white footage, replayed radio broadcast, and some decent talking heads filling in the gaps. It was fine, really. And a reminder that October 30 1938 was also the night that made Halloween a little bit more unearthly for a bemused/panicked audience. You takes your picks. 

For a more in-depth take, here's Slate's debunking of the night, but as I say, the Halloweenometer begs for something a little more creative, so excuse me if I indulge the myth a little more. 

https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/orson-welles-war-of-the-worlds-panic-myth-the-infamous-radio-broadcast-did-not-cause-a-nationwide-hysteria.html

Companion Piece

I didn't get to that, did I? Of course the Jeff Wayne version made an impression on me - as tied in as it was to late night radio playings of the first single - and (although it may be my own mind creating a myth) a late year radio airing around the time of the Kaikoura Lights...