By MIKE TEAL
It’s hard to know where to begin singing the praises of Indiana University’s new radio website, Orson Welles On the Air: 1938-1946.
Announced two years ago, it finally made it’s online debut last month, and exceeded my already high expectations. As Wellesnet member “Dan_UK” put it, comparing the audio quality on the new site with the mp3s that have been circulation for years is “like comparing a bad telephone call with being in the same room with Mr. Welles himself.”
Here’s an excerpt from an IU website article from two weeks ago, praising the Lilly for this project: “The incomparable Lilly Library collaborated with our ambitious Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative to launch Orson Welles on the Air. The website features more than 300 rare master recordings from Welles’ personal collection, which is held in the Lilly’s archives and digitized through the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative. These recordings were previously available only to those who visited the Lilly in person, and many went unheard for decades due to the delicate nature of the media on which they were preserved. Now, they are easily accessible to scholars and Welles fans worldwide, a truly profound contribution from one of our campus’s most cherished resources.”
Some of the biggest revelations from the new website so include not just the dramatically improved sound quality from previously available Mercury Theatre On the Air and Campbell Playhouse shows, but the inclusion of two later political series from 1944-1946 that were previously unavailable at all, or only in limited form. These include:
The Eversharp series — A series of eight 15-minute Commentary programs with a political bent recorded for Eversharp pens in December of 1944, this series was never broadcast, and it’s not clear whether it was ever intended to be broadcast, or if it was merely a fake show done for demo purposes. In any event, it was available at Lilly for decades only on reel-to-reel tape (and Lilly did not have a reel-to-reel player, so it was not available to listen to at all). Now the whole series is at the new website, in excellent, crisp sound taken straight from the original transcription discs.
https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/collections/show/10
In addition to the eight Eversharp episodes, there is a special hidden file containing 85 minutes of either outtakes or rehearsals for the programs. (Thanks to Dan_UK for uncovering this hitherto unknown file— and several others — in the website’s source code:
https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/wowza4/welles/_definist_/mp4:245.high.mp4/245.high.m3u8
The entire Orson Welles Commentary series for Lear Radio — A much fuller exploration of Welles’s political views can be found in the 55 15-minute programs Welles recorded from September 1945 to October 1946 for Lear Radios. A handful of these broadcasts have been available for awhile, including the five well-known broadcasts Welles devoted to seeking justice for blinded black war veteran Isaac Woodard. However, most of these programs were not available to listen to at all, and were presumed by many to be lost. Now here they are in their entirety, and in excellent sound. It’s quite fascinating to experience such a critical moment in human history through Orson Welles’s eyes. The Lilly website’s page on this series is difficult to navigate, so we’ve provided links and a brief description of each episode here:
Orson Welles Commentaries for Lear Radio (1945-46)
- September 16 , 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2117
Film recommendation: The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry with Geraldine Fitzgerald, Bullfighting, Woman from Weehawken questions Welles’s credentials for commenting on world affairs, Korea and American leadership (irony of using Japanese soldiers to police Korea) - September 23, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2118
Fortune tellers, OW makes scattered predictions, GI entertainment in the Atomic age, food shortage in Europe, Welles sets up Bonito the Bull story, but runs out of time - October 28, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2119
Broadcast from Welles’s living room, Ike and Britain, Patton wanting soft peace for Germany, Truman’s “little man” act not inspiring good people to stay in Government, Woman from Weehawken accuses Welles of wanting to feed the world, Bonito the Bull - October 7, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2120
International tribunals for Nazi war criminals, GI Bill of Rights and labor strikes, Hollywood parties, moving story about Pat O’Brien, his son and fallen U.S. soldiers - October 14, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2121
CB Demille invented fascist salute, Ike at odds with Patton’s disturbingly soft treatment of Bavaria, UN importance as the Atom Bomb makes the era of “competitive nationalism” nonsensical, OW reads John Donne’s No Man is an Island, recommends spy film, House on 92nd Street. - October 21, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2122
Little Boy in China, British confusion machine, OW reads Corinthians Ch. 13 excerpt, Samuel Barber and other American classical composers - October 28, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2123
OW ill with larangytis; Williams Hall subs, talks of brewing civil war in China - November 4, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2124
The State and War Departments have declined to absorb the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and an executive order will set up the spy outfit as an independent agency (the future CIA), US and possible war with Russia, Truman favoring southern voters over black voters, President Vargas fired in Brazil, Martian broadcast anecdotes - November 11, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2125
Broadcast from Welles’s house, letter from Louis Armstrong with jazz music - November 18, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2126
Jazz, drummer Zutty Singleton, Irony of U.S. supporting Britain’s suppression of Indonesian freedom fighters in order to preserve their empire, OW tells the story of Sleeping Beauty - November 25, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2127
Fortune telling lobbyists (partially recycled from the Eversharp series), possible attack on USSR to prevent them from getting the bomb, Ike’s Thanksgiving spent visiting wounded soldiers, Pearl Harbor and defending FDR’s legacy from critics - December 2, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2128
Broadcast from Chicago, Oklahoma City flight holdover, Chicago, deteriorating situations in China, Iran - December 9, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2129
Broadcast from Treasure Island Naval Base in San Francisco. Welles hosts the dedication of three SF theaters to fallen US Soldiers, including Doris Miller (this segment heard on Criterion’s LD Theater of the Imagination) - December 16, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2130
Fortune telling during Katherine Cornell tour (partially recycled from the Eversharp series), Russia and Iran, Virginia and Santa Claus, attempt to dismantle HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee, or “Un-American Committee”, as Welles bitterly calls it) on the horizon, HUAC’s predecessor, the Dies Committe, was fascistic, in Welles’s opinion. - December 23, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2131
Broadcast from Mexico City. Stone of the Sun. A Story of “Senior” and Christian charity. - December 30, 1945 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2132
Broadcast from Miami. International brotherhood of magicians. A night at Chichen Itza, Hope of world peace, God bless Abe Lincoln (recycled from the Eversharp series), Epitaph for Patton (who died the previous week) - January 6, 1946 —https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2133
Epiphany story surrounding the birth of Jesus (recycled from the Eversharp series), plight of many US veterans, Truman learning on the job. - January 13, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2134
Offer of free Lear radios for stories, advertising on Broadway and New York, Toots Shore nightclubs (touches on Five Kings), government advertising for peacetime enlistment - January 20, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2135
Film recommendation, A Walk in the Sun, unemployed vets and rich war profiteers, fortune telling lobbyists (recycled from the Eversharp series), the plight of blacks in America - January 27, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2136
Tribute to FDR, Truman’s advisors bow to big business, audience gullability and freedom, Theater reviews (Magnificent Yankee) - February 3, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2137
Letter from a dying man about his tree, OW criticizes Truman’s close ties with southern democrats, and their handling of the FEPC (Fair Employment Practice Committee), tribute to British spy novelist E. Phillips Oppenheim - February 10, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2138
Unauthorized ads for nightclubs using Welles’s name, OW speaks highly of Danny Thomas, German chemical giant IG Farben spearheading pro-German/anti-Russia propaganda in the U.S., Florida’s Sen. Claude Pepper complains to Welles about the previous week’s show, OW reads poem about Lincoln - February 17, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2139
Trash comic magazines and juvenile delinquincy, schools and the most important job: teaching, tribute to good comic books like Terry and the Pirates, and Lil’ Abner, Ed Pauley and oil, reads story of Cain and Abel - February 24, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2140
His favorite sandwich shop, Alexander Woolcott’s apartment, blistering critique of Peron and Fascism in Argentina (all that’s necessary to create a dictatorship is to destroy the people’s faith in themselves). - March 3, 1946 6 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2141
South American countries are all different, compares Peron to Hitler, Time Magazine on Canadian spy crisis, To Hearst and McCormick, liberal is another word for communist, by copying Britain’s colonial policies, we are intensifying Russia’s if we followed FDR’s Four Freedoms, no one could beat us. Last show with Lear as sponsor. - May 10, 1946
Missing broadcast. Uncertain of whether there was a show or not. - May 17, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2142
First show with no sponsor. OW rails against the ticking Atomic time bomb and uses a scary ticking time bomb sound effect. When does it go off, and what is the price of world peace? - May 24, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2143
Ticking time bomb effect again. Reads the story of Noah’s Ark, because of God’s covenant with Noah, only man can destroy the earth. In a democracy, the military should be the servant of the people, but if the military gets control of the atom bomb, it may be the last thing we make with the secret of fire. - May 31, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2145
Ticking time bomb effect again, Welles has imaginary dialogue with his daughter about the world situation, Russian ambassador Gormyko and Iranian oil, oil makes world wars possible, The battle over Iran is a battle over oil. OW tells daughter this atom thing will change the world quicker then the printing press or gunpowder. - April 7, 1946 https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2146
A-bomb should not be controlled by the military, get-tough-with-Russia gang in Congress motivated by oil concerns in Iran, giving up on liberalism is not growing up, it is growing old; it is not maturity, it is collaboration. OW’s outspokenness has made it difficult to get Mercury Theater back on the air. Overcrowded, filthy slum housing breeds crime. Everyone claims to want peace, but noone has any real faith in it. - April 14, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2147
OW reads letter and sometimes impersonates an eastern European who explains the reality of war to naive American factory workers, pays tribute to FDR and implores the audience to honor his legacy by thinking of all people. FDR thought large about large things, he was the people’s faith in themselves. - April 21, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2148
OW talks crazily about his Butterfly net, FDR’s OPA price control program under attack in Congress, which OW says would be a dagger through the heart of American consumers by Wall st. and their lobbyists, hoarding will increase, and unorganized little fella will be hurt the most. lack of foresight by Truman has caused it. - April 28, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2149
Welles sounds hoarse and tired from preparing Around the World in Boston. Petitions to save OPA from crippling amendments, lack of price control brings inflation which brings poverty, tragedy from far away is easily ignored, peace treaties in Paris complicated by Russia, OW still optimistic - May 5, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2150
Around the World in Boston, world peace-making machinery collapses as the death rattle of OPA begins, solving shortages by eliminating price controls like curing a headache with a guillotine, says Welles, it’s all to break the back of organized labor. Conservatives want all kinds of war, price war, class war, race war, etc. Madelline Carrol and the Red Cross adopting orphaned children in France - May 12, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2151
George Hays subs for Welles. Coal miner’s strike, Paris Peace Conference, Russia, Italy, and Iran, Palestine’s violent reaction to Jewish repatriation, Macarthur and Ike in Japan, Azerbaijan claims in Iran, Truman on the Bomb and education, Herbert Hoover on world tour to study famine - May 19, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2152
Around the World show, OW reminiscence of Five Kings and talk of Olivier’s new Henry IV production, Robert Benchley and the Agonguin Round Table, reads letter about marching soldiers in Alabama, KKK - May 26, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2153
New deal is dead, killed in the senate, labor set back 50 years, Truman threatens labor leaders with jail, OPA doomed, reads letter about the fear of peace, repeats reading of John Donne’s No Man is an Island. - June 2, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2154
No politics, just Around the World opening which received divided reception from critics. OW tells history of his show, and how everything that could go wrong did. Putting on a show is like a bullfight: kill or be killed. But the real killers are critics. Their power comes from their quotes used to advertise a show. OW tells story of Percy Hammond (unnamed). If a critic can kill a show, then why can’t a show kill a critic? - June 9, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2156
Around the World gets abuse from critics, Truman is an isolated little man surrounded by powermongers who are hostile to labor, Treasury Secretary John Snyder is a stooge of management, Senate bill to give president unprecedented power over labor. - June 16, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2158
Senator May’s extraordinary bill to give control over the Atm bomb to the military. With all the talk of the world’s destruction, OW reads from the creation and Garden sections of Genesis. Quotes Chesterton: Noone can say whether the world is young or old. Preview of Joe Lewis/Billy Conn fight. - June 23, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2159
OPA is dead. dollar will dwindle, consumers being played for suckers by greedmongers who will pump the buying power out of everyone’s paycheck through inflation, because consumers are not organized. But the real villains are the wholesalers, not retailers. OW goes out on the town and winds up at Danial Webster statue which reminds him of a childhood dream where he was chased by bronze statues. Review of Joe Lewis/Billy Conn fight. - June 30, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2161
Bikini Island Atoll, a south seas romantic paradise, being sacrificed for A-bomb research. Welles dreams the blast will create a tidal wave to destroy all national boundaries and mapmaker’s pencils. But the silly old notion of nations will not go away because of the public’s idiot resignation in the face of war and the bomb. Rita Hayworth’s name is on the bomb. - July 7, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2163
Elimination of OPA is controlled inflation. All those US soldiers did not die to make the world safe for inflation. Garson Bros. lobbyists indicted, Molotov, Vandenberg, Bikini Island bomb test, Sen. Bilbo (Mississippi) and black voting rights, letter from southern-raised woman on white supremacy - July 14, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2165
Welles predicts commentary in the television age, that it will be more like a magic lantern show. Picture of classroom in Hiroshima. Murder of Jews in Poland. Motherhood of Rome is more important then the brotherhood of man. World power is more important then world peace. - July 21, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2167
OW ill, Don Hollenbeck substitutes, OPA compromises are a complex formula for price adjustments on meat, dairy and other agricultural products. Much higher prices have produced a reaction from consumers. Bolivia dictator puts down revolt with fascist tactics. Atomic Control Bill to decide who controls the bomb. Nationalism flourishing. Tale of the Ostrich Queen. - July 28, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2169
1st Isaac Woodard broadcast. OW reads an affidavit on the blinding of a black war veteran by a police officer in South Carolina, furiously vows to uncover the identity of the policeman. The most well-known of all the Commentary programs. - Aug. 4, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2171
British Prime Minister remembers a 1919 cartoon after the Treaty of Versailles, showing a crying child with the caption “Class of 1940”. 79th congress and the hope of a new World Court. Reactionary Senators Bilbo, Vandenberg and Dulles. Veto power is like the bomb: conservatives think only the US should have it. Aiken mayor complains of his city being named as site of Woodard blinding. - Aug. 11, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2172
Moral indebtedness. Anyone who makes a fortune owes it to those he makes it from. One’s moral right to have more than enough is cancelled if he doesn’t help those who have less than enough. Race hate must be outlawed (recycled from his 1944 newspaper column). If Aiken is not the place of Isaac Woodard’s blinding, then Aiken should help find the man responsible. - Aug. 18, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2174
Boycott of Welles movies in Aiken, GA, Welles hanged in effigy. Police Chief Lynwood Schull of Batesburg South Carolina admits to the assault, says Woodard was drunk. Texas election for governor. Buford Jester’s backers include KKK members convicted of murder. Fate of Jews in Palestine being decided by government committees, selling people for alliances. - Aug. 25, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2176
The place was Batesburg. OW reads letter from man complaining about Welles’s interest in the Woodard case, complains of the North bullying the South, defends racial segregation, accuses Welles of wanting a “mulatto nation”. OW Reprises excerpts from his newspaper column, The Unknown Soldier. Last Woodard broadcast. - Sept. 1, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2178
OW in Mexico City for filming a movie, Jerry Langleer substitutes, talks of Dreyfuss Affair in France, Socialist leader Leon Blum and the quick collapse of French society in the face of Hitler, US and British hypocrisy in Greece is allowing Russia to score propaganda points in China and Korea, by painting the US and Britain as defenders of reaction and monarchy. - Sept. 8, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2179
OW reads chapters 13, 14, and 15 from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, including the sermon by Father Mapple. - Sept. 15, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2180
OW ill, Cary Longmire substitutes. Hipocracy of US backing monarchy in Greece, right wingers in France, dictators in Spain, Cheng Kei Sheck in China, Russia backs Tito in Yugoslavia, and socialists in Poland and Germany. British government refusing to allow homeless Jews to go to Palestine. OPA destroyed by lobbyists manipulating Congress. - Sept. 22, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2181
OW flies in from San Francisco. Truman vs. Wallace and Wallace’s resignation after infamous speech (“What goes on in eastern Europe is none of our business”). Truman accidentally concurred with this before he knew what was said, setting off international uproar. Truman is a little man who inherited the biggest job in human history. His knowledge of foreign policy is minimal. Wallace is a great man, but Welles disagrees with his words. What happens everywhere is everybody’s business. OW laments that the Free world ideals promised by the UN are being dissolved and split into two spheres of influence. Competitive nationalism is outdated and not good in this shrinking world of the atom. - Sept. 29, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2182
OW announces this as the next to last program in the series. He reviews the Woodard case and notes how the offending officer has been caught. Reads letter of thanks from NAACP. Defends Wallace from those calling him traitor and fool (“A progressive is not a stooge of Stalin”. Agrees with Woodrow Wilson that sometimes the right is more important than peace. Extols the UN as the main hope for world peace. - October 6, 1946 — https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2183
Last show of the series. Welles reprises little boy in China story and wishes a happy birthday to Yu, a fifteen year old who has never lived through a single day of peace. Truman has betrayed labor and brought us to the brink of another war. By scuttling the New Deal he has not made the democratic party stronger. In the age of the atom, mediocrity becomes menace. OW’s lawsuit against a paper calling him a communist. We cannot destroy communism by destroying the USSR, we can only defeat communism by competing with it. It is wrong to supress communism by suppressing democracy. Reprises first letter of woman from Weehawken asking him what credentials he had to be a commentator.
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