WotW Halloween 1938 Press Conference

[HMerrill]

Hello! This site is wonderful! I am looking for more information on the press conference that Welles gave on the day after the WotW broadcast, (Oct. 31, 1938). Does anyone know where footage of the full press conference and/or a complete transcript exists? Thank you!

[mteal]

Welcome, HMerill. There's a link to a video of the press conference on the Wellesnet Main Page, video section. There may be more on Youtube.

[HMerrill]

Ah, of course! Thank you so much - I really appreciate it!

[RayKelly]

Young filmmaker Casey Ellis has produced a short film, "Clearing the Air," on a fictional meeting between Orson Welles and William Paley the day after the War of the Worlds broadcast. It is comforting to see Welles recalled by folks under 30. You can check it out on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kU6JNxUxaA&feature=player_embedded

[Johnwhite]

Everything I have read, plus looking at the filmed recording of the Welles Press Conference the next day, seems to indicate that OW was surprised at the reaction to the WOTW broadcast. He closes with an apology that I've long thought was ad libbed at the end of the show and that the scripts available are a transcript of the broadcast. I've recently obtained what appears to be a copy of one of the original scripts and the closing "apology" is scripted. What leads me to believe this is in the copy of this "original" script in the line: "We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the C B S. ..." there is an erasure in the script and "CBS" in inserted in place of what I believe was was "Columbia Broadcasting System." So, I guess the question is was this planned from the beginning?

[Roger Ryan]

Welles and/or his cohorts would not have had time to craft such a charming closing narration during the actual production of the show, so I had assumed it was scripted ahead of time as a comment on the realistic news report approach taken during the broadcast. However, Welles' delivery may have gained a bit of urgency if he noticed policemen or panicked CBS staffers gathering in the control room!

[mteal]

Thanks for the link, Ray. An amusing and nice-looking little video, although Welles was still relatively slim at the time of WOTW. It wasn't until the 1950's that he started to lose the weight battle for good.

John, I agree with Roger that the apology was scripted, and part of the gag. Inducing panic was the whole point of the show, and Welles later said it was only the magnitude of the panic that surprised him. That scripting of the post show banter probably holds true for all the Mercury radio shows. The west coast CHRISTMAS CAROL you graciously provided, for example, has the same closing conversational lines about which Barrymore played Tiny Tim, etc.; just delivered in a slightly different manner. My impression is that Welles left little to chance on his radio programs- with the exception of the OW ALMANAC show of 1943, where his obvious and awkward attempts at comedic ad-libbing are often painful to listen to. But that discipline on Welles's other series is probably a major reason why so many of them still hold up so well.