The Day That Panicked America: The H.G. Wells War of the Worlds Scandal

Starring:John Ross
Studio: Highland Ent.
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

NOT Leonard Nimoy
The Day That Panicked America
The Day that panicked America
Disappointing
An essential DVD/CD set for the Orson Welles aficionado

The Day That Panicked America: The H.G. Wells War of the Worlds Scandal
Starring: John Ross
Manufacturer: Highland Ent.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

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( D ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

H.G. Wells and The War of the Worlds - A Documentary
War of the Worlds (Documentary)
H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds (Special Collector's Edition)
War of the Worlds Collectors Edition

ASIN: B00080EV5C
Release Date: 2005-06-28

Customer Reviews:

NOT Leonard Nimoy.......2006-12-03

This dvd lists Leonard Nimoy on the credits but in fact he does not appear at all.
Fans have been badly misled by this error.

The Day That Panicked America.......2006-03-09

VERY DISSAPPOINTED!! I was looking for the movie with the same name, not the documentary on Orson Welles or highlights of what occurred from an announcer, BUT THE MOVIE!! The movie was an excellent movie and had a very strong impact on me.
Anyone know where I can get THE MOVIE VERSION? Email me at: italiangwmjcnj@yahoo.com THANKYOU

The Day that panicked America.......2005-11-14

Amazon provided a poor representation of this product.
It leads you to believe that the movie is also included
but its not.

A waste of my time and money. Last time I will by
from Amazon

Disappointing.......2005-09-29

After watching this documentary on cable TV, I was so impressed I had the DVD ordered to show to the university communications class I teach, as part of our unit on radio.

What a disappointment! All of the interviews with experts and witnesses which made the TV version so informative about radio and its place as a medium in 1930s American society are gone. I assume they must not have been able to secure the rights from the participants. Even the narrator is different. It's not Nimoy.

To make up for the time lost from the deletion of the interviews, they've padded it with useless digressions into things like the history of Flash Gordon, yet another rehash of the supposed UFO crash in Roswell, N.M., and other elements which bear little or no relevance to the "War of the Worlds" broadcast.

Worse, the box description reflects the better TV version, not what is actually on the disc.

It comes with a second CD of the actual broadcast. So what? You can hear that for free online.

My suggestion is, avoid this purchase and tape it when it comes on TV again.

An essential DVD/CD set for the Orson Welles aficionado.......2005-08-30

This is a very good and inexpensive DVD/CD combination, one essential for the Orson Welles (1915-1985) fan. The DVD rogram is very well done and is essentially a minibiography of Welles, with emphasis, of course, on the circumstances surrounding the 30 October 1938 Halloween radio broadcast of Welles's adaptation of H.G. Wells's (1866-1946) novelette, The War of the Worlds (1897). The DVD is copyright 2005 and was newly written, directed, and narrated by John Ross, who also did the music--facts not noted on the packaging (this information is from the credits).

The DVD runs for 75 minutes, not the claimed 70 and is a mix of B&W and color; format is 4:3, and sound is in Dolby digital stereo. There are 8 scenes:
1) Sign of the times [5:13]
2) Orson Welles [6:08]
3) The Mercury Theater [10:58]
4) Grover's Mill, New Jersey [6:37]
5) 1930's sci-fi [7:31]
6) Are we alone? [13:27]
7) Panic on the streets [6:53]
8) The aftermath [18:24]
The actual program has lots of biographical and historical ackground, including extensive clips from Welles's two early films, Hearts of Age (1934) done when he was only 19, and We Work Again (1937), done for the WPA (Works Projects Administration). Scene 5 on "1930's sci-fi" is interesting,but the overlong scene 6, "Are we alone?," on alien phenomena, including the 1947 Roswell affair, is rather tedious. Scene 8 includes clips from Welles's The Trial (1963) as well as his interview remarks on War of the world.

The CD is of the complete 30 October 1938 radio broadcast of the hour-long Mercury Theater show (the CD runs 58 minutes, 7 seconds). The quality is very good. The scratchiness in the beginning part adds to the atmosphere. The CD is not subdivided. Thus don't lose your place or you will have to fast forward from the beginning to resume listening.

What's missing? There is no inner paper insert. It would have been classy to list the characters and actors of the radio broadcast and perhaps reproduce the 31 October 1938 article in The New York Times about the controversy. However, this information is readily available from the Internet. I printed it out to insert into the DVD case.

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