June 21, 2005

War of the Worlds--Law suits?

Does anyone know if there were law suits as a result of the famous radio broadcast that panicked Americans across the country?

Because I'm thinking that if the same thing happened now, the number of law suits filed would be so staggering, that the radio network would be put out of business, the sponsors would all have pulled their support, and the Mercury Theater would have been sued into bankruptcy and beyond.

I tell ya, you just can't terrorize people and get away with it anymore.

PAD

Posted by Peter David at June 21, 2005 03:35 PM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: BBayliss at June 21, 2005 03:42 PM

From: www.mssv.net/realityart/heyer.html

1The Panic Broadcast prompted lawsuits. But it was CBS that was under the gun, not Welles himself. Whether it was a stroke of brilliance or just sound contract negotiations, his lawyer, Arnold Weissberger, had arranged it so the network would be held responsible for anything untoward caused by a Welles broadcast. Welles’ only accountability was for personal libel and literary plagiarism. Each lawsuit was settled out of court. It is conceivable that CBS might have won every case, since the program had been announced as a dramatization both in newspaper radio schedules and in the opening credits. From the network’s point of view, however, the money lost in settlements might have been well spent, since it minimized subsequent negative publicity. Not surprisingly, listenership to Mercury Theatre on the Air went up 100% the following week. The Campbell Soup Company took note and in December would offer the series its sponsorship. Up to now, Mercury Theatre on the Air had been a “sustaining,” or network-sponsored, program. The Campbell Playhouse, as it became known, featured a much larger budget and big-name guest stars. It also placed restrictions on the kind of material Welles could adapt for broadcasting and made him engage in soup-sell.

Posted by: BBayliss at June 21, 2005 03:48 PM

Another perspective:

From: www.mindspring.com/~jimhenry/ wonder/archive/apocthen.htm

The play shuddered, at last, to a halt at 9 PM.

Orson Welles, expecting to be arrested immediately, removed his headset, steeled himself for the worst, and then went out to face the music. First, the police manhandled everyone for a while before finally being called off...just as Welles guessed, no one could imagine what to charge them with. Then, a hasty press conference was set up. A newsreel of this conference exists -- Welles & Houseman are mercilessly grilled for about an hour. They are told that scores of people have been trampled to death, run over, swallowed poison. None of these tales turn out to be true, but no one knows this at the time. Welles looks gaunt, haggard, frightened. He hears that lawsuits are being filed -- $12 million worth. Not surprisingly, he pleads complete innocence. The War of the Worlds was, at worst, a prank gone wrong. How could anyone have expected that a whole nation could believe such a ridiculous story?

As a matter of fact, Welles was at least a little guilty. In later years (after the fuss had subsided), he would admit that the panic had not been a complete surprise -- only the size and intensity of it had been. In fact, some sort of reaction had been "merrily anticipated by all of us." "You see," he confessed, "up to that point radio was believed in America. That was a voice from heaven, you see. And I wanted to destroy that as dramatically as possible." It really had been a practical joke -- done to make a point. "...The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush saying boo!"

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at June 21, 2005 04:07 PM

Years ago, when watching the great NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD on TV late at night, I was amazed to see that during the scene where the characters are watching a TV broadcast of the events, the words "A DRAMATIZATION" or something like it, appeared on teh screen. Apparently they were afraid that insomniacs would turn on the TV and see this and think that the dead had actually risen to devour the living. Yeah, I wish.

Posted by: Jason at June 21, 2005 04:25 PM

I know it's on a different scale, but does anyone know how often do the dj's who make prank phone calls today get sued?

Posted by: Andy Holman at June 21, 2005 04:28 PM

To tell you the truth, I'm surprised they're making this movie at all. To me, the most important cultural impact of this movie was the scare way back when, and to make what looks to be Just Another Alien Invasion movie seems to lose sight of what the real significance of *The War of the Worlds* was. Normally, I'd expect more from Speilberg.

Oh well, it's all about the Benjamins, I guess.

-Andy Holman

Posted by: dave harman at June 21, 2005 04:44 PM

sure you can get away with it. Bush has been getting away with it for years now.

Posted by: Brian Kirk at June 21, 2005 04:49 PM

"Oh well, it's all about the Benjamins, I guess."

I think you're right. The trailer I saw seems like a Signs/Independence Day movie. I heard that the 'martians' are not from Mars, but from some other alien planet because hey, we've been to Mars already (via space probe) and there ain't no life there. Which brings me to WHY? Why remake a movie that cannot be improved? Why can't it simply be called WAR OF THE WORLDS 2 {or Return of etc...) Tim Burton's PLANET OF THE AP$E comes to mind...WHY!?!?

Posted by: budgie at June 21, 2005 05:06 PM

1

As far as I knew, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre were responsible for the first panic caused by a radio programme.

Shows what I know, eh?

The Riot That Never Was: Ronald Knox and Broadcasting The Barricades, twelve years before War of the Worlds, and three and a half thousand miles to the west...

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at June 21, 2005 05:11 PM

"Why remake a movie that cannot be improved?"

Oh, I think that the original War Of The Worlds movie could be greatly improved. I'd like to see something closer to the actual book (or even an adaptation of Moore's take in League of Extraordinarty Gentleman).

This movie seems interesting, worth a look. It may surprise us.

Posted by: Luigi Novi at June 21, 2005 05:27 PM

Peter David: I tell ya, you just can't terrorize people and get away with it anymore.
Luigi Novi: Unless you're Osama bin Laden (so far).

Posted by: Joe Nazzaro at June 21, 2005 06:12 PM

Speaking of War of the World-related pranks, apparently the authorities seemed less than amused by the group of people from that Channel 4 series, who thought it would hilarious to squirt water on an unwitting Tom Cruise, and promptly arrested four of them. Watching a tape of the incident, Cruise seems to have comported himself pretty well under the circumstances. If it had been Russell Crowe, I suspect that crew would been extracting bits of camera and sound equipment from some very uncomfortable places.

Posted by: Rat at June 21, 2005 06:24 PM

For Brian Kirk--um, not to nitpick, but you DO realize that Wells wrote the novel in 1898, right? If anything, Signs(not bad as a character study but not a good invasion movie) and Independence Day(decent for a popcorn movie) owe a huge debt to Wells.

And why make it? For the same reason that any novel becomes a movie. Or film. Or whatever. The director and/or producer sees something that they can use to express themselves with.

Posted by: Rat at June 21, 2005 06:27 PM

Meant to put this in the last one, sorry, guys. Pendragon Pictures just put out a DVD of their production of WOTW, which is as close to the original book as you can get. They even ran the picture through a sepia filter to get the old-tyme movie feel. It's actually pretty good. Only problem is there are some parts that kinda just drag.

Posted by: Leviathan at June 21, 2005 06:38 PM

Pendragon Pictures just put out a DVD of their production of WOTW, which is as close to the original book as you can get. They even ran the picture through a sepia filter to get the old-tyme movie feel. It's actually pretty good. Only problem is there are some parts that kinda just drag.

Well, the acting, at least in the first hour, is pretty much abysmal, and I haven't seen a part yet that didn't drag, including hte heat-ray attack at Horsell Common, which combines the embarrassments of slowness and dramaturgical ineptitude into several minutes of nigh-unwatchability.

Maybe the next two hours will improve.

Posted by: Jim Winter at June 21, 2005 06:49 PM

"I tell ya, you just can't terrorize people and get away with it anymore."

Last person to get away with it was Ronald Reagan during a soundcheck before the weekly radio address. "Well, we start bombing in five minutes."

Posted by: Scavenger at June 21, 2005 07:02 PM

"Cruise seems to have comported himself pretty well under the circumstances"

Cruise had them arrested. He was an ass.

Sharon Osborne, who'd been pranked by the same folks last month responded by grabbing a bucket of water and dousing the pranksters. That's cuz she's neat.

Posted by: Brian Kirk at June 21, 2005 07:05 PM

Bill & Rat:
Forgive my rant, I just have a soft spot for the original film.

Posted by: Mark Walsh at June 21, 2005 07:10 PM

Peter: Although lawsuits were threatened against the Mercury and CBS, nothing substantial materialized. However, when radio groups from South America staged dramas in the 'breaking news' style, they were arrested and thrown in jail.

Mark

Posted by: Joe Nazzaro at June 21, 2005 07:17 PM

Cruise was an ass because they had him arrested? Listen, I'm by no means the number one Tom Cruise fan around, and I think he's been acting somewhat idiotic in full 'I'm in love!' mode, but if somebody dumped water on me like that, they'd be missing a few teeth. It's also sad to see Channel Four, which began as more of an arts channel, scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of recent programming. And incidentally, why should they get potential big ratings by spraying water on a film star? Maybe I don't understand because I haven't seen the actual show, but I'd be interested to hear what folks back in the UK think about it.

Posted by: Conor E at June 21, 2005 07:17 PM

The best part of that BBC article (remember, this is 12 years before Welles' broadcast):

"The New York Times even sneered at the naïve British for being taken in by such an obvious spoof."

And about the Cruise thing:

"Cruise had them arrested. He was an ass."

Did he actually order their arrest, or did local security/police di it on their own?

Posted by: David Van Domelen at June 21, 2005 07:27 PM

1. People are a lot more willing to look like total morons in the national news (i.e. "No, I thought it was REAL!") these days if they think they can get money out of it.

2. Prank shows (i.e. Punk'd style, where they set out to nail a specific victim) are a pox, and more victims should sue them.

Posted by: john zacharias at June 21, 2005 09:27 PM

Litigation does not solve problems. The only good use I can see for a lawyer at the moment is too keep corprorations from getting away with more Enrons. Thats just a who has more time and money to throw at the other guy fight anyway.
I can and will use the law to my benefit at any point. I choose to pick my battles carefully.

I live in litigation land, California. We should make it just like school yards if you have a problem the 2 people with the problem settle it with a fight. No money changes hand, only the serious will attempt to fight.

Anyone with half a brain can use the law to your advantage in a half dozen ways to con buisness and people. Scary is you dont need a license to do this.

Posted by: Pat at June 21, 2005 10:36 PM

After WCBS went to the Jack format radio died for me. Now I got XM sat radio best thing ever...Plus nothing could come close to the orginal WOTW I shall not watch this one. But if that was done in todays PC spoon feed world. Some nut would sue for 10 billion dollars cause he wasted a 1/2 tank of gas driving and got his feelings hurt.

Posted by: Kim Metzger at June 22, 2005 12:21 AM

One of the best books on the subject may be "The Panic Broadcast" by Howard Koch, who WROTE the original radio play. Lots of interesting tidbits, such as Koch choosing Grovers Mill, New Jersey as the site of the first cylinder landing by dropping a pencil on a map, and then, years later, finding that Welles LIVED in Grovers Mill for a brief period of time. It also has some newspaper columns and editorial cartoons done after the broadcast.

One thing the book gets wrong, however, is where the disastrous South American broadcast of the show took place. Koch, I believe, says the broadcast was made in Peru or Venezuela. In fact, it was made in Quito, Ecuador in 1949. (I know this because, in college, I found some bound newspapers that reported the Latin American broadcast after it happened.) The Ecuadoran version DID cause a ruckus, with riots following that led to some people being killed and the guilty radio station torched.

Posted by: ArcLight at June 22, 2005 01:55 AM

Cruise didn't have them arrested. The jerkwads were arrested because they assaulted someone.

Cruise has decided not to take action against them.

Oh...and Sharon Osbourne said she'd be glad to help Tom take action against the slimeballs if he wanted to.

Posted by: funzo at June 22, 2005 03:46 AM

From The Museum of Hoaxes:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/war_worlds.html

'...the idea that the broadcast touched off a huge national scare is probably more of a hoax than the broadcast itself, which was never intended to fool anyone (At four separate points during the broadcast, including the beginning, it was clearly stated that what people were hearing was a play). The idea that hundreds of thousands of people panicked arose because the media eagerly pumped up the story in the weeks following the event.'

I'd personnally be inclined to believe the above because people aren't that stupid!

'unzo!

Posted by: noel at June 22, 2005 10:16 AM

Listened to the radio show recently actually. I don't remember four disclaimers, but they do one right at the beginning.

If you listen to the broadcast for more than about 10 minutes it's clear that it's not real. They drop out of the "fake news" mode after about the 20 minute mark, and even before then it's clear that it's not in real time. But, for about a 10 minute span, the illusion that it's a real broadcast is very solid, and quite creepy especially given that nothing like that had been done before.

The story I read was that Mercury Theater was relatively low-rated, and oposite the high-rated Edgar Bergen show. At about the 10 minute mark that night, Bergen had on a singer, and many people changed the channel at precicely the moment to miss the early disclaimer, but catch the show at maximum "fake news" mode.

Posted by: Rick Keating at June 22, 2005 11:18 AM

True, the “news broadcasts” on the _Mercury Theatre’s_ “War of the Worlds” broadcast weren’t taking place in real time, but I doubt anybody really noticed. I think it’s reasonable to assume the minority who were panicking were too busy with their panic to pay attention to that detail; while those who were enjoying the drama were too caught up in the story to care that (for example) “Carl Phillips” and “Professor Richard Pierson” got to Grover’s Mill from Princeton with amazing speed.

Several things made “War of the Worlds” so effective:

The early “dance music” interspersed by the “news broadcasts” echoed real radio news bulletins about events in Europe.

Frank Readick channeling Herb Morrison’s report of the Hindenberg crash during his performance as “Carl Phillips”, reporting on the first attack by the Martian heat ray.

The several seconds of silence that follows when he is cut off in mid sentence. _Very effective_, that. It’s a good example of how what you _don’t_ hear on a radio drama can be just as significant as what you do.

Kenny Delmar’s “Secretary of the Interior” sounding suspiciously like President Roosevelt.

And, of course, timing the “news broadcasts” so that people who switched over from _The Charlie McCarthy Show_ when Edgar Bergan brought on the musical guest, would tune in to _The Mercury Theatre_ just in time to hear what sounded like a major news bulletin.

I have been collecting old-time radio shows since 1978, and “War of the Worlds” is one of the many programs in my OTR library. Two years ago, on Oct. 30, my then-girlfriend and I listened to the program. She’d never heard it before, but when it was over, she commented on how effective it had been- especially when one considers that in 1938, people were already a bit jumpy, and that radio was _the_ place to get late-breaking news.

Rick

Posted by: Paul1963 at June 22, 2005 03:09 PM

Who remembers a TV-movie from the early-to-mid '80s called "Special Bulletin?"
The movie, which I believe was on NBC, was shot entirely on video and edited to look like ongoing news coverage of a standoff between police and a terrorist group holed up in a small boat docked in the harbor of an American city. The terrorists claim to have a nuclear bomb on the boat and about halfway in, there's a moment of panic followed by a blinding flash and silence.
The blast is also taped by a crew on board a naval vessel, whose camera miraculously recovers from the flash in order to show us the destruction on the bridge of the ship and the burning city in the background (such a flash would have blown the image orthicon tube of a 1980's-vintage TV camera, so there would have been no picture post-flash).
Anyway, when this thing aired, I recall NBC running disclaimers at both ends of every single commercial break to make sure people knew it wasn't real. I guess they didn't want to count on viewers recognizing the news anchor as Ed Flanders, who was then playing Dr. Westphall on "St. Elsewhere."

Paul

Posted by: Lee Grice at June 22, 2005 08:07 PM

In a similar vein:

In 1992 the BBC broadcast a Hollowe'en drama entitled GHOSTWATCH which, while not quite causing panic in the streets, did have many viewers thinking it was real. GHOSTWATCH took the form of a live investigation into an apparent haunting of a suburban London household, via a studio phone-in and an outside broadcast and had several popular TV personalities like veteran talkshow host Michael Parkinson, children's TV presenter Sarah Greene and RED DWARF's Craig Charles playing themselves.

To anyone familiar with horror films it was a fun patchwork of 'greatest hits' - a dollop of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE here and dash of THE EXORCIST there. But to a sizable chunk of the British viewing public it was a nightmare come true (even though TV listings magazines noted it as a drama and included a writer credit and a cast list) GHOSTWATCH climaxed with 'Pipes' the ghost terrorising everyone involved, possessing Michael Parkinson and killing Sarah Greene. It was brilliant!

However the BBC switchboards were jammed and the programme eventually ended up cited in the British Medical Journal as the only TV show to have caused Post traumatic Stress. The BBC never repeated the show and it was effectively banned from video release until a DVD release a year or two year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/ghostwatch/index.shtml

Posted by: Lee Grice at June 22, 2005 08:11 PM

That last paragraph should've ended "...a year or two ago."

It's after one in the morning here... I'm off to bed.

Peace!
LEE

Posted by: Craig J. Ries at June 22, 2005 08:48 PM

but if somebody dumped water on me like that,

By all accounts, Cruise did not get 'dumped' with water - he was squirted with some water (like, you know, a squirt gun) via a microphone.

Sounds like he was overracting.

Posted by: The Captain of POW!! at June 23, 2005 12:57 AM

I seem to remember reading that at least some of the people who did think broadcast was didn't think it was Martians attacking but Nazis. Remember this was 1938, and the thought of the Germans launching an all out attack on the free world wasn't to far fetched. Apparently, the descriptions of tripods spitting heat rays sounded alot like Zeplins dropping fire bombs to some who turned in just as the attack scenes were starting.