The Night That Panicked America
| The Night That Panicked America | |
|---|---|
DVD cover
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| Genre | Drama |
| Screenplay by |
Nicholas Meyer Anthony Wilson |
| Story by | Nicholas Meyer |
| Directed by | Joseph Sargent |
| Starring |
Paul Shenar Vic Morrow Cliff DeYoung Michael Constantine |
| Music by | |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Anthony Wilson |
| Producer(s) | Joseph Sargent |
| Location(s) | Los Angeles |
| Cinematography | Jules Brenner |
| Editor(s) |
Bud S. Isaacs George Jay Nicholson Tony Radecki |
| Running time | 92 minutes |
| Production company(s) | The Culzean Corporation Paramount Television |
| Distributor | ABC |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Original release |
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The Night That Panicked America is an American television film that was originally broadcast on the ABC network on October 31, 1975. The telefilm dramatizes events surrounding Orson Welles' famous - and infamous - War of the Worlds radio broadcast (based on the novel of the same name by English author H.G. Wells) of October 30, 1938, which had led some Americans to believe that an invasion by Martians was occurring in the area near Grover Mills, New Jersey.
The Night That Panicked America tells the story of the 1938 broadcast from the point of view of Welles and his associates as they create the broadcast live, as well as from the points of view of a number of different fictional American families, in a variety of locations and from a variety of social classes, who listened to the broadcast and believed the imaginary Martian invasion was actually occurring, with some people even committing suicide.
This telefilm starred, among others, Vic Morrow, Cliff DeYoung, Michael Constantine, Eileen Brennan, Meredith Baxter, Tom Bosley, Will Geer, and John Ritter. Paul Shenar played Orson Welles.
Especially through the 1980s, some local stations in various areas of the United States made an annual tradition of rebroadcasting this made-for-TV movie on October 30 (the anniversary of the original radio broadcast) or on October 31 (Halloween). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction praised the film's recreation of events in the radio studio, but was unimpressed by its depiction of the resulting panic, calling it "a routine disaster movie with hackneyed characters reacting in predictable ways."
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Wikipedia