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The Night That Panicked America

The Night That Panicked America
The Night That Panicked America.jpg
DVD cover
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
  • October 31, 1975 (1975-10-31)

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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