Episodes
Wednesday Jul 31, 2013
Mercury Theatre on the Air - October 30, 1938 - alternative version
Wednesday Jul 31, 2013
Wednesday Jul 31, 2013
In this post, an alternative version of probably the most well-known broadcast of all time.
I recently picked up on ebay a six-disc, twelve-side lacquer recorded at 78 rpm of the Mercury Theatre broadcast of "The War of the Worlds". The set is a dub, either from another 78 rpm set or from a 16" lacquer.
Although the set has some sound issues, it does include some very brief parts missing from all of the circulating copies.
A bit of history is in order. Several posts archived here sum up what we know and don't know about the provenance of existing copies of the program. CBS, apparently, has an original lacquer of the show - it's unclear if they had transcription recording capabilities "in house" or if it was done "off-site" during the original broadcast.
After the broadcast, we know that some copies were made for a Congressional committee, but we don't know the format (16" or 12").
We also know that another 16" unlabeled lacquer surfaced at an auction in 2001 from the estate of old time radio collector Ralph Murchow. This green label Presto disc was not authenticated, but sold for $14,000. It's not clear where the disc originated - it might have been one of the Congressional committee copies, another copy made at a local station or a dub made from CBS's archive copy. The type of Presto lacquer was commonly used in 1938, so it could have originated from the period of the original broadcast.
An engineer at CBS has said that copies of "War of the Worlds" were made and "smuggled out" of the network in 1948. It's also documented that Orson Welles has a set of 12" 78 rpm discs of the program. Were those made in 1948?
All of the circulating copies of "War of the Worlds" originated on a tape that surfaced in 1968. By coincidence, a tape copy of the program was made for the Library of Congress that year, mono, running 7.5 ips - the source disc used for this tape copy isn't known. Was it the CBS archive master, the Murchow green label Presto set, or another undocumented version?
Regardless, the copies of "War of the Worlds" circulating now all came from the same tape that surfaced in the late 60s, perhaps a dub of the Library of Congress copy. The cps in circulation were copied from the lps of this tape that were released in the 1970s and many have noise gates or other digital tricks to minimize the surface noise of the original tape.
In this post is a new dub made direct from the 78 rpm 12-sided set that I recently obtained.
According to the seller, it came from a book dealer specializing in rare books and celebrity autographs in the City of Orange, about twenty minutes from Los Angeles. The set originated in the estate of Jimmy Star, a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and "Film Daily", an industry magazine.
The set has the name "Paul Stewart" written on the cardboard container for the set. Stewart was one of the Mercury actors who appeared on "War of the Worlds". He was later a founding member of AFTRA and well respected "behind the scenes" in the Hollywood film community, working in films and television well into the 1980s.
Did Stewart have the set made for reporter Jimmy Star for some reason, perhaps as a gift, a souvenir, or for some story he was working on?
There's no documentation with the set to be sure. Based on the sound quality, it sounds as if it came either direct from the 16" masters or a really well-done dub of one. The discs are aluminum based and could date from shortly after the original broadcast or the mid to late 40s or early 50s. (I'm leaning towards just after World War II, since the sleeves are Audiodisc "glass base" type.)
The recording appears to be taken directly from the CBS studio or a line from the studio - there's no local station ids in the recording. The surface noise is different from the 60s era copy circulating now - perhaps this copy and the 60s tape came from the same disc, dubbed to 78 rpm before it became damaged, or perhaps they came from different copies.
It's unfortunate that the sound quality of this disc set varies so much on each side, with bright clear sound at the beginning of each of the twelve sides and more muffled sound as the inner groove is reached at the end of the sides. The set also suffers from palmitic acid leaching - a white powder that comes out of the lacquer coating and causes surface noise.
Despite the varying sound quality, the set is the most complete version of "War of the Worlds" available and includes some brief segments not in the circulating copies.
At the 30 minute mark, there's a short extra bit at the part where the announcer says "One moment please ladies and gentlemen … We've run special wires…." This previously unheard part is some "behind the mic" fumbling by the announcer with another cast member - on circulating copies, this segment got lost in a side change.
For some time, we've been puzzled by a missing line from the existing recording, about 40 minutes into the piece where Welles as Professor Pearson says "I look down at my blackened hand…" In the version that exists, part of the line is missing and sounds like Welles might have skipped something in the script. With the missing lines in this new copy, it sounds like the original master used for the circulating copies has a "skip" that was disguised with a bit of editing.
This new version also includes the original full-length CBS station break, which runs about 15 seconds. In circulating versions, the silence for the original station break had been cut out.
If you have any thoughts on the possible origins of the disc set or other bits of the show you've never heard before, let me know in the comments.
Our mp3 was dubbed direct from this undated 78 rpm, 12", 12-sided lacquer. Slight scratch removal was applied to the original file and the "side joins" were edited as closely as possible to the original - each side change of the disc had overlapping sentences or phrases, so you may notice a side change in the middle of a sentence.
If you've read this far and find this or other shows interesting on the blog, I'd like to draw your attention to the PayPal donation button on the right side of the screen. I paid a bit more than I usually spend on transcriptions for this disc set - the seller couldn't play it and had no way to authenticate it, so I was taking a bit of a chance on it. Donations are appreciated.