The Very Best of Orson Welles, Including War of the Worlds and Dracula

Listening to Orson Welles' original Mercury Theater War of the Worlds broadcast these days, some 63 years after the fact, it might be easy to shrug and wonder, "What's the big deal?"

But that reaction comes from living in a time when even "real" news broadcasts are faked, while at the same time we carry on under the mistaken impression that we're pretty damned sophisticated. "Oh, so the spaceships leave Mars and land on Earth two minutes later? Give me a break." Or "Thirty seconds ago the reporter was at an observatory in Princeton, and now you expect me to believe he's in Grover's Mill? Come on...how could anybody believe that?"

Yes, that sort of contemporary reaction to Welles' masterpiece is the result of our creating for ourselves a computer-generated era that, ironically, has been left bereft of imagination. You have to remember that at the time, radio was the electronic media?and most everything you heard was being performed live. Journalists were required to tell stories, to deliver "word pictures" to their listeners, not just soundbites. We were still a year away from the beginning of World War II, but tensions were running high throughout Europe. Over here, we knew something was going to break soon?we just weren't sure what or when. So imagine?you turn on your radio one late October night, and tune in to a station where you hear a competent orchestra playing an up-tempo jazz number. Then suddenly the music goes dead, and a tense voice breaks in?

Nothing like it had been done before, so there was no precedent for those who tuned in two minutes late (missing Welles' introduction) to wonder whether or not what they were hearing was real. If you keep those things in mind, it's easy?even with jaded ears?to understand how Howard Koch's innovative script, the actors' performances and 23-year-old Welles' sharp direction could convince an estimated one million listeners (out of an estimated total audience of six million) that we really were being invaded by heat-ray-wielding Martians. If you approach it with the proper attitude (and listen to it alone in the dark), it's still incredibly effective. Especially the last 45 seconds of the first act.

To use a crude example, it was sort of like the original Blair Witch Project.

The War of the Worlds broadcast has become such a fundamental American reference point, I'm amazed at the number of people who've never heard it before. Youngsters, mostly?which I guess is no surprise. This new release from Stardust makes getting to know a little something about your own culture very easy. It's cheap, it's remastered, it comes in a beautiful package (with extensive liner notes printed so small they're beyond the reach of even my most powerful magnifier). Better still, you get more than War of the Worlds. The two-CD set also includes Welles' original production of Dracula?which was the very first radio play performed by the Mercury troupe.

You don't hear too much about Welles' Dracula?most talk of his radio work (even in the liner notes) being focused on War of the Worlds and The Shadow. This, in fact, was the first time I'd heard it in its entirety, and it was really something.

Recreating the novel's epistolary form?as read letters, diaries and telegrams?it avoids comparison to the Tod Browning film, which came out seven years beforehand and was well-established in everybody's mind. As Dracula, Welles?to his credit?makes no attempt whatsoever to imitate Bela Lugosi. Instead, it sounds almost as if he's using some sort of primitive vocorder, leaving the Count's voice somewhere between an echo and a growl.

It's not a perfect production?the musical cues are a little goofy and grating after a while, and given time limitations, the plot clips along at a breakneck pace that may leave some listeners saying, "Hey, wait a minute?"

Still, for Welles fans, or fans of classic radio, this is a pretty indispensable little package.