Results tagged “orsonwelles”

Tonight and tomorrow night, the Paramount's Summer Classic Film Series gives you a double dose of the man who once singlehandedly freaked out some radio listeners so much that they ran out on the streets, shooting at menacing water towers and searching for meteorites: the corpulent and magnetic Orson Welles. First, enjoy 1958's border story Touch of Evil, recently restored and also featuring Charlton Heston; then, regardez-vous the best movie of all time, Citizen Kane...

In America's post-war period marked by seemingly limitless technological advances, science-fiction radio serials dominated the airwaves. Families gathered to hear dramatically narrated tales of astonishing foreign worlds, populated with heroic space cowboys and insidious alien overlords. In some ways it was almost better than watching a movie; supplied with colorful, gorgeously effusive dialogue and then-impressive sound effects, you were free to envision the stories in your mind. Some of these serials - The Adventures of Superman and Journey Into Space, for example - were hugely popular, enjoying lengthy runs on the radio. Most famously, Orson Welles' broadcast of The War of the Worlds was so convincing in its authenticity that many listeners believed the tale of a Martian invasion of Earth was actually taking place.