THE RADIO BROADCAST THAT SHOCKED AMERICA

Practical jokes are centuries old. Edgar Allan Poe pulled one off in a newspaper article about a daredevil balloonist who got blown off course in South Carolina and ended up in England three days later. Speaking of England, the folks across the pond have endured a good many as well, such as the story that claimed that Communists had taken over London. These and other examples of the "fake news" from yesteryear are discussed in the editorial for the November 19, 1938 issue of RADIO GUIDE. However, the main feature is concerned with one of the most infamous hoaxes in history: Orson Welles' live broadcast of martians invading Earth. Not only was it convincing, but it sent America into a countrywide panic.

The show was adapted from the science-fiction novel, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H. G. Wells first published in 1898. Like the book, it was also written as a first-person account, and scriptwriter Howard Koch imitated the first-person point of view to give what would be a live broadcast the element of verisimilitude.

Along with a few other actors, the 23-year-old Welles read his script over the airwaves of CBS Radio's "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" program on the evening of October 30, 1938. Before the show was over, panic had already spread and it took an apology from Wells the next morning to calm down a frightened populace. Moreover, in a likely move to avoid personal criticism and distance himself from the event, H. G. Wells himself was reported as saying he did not give his permission for his story to be used in a "news bulletin" format that would incite fear and panic.

Welles the morning after with the press.

So, just how convincing was this mother of all hoaxes? Read on, as the article discusses the incident, as well as Wells describing his thoughts on the hoodwinking of not only a radio audience, but an entire country. Also included is the complete script of the show.

[Thanks to Mr. Steve Green, our man in the U.K. for supplying WoM with this fantastic historical artifact.]

VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT

"Fabulous! Spectacular! Terrifying!"

- Poster art of Viking Women and The Sea Serpent

Movies such as this epitomize the economy with which Roger Corman made his pictures. The thankfully short, 66-minute film was estimated to have had the minuscule budget of $65,000. And yes, it shows.

With the unimaginably long official title of THE SAGA OF THE VIKING WOMEN AND THEIR VOYAGE TO THE WATERS OF THE GREAT SEA SERPENT, it is generally shortened for an obvious reason. Mercifully, the titular sea serpent--who looks like it could be a cousin of Reptilicus--is only briefly seen on screen and deftly photographed as to not have the viewer dwell on the cheap-looking monster.

The plot is simple: a band of viking women set off to rescue their men who have disappeared land on an island where they encounter the evil Grimaults lead by Stark (Devon) and a hungry sea serpent before they can accomplish their task.

One thing Corman could do was hire a cast of fairly capable actors that would try their best to take the rough edges off of the usual insipid scripts and vapid stories. In this case it was the viking women (Abby Dalton, June Kenney, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Lynette Bernay, Sally Todd and Susan Cabot), leading man Bradford "Brad" Jackson and villain Richard Devon. B-movie players Jonathan "Little Shoppe of Horrors" Haze and Gary "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" Conway also had bit parts.

Jackson had starred in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE in 1963 and Devon in two other Corman quickies, playing Satan in THE UNDEAD (1957) and WAR OF THE SATELLITES (1958), as well as being in high demand as a TV character actor. Sally Todd lent her physical talents to numerous girlie magazines and was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for February 1957. She starred in THE UNEARTHLY (1957) and FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1958), in which makeup man Harry Thomas wanted her to play the monster, but the producers didn't think she was big enough to pull it off. Todd was often in the news, especially when she was dating Hollywood men such as Troy Donahue, Jack Webb, John Ashley and Peter Lawford. Susan Cabot went on to star as the titular character in THE WASP WOMAN in 1959. The story of a woman obsessed with an age-reversing drug, it has a bizarre correlation to events in her personal life (more on that in a later post).

While location shooting was done at several locations around town: Bronson Canyon (Griffith Park, Los Angeles), Iverson Ranch (Chatsworth, California), Cabrillo Beach (San Pedro, California), Malibu, California and Santa Monica, California, the sea-faring sequences were filmed on a sound stage at Ziv Studios in Santa Monica using a prop boat and rear projection. Stage hands added to the rough water effect by throwing water on the actors. In one scene where the boat was actually used on the ocean, the man towing it out to sea fell asleep (!) and all eleven of the viking women had to be rescued by a pair of surfers. To make matters worse, only Sally Todd and Abby Dalton knew how to swim! It was just one more example of Corman's notorious recklessness with putting his actors in the face of danger. There were numerous injuries and close calls, and a near-fatality occurred when a cameraman was nearly electrocuted while filming a water scene at Ziv Studios.

THE VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT had just a couple more things going for it besides the babes: the music by B-movie veteran Albert Glasser and the poster art was by one of the best -- Reynold Brown.

Pressbook sample pages:

Lobby cards:

Stills:

Screen grabs:

Lynette Bernay, June Kenney, Abby Dalton, Susan Todd.

Susan Cabot.

Betsy Jones-Moreland

The terrifying titular serpent:

The article below from the Canadian film magazine, TAKE ONE #9 (1968) is an interview with actor Jay Sayer who plays Senya, the king's son in the film. Sayer provides a lengthy synopsis of the story and some behind the scenes insight. The interview was first published a year before in 20 CENTS MAGAZINE, October 1967, published by The Twenty Cents Publishing Company, London, Ontario.

H.P. LOVECRAFT IN A MEN'S MAGAZINE?

I never thought I'd see the day. My curiosity got the best of me when I came across this digital copy of the UK skin magazine, MAYFAIR from 1970, so I thought I'd take a quick peek--you know--just to look at the articles. Hardly a few pages in, I stopped, and not just a little surprised: here was H.P. Lovecraft's story, "From Beyond"! Interest in HPL was enjoying a new resurgence at the time, but still, to have one of his stories published in a men's magazine? It truly boggles the mind.

Written in 1920, "From Beyond" was first published in the fan magazine, THE FANTASY FAN #10 (June 1934), and has since been anthologized many times, as is the rest of his fiction. It is not recognized as one of this best tales, but it's his first to elaborate on the recurring theme of his characters discovering a world outside our own five senses and the resulting interaction with it. You might know it better as cosmic horror.

The first page of HPL's original manuscript.

After the story itself, it is best known for Stuart Gordon's film adaptation from 1986. And here it is, over a half-a-century later, in a men's magazine.

A very unusual Lovecraft artifact, to be sure.

The accompanying illustration is by George Underwood. Underwood is a British artist and musician, who played in two different bands with his high school friend, David Bowie. Underwood famously punched Bowie in the eye in a fight over a girl which left Bowie with permanent sight problems. Nevertheless, they remained life-long friends.

Underwood gave up on a music career and went to art school, In the 1970s he designed album covers for Bowie (THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS, HUNKY DORY) , T-Rex, Procol Harum, and Mott the Hoople among others. He also illustrated hundreds of book covers.

Okay, since you might be wondering, here's the cover.