Search - Studio One: Sentence of Death/The Night America Trembled on DVD

Falling UFOs and Rising Stars

R. Epstein | USA | 06/09/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The first time I heard about Orson Welles' 1939 debacle of the Mercury Theater's broadcast of "War of the Worlds" was in 1975, when a TV movie called "The Night That Panicked America" aired. Little did I know that eighteen years earlier, a shorter and much more intense TV movie aired about the same event. Perhaps it was because this TV-movie was aired in a more innocent time that Welles' original programme seemed more palpable. I actually felt for the first time that 'maybe' had I just turned on the radio that Sunday evening in October of 1938, I too would have been peering out my window to see if any octopus-men from Mars were scampering down my street. As warm and intimate as live radio broadcasts were in the 1930s and 40s, live TV of the 1950s somehow made entertainment seem even more intimate and real. This is the first DVD that I've seen of the "Studio One" series, and I'm looking forward to seeing more. I have to admit, "Sentenced To Death" didn't blow me away, although it was still a fun experience. "The Night America Trembled" did blow me away, and it had the added fun of seeing familiar faces such as Edward R. Murrow, James Coburn, Warren Beatty, Ed Asner, Warren Oates, John Astin and Vincent Gardenia. Do watch the movies with the commercials; Westinghouse's praise for atomic power is a definite chuckle as is their cheesy-looking refrigerator, but I have to admit... I wish TV commercials were still like that! No fifty images per-minute trying to sell you a 'cool' image. At least back in the 1950s, they were really trying to sell you a product! This DVD is a great evening's entertainment as well as a historical look at who we were as a nation some fifty years ago."