Book review: ‘Dead Air’ tells the story of the night Orson Welles unleashed a fake invasion of Mars

Long time ago Donald Trump used the term ‘fake news’ to complain about reporting he didn’t like, Orson Welles mastered the art of actual fake news.

Welles’s 1938 radio adaptation of HG Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” is the focus of William Elliott Hazelgrove’s “Dead Air: The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America.”

The book serves as an enjoyable history of the radio drama, with a host of fascinating details about its production and its historical context. But it falls short in exploring the legendary reports of mass hysteria among listeners who thought they heard an actual invasion of Mars taking place.

In appropriately cinematic detail, Hazelgrove chronicles Welles’ rise and manic work style – even including a hilarious account of a scuffle that broke out between Welles and Ernest Hemingway and ended with the pair toasting each other over whiskey.

Highlighting what made Welles’s production particularly powerful, the book aired at a time when the Great Depression left millions unemployed and the nation was on edge over the threat of Nazi Germany. He describes how Welles took advantage of those fears, including by using an actor who sounded like that Franklin D. Roosevelt for a role in his broadcast.

“There was a pent-up sense of panic in the air and people could almost smell the fear,” he writes. “Orson Welles opened that bottle and let the fear run wild.”

The book’s biggest flaw is Hazelgrove’s examination of just how wild that fear was. Hazelgrove too easily rejects the modern reappraisal that reports of widespread panic were exaggerated, and shows little skepticism about news reports of the time that were largely based on anecdotal reports.

Hazelgrove also makes an unconvincing argument that deaths can be attributed to the panic over the broadcast. He even speculates that a car accident reported the night of the broadcast could have been linked without any evidence to support it.

There is no doubt that Welles’ drama has had a major impact on pop culture, and that ‘War of the Worlds’ will have a lasting legacy. Hazelgrove’s book misses an opportunity to fully reexamine reports of the panic it caused.

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AP Book Reviews:

Andrew Demillo, The Associated Press