This is the infamous Orson Welles radio broadcast version, available (along with many other interesting broadcasts I’m currently downloading) here.

Thanks to a dead battery, I’m only halfway through this, but I’ve got to say — despite the fact that I’ve read the book, watched this on the silver screen twice, and own the Classics Illustrated version: this is still exciting as all heck.

Of course, any review of the show has to include the notion that its original airing caused panicked mobs to flee New Jersey. Which raises the thought that people in 1938 didn’t have a strong grasp of science. I’d love to know if anyone listening to this show on the radio was suddenly reassured when they heard that there was supposedly a radio blackout in their area.

But by that time, they had already rounded up the kids and Bessie and were heading for the hills. God help anyone who tried to escape through the Pine Barrens. That place is spooky.

For contemporary listeners, perhaps the most interesting thing is listening to government responses to disasters then and now. Between assurances from the military that the threat is under control, and official federal appeals for calm and to God Almighty, it seems that not much has changed in seventy years.