Orson Welles "First Person Singular", with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Some months later the show was called "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". The weekly hour-long show presented radio plays based on classic literary works, with original music composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann. The Mercury Theatre's radio adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells October 30, 1938, brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners was later reported to have created widespread confusion among listeners who
Orson Welles Cinema Orson Welles Cinema The Orson Welles Cinema was a movie theater at 1001 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts that operated from 1969 to 1986. Showcasing independents, foreign films and revivals, it became a focal point of the Boston-Cambridge film community. The Orson Welles Cinema opened April 8, 1969 with Luis Buñuel’s "Simon of the Desert", Orson Welles’ "The Immortal Story" and a midnight movie, Don Siegel’s "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Originally the Esquire Theater in the early 1960s, it became the Orson Welles Cinema under its next owner, folk musician Dean Gitter. It was programmed by then-Harvard Law student