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 footage is included in the documentaries "Working with Orson Welles" (1993), "Orson Welles: One Man Band" (1995), and most extensively "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead" (2018). "Too Much Johnson" is a 1938 comedy film written and directed by Welles. Designed as the cinematic aspect of Welles's Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy, the film was not completely edited or publicly screened. "Too Much Johnson" was considered a lost film until August 2013, with news reports that a pristine print had been discovered in Italy in 2008. A copy restored by the George Eastman House museum was