Orson Welles with an entirely African American cast, and the political musical "The Cradle Will Rock". In 1937 he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941. Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel "The War of the Worlds" performed for his radio anthology series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". It reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was actually occurring. Although some contemporary sources say these
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