Archive for October 30th, 2008

Ghost Stories

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Ghost stories are always fun, but especially so at Halloween. Two funny ones are The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving, and The Canterville Ghost, by Oscar Wilde.

You can download an audio book version of The Canterville Ghost for free from The Classic Tales podcast. Search for The Classic Tales podcast on itunes or check out his website. B.J. Harrison, the man behind the Classic Tales, has an outstanding collection of audio books he has made available for free. But if you enjoy them, try donating a few dollars to the cause. You’ll be glad you did.

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Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast – Great Halloween History

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Who isn’t a sucker for a good, scary story. Here’s a link to Orson Welle’s original broadcast of War of the Worlds. When originally broadcast, many people who didn’t listen from the start were fooled into believing that the martian invasion was really taking place. If you’ve never listened to this before, notice carefully how well the radio play is constructed.

Place yourself back in its day, with its rudimentary communications technology, close your eyes and enjoy the superb acting of Orson Welles and his Mecury Radio Theater.

Here’s a webpage on the broadcast.

Orson Welles was an amazing actor. We generally link him with Citizen Kane, his revolutionary cinematic classic, but the man did much more. His acclaimed Mercury Theater created many excellent radio performances, which later continued on Campbell’s Playhouse. You can still get or hear recordings of these on the internet at such places as OTR Now, a site dedicated to Old Time Radio.

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