Cathleen O'Connell 

Actor-director Orson Welles, left, photographed with English author H.G. Wells when they met in San Antonio, Texas, on Nov. 30, 1940. The pair were discussing events in Europe when this picture was taken. (AP file photo) 

“That being said, I think he was a very canny entertainer and a brilliant self-promoter and certainly was not displeased in the publicity and attention that the broadcast brought to him. Just a note on the word panic – the extent of the panic remains unknown – while certainly some people panicked that night, and we share letters from those who did, many listeners did not believe the program. The exact numbers will never be truly known.”

O’Connell reviewed interviews Welles gave recalling the broadcast in the decades before his death in 1985, but she chose not to include them.

“He offered a few different ‘takes’ on it in different interviews – so it was hard to sort out the truth from ‘spin’ ... so we decided to let the broadcast speak for itself,” O’Connell said.

“We did, however, include Welles’ press conference the day after the broadcast – which is a wonderful piece of archival material. We also talked a lot about that press conference in editorial meetings – how much of that press conference is true remorse and how much is performance. I think probably it’s a little of both!”

Welles’ daughter, Chris Welles Feder, said “The War of the Worlds” broadcast altered her father’s career.

Feder added, “I first heard ‘War of the Worlds’ on a set of old LP’s when I was in my teens. I found it very tame, because I was listening to it in a different era when households had television sets, and the nation was not on the brink of World War II.

“It is hard for us to imagine in 2013 the enormous power that radio had in 1938, when it was the main source of news,” Feder said. “In 1938, there was no way to ‘Google’ the broadcast.”

Prior taking on the project, O’Connell said she was aware of Welles’ career as a filmmaker (“Citizen Kane”), and actor (“The Third Man”), but less familiar with work in the 1930s on Broadway and radio.

“I’m thrilled that our film throws a spotlight on this lesser-known part of his life, as this is an incredibly fertile and creative time of his career, where he’s experimenting with some of the techniques he will use later in motion pictures,” O’Connell said. “The fact that he was 23 when he did the ‘War of the Worlds’ stuck with me the most I think. Today we have wunderkinds like Mark Zuckerberg, who have made such an impact on our lives – Welles is totally in this category of culture maker extraordinaire, he’s definitely a prodigy.”