Ekleticgoodies

Mercury Theater on the Air’s

“HELL ON ICE”

by Edward Ellsberg

 Produced, directed and scripted by Orson Welles

October 15th 1938
Starring Orson Welles

Commander Edward Ellsberg recounts of the story through the vivid personality of George Wallace Melville, chief engineer on the Jeannette. A careful research through diaries, journals, Naval Inquiries, and Congressional Investigations enables him to use the actual dialogue and set down authentically the characters of the whole ship's company. Above all, his rare knowledge of men in action and his rare ability to depict them make the reader virtually a member of the most extraordinary Artic expedition in history.

The finest radio drama of the 1930’s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman.

In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown.

The show first broadcast on CBS and CBC in July 1938. It ran without a sponsor until December of that year, when it was picked up by Campbell’s Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse.

Approximate play time of 1 hour.