Howard Koch

America in 1938 loved it anyway, and the Mercury was getting crushed.

The writer stuck with the weekly scripts was a former lawyer named Howard Koch.

He was making about $60 a week.

Because the show had no money, Houseman sweetened the deal by letting Koch keep the rights to whatever he wrote, and that's a pretty big deal because it's the best financial decision anyone made that year.

Somebody fired at it.

Somebody shot it to pieces.

It seems to trace back to a retired local fire chief who told it to Howard Koch in 1970.

Koch didn't really believe it either.

It was essentially written by a village

Yeah, you had Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch all working on it, often rewriting critical scenes just hours before they were scheduled to be shot

Which is insane.

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman famously didn't even know how the movie was gonna end while they were filming the middle of it

And you have an amazing show yourself, which we'll get to.

This is kind of like what people don't know, right? So people know, obviously, Howard Koch, right?

Yes, he always had the W in there.

That's my grandfather.

Koch.

Yes, my dad is Hawk, yes.

My grandfather used the W in his name because the writer of Casablanca was Howard Koch.

and he never wanted credit because that was a different person.

He writes, directs, and stars in the series, and its success likely helps him sell his new program to CBS, 1938's Mercury Theatre on the Air.

Early in its run, The War of the Worlds novel lands on the desk of Orson and his writer, Howard Koch.

The 1898 novel is said to be the first published story about aliens invading Earth.

Even so, Orson reportedly thinks it's dull.

My name is Dale Katsura, and I welcome you to an audio restoration of The War of the Worlds.

This 1938 adaptation of H.G. Wells' famous novel of alien invasion was produced by Orson Welles and John Houseman, and written by Howard Koch.

Recordings of this famous production have been available for decades.

All of them have been marred by the noise and crackles evident on the original transcription disc.

The moment the casting file gets opened, because some of the most locked, definitive, seemingly inevitable performances in the history of the medium only exist because someone said no, or got hurt, or was fired, or was never seriously considered until the person who was seriously considered became suddenly catastrophically unavailable.

bonsett i want to get into the receipts on this not the mythology the actual documentation the screen tests the contracts with writers that were never activated the director interviews where they describe sometimes with visible discomfort what they almost made instead start with the one that has more documented evidence than almost any other casting near miss in hollywood history casablanca nineteen forty two and the reason i keep coming back to this one isn't the famous version of the story it's how much further the alternative casting went than most people realize ronald reagan did not almost play rick that's a myth they got laundered into fact through repetition what actually happened is that warner bros in their initial announcement of the project this was before the script was even finished remember they bought the rights to the unproduced stage play everybody comes to ricks and announced it as a forthcoming production listed reagan's name as a possibility in their internal documents alongside anne sheridan and dennis morgan this was essentially a press availability notice it was not a casting decision reagan was never offered the role he never tested for it the humphrey bogart discussion was already under way before the reagan notation had any real substance behind it but what is documented this is where the real story gets genuinely strange is that the part of ilse lund almost didn't go to ingrid bergman hetty lamar was the first serious conversation at that moment lamar was arguably the bigger female star mgm had her under contract and the negotiations between studios were complicated enough that the whole thing nearly collapsed there are production memos from the spring of nineteen forty two at the warner brothers archive where the acquisition of ingrid bergman from david o selznick is discussed as a second option almost a fallback selznick agreed to loan her out with conditions and then there's the thing that doesn't get talked about enough bergman spent the entire production not knowing which man her character was supposed to be in love with this is not metaphorical Director Michael Curtiz and the writers, the Epstein brothers, Howard Koch, were still actively figuring out the ending while they were shooting.

Bergman has said in interviews that she kept asking Curtiz, who does she love? Who should I be playing this toward? and curtis apparently told her to play it in between to keep it ambiguous to not commit which means the most famous romantic performance of the studio era was constructed in a state of genuine uncertainty by an actress who had no idea how her own story ended imagine hedy lamarr in that fog at the airport It's possible.

She was a good actress, deeply underrated, mostly because the mythology around her appearance consumed everything else.