Network (1976)

Taglines:

Prepare yourself for a perfectly outrageous motion picture! See more »

Parents Guide:

View content advisory »

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 November 1976 (USA) See more »

Also Known As:

Poder que mata See more »

Filming Locations:

CFTO-TV Studios, Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada See more »

Budget:

$3,800,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$23,689,877 (USA) (1977)

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), United Artists See more »

Show detailed company contact information on IMDbPro »

Runtime:

121 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Trivia

Sidney Lumet claimed that he wanted to cast Vanessa Redgrave in the film, but Paddy Chayefsky didn't want her. Lumet argued that he thought she was the greatest English-speaking actress in the world, while Chayefsky, a proud Jew and supporter of Israel, objected on the basis of her support of the PLO. Lumet, himself a Jew, said "Paddy, that's blacklisting!" to which Chayefsky replied, "Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile." The year after this film swept the Oscars, Redgrave won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Julia. The Jewish Defense League had protested her nomination and was picketing and burning her in effigy outside the Academy Awards ceremony. In her controversial acceptance speech, Redgrave decried intimidation by "Zionist hoodlums". Chayefsky was one of the scheduled presenters later in the evening, and he took a moment to express his contempt at Redgrave for "exploiting" the Academy Awards for "personal propaganda". See more »

Goofs

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Early in the film, after Howard Beale says that he's going to kill himself on-air, he's on the phone with Schumacher (Holden) angling to get his job back, and he mentions that he "has 11 years with this network." Later, following his on-air rant that "he ran out of BS," he's confronted by the press in the lobby of UBS where he says, "Every day, five days a week for 15 years, I've been sitting behind that desk..." See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: This story is about Howard Beale, who was the news anchorman on UBS TV. In his time, Howard Beale had been a mandarin of television, the grand old man of news, with a HUT rating of 16 and a 28 audience share. In 1969, however, his fortunes began to decline. He fell to a 22 share. The following year, his wife died, and he was left a childless widower with an 8 rating and a 12 share. He became morose and isolated, began to drink heavily, and on September 22, 1975, he was fired, effective in two weeks. The news was broken to him by Max Schumacher, who was the president of the news division at UBS. The two old friends got properly pissed.
Howard Beale: [on the street] I was at CBS with Ed Murrow in 1951.
Max Schumacher: Must've been 1950 then.
[Beale nods]
Max Schumacher: I was at NBC, uh, associate producer. Morning News. I was just a kid. 26 years old.
[Not interested, Beale wanders off, until Schumacher stops him]
Max Schumacher: Anyway... anyway... they're building the lower level of the George Washington Bridge.
[Interested, Beale listens]
Max Schumacher: We were doing a remote from there.
Howard Beale/ Max Schumacher: [start to laugh and snicker in unison]
Max Schumacher: And nobody told me!
[Beale keeps laughing, very interested]
Max Schumacher: Ten after seven in the morning, I get a call, "Where the hell are YOU? You're supposed to be on the George Washington Bridge!"
[Beale and Schumacher exchange laughs]
Max Schumacher: I jump out of bed, throw my raincoat over my pajamas. I run downstairs and out into the street...
[Schumacher runs into the street]
Max Schumacher: ...hail a cab, and I say to the cabbie, "TAKE ME TO THE MIDDLE OF THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE!"
[Beale laughs]
Max Schumacher: And the cabbie turns around and he says...
[giggles]
Max Schumacher: ...he says "Don't do it, buddy! You're a young man! You got your whole life ahead of you!"
Howard Beale/ Max Schumacher: [shriek in hysterics, as Beale gives Schumacher a hug]
Max Schumacher: Didn't I ever tell you that one before?
See more »

Connections

Referenced in Archie's Final Project (2009) See more »