Network (1976)

Director:

Sidney Lumet

Writer:

Paddy Chayefsky (by)

Release Date:

27 November 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Not since the dawn of time has America experienced a man like Howard Beale!

Plot:

A TV network cynically exploits a deranged ex-TV anchor's ravings and revelations about the media for their own profit.

Plot Keywords:

Television | Terrorist | TV Network | Television News | Rant

Awards:

Won 4 Oscars. Another 22 wins & 19 nominations

Cast

Faye Dunaway	...	Diana Christensen
William Holden	...	Max Schumacher
Peter Finch	...	Howard Beale
Robert Duvall	...	Frank Hackett
Wesley Addy	...	Nelson Chaney
Ned Beatty	...	Arthur Jensen
Arthur Burghardt	...	Great Ahmed Kahn
Bill Burrows	...	TV Director
John Carpenter	...	George Bosch
Jordan Charney	...	Harry Hunter
Kathy Cronkite	...	Mary Ann Gifford
Ed Crowley	...	Joe Donnelly
Jerome Dempsey	...	Walter C. Amundsen
Conchata Ferrell	...	Barbara Schlesinger
Gene Gross	...	Milton K. Steinman
Stanley Grover	...	Jack Snowden
Cindy Grover	...	Caroline Schumacher
Darryl Hickman	...	Bill Herron
Mitchell Jason	...	Arthur Zangwill
Paul Jenkins	...	TV Stage Manager
Ken Kercheval	...	Merrill Grant
Kenneth Kimmins	...	Associate Producer
Lynn Klugman	...	TV Production Assistant
Carolyn Krigbaum	...	Max's Secretary
Zane Lasky	...	Audio Man
Michael Lipton	...	Tommy Pellegrino
Michael Lombard	...	Willie Stein
Pirie MacDonald	...	Herb Thackeray
Russ Petranto	...	TV Associate Director
Bernard Pollock	...	Lou
Roy Poole	...	Sam Haywood
William Prince	...	Edward George Ruddy
Sasha von Scherler	...	Helen Miggs
Lane Smith	...	Robert McDonough
Ted Sorel	...	Giannini (as Theodore Sorel)
Beatrice Straight	...	Louise Schumacher
Fred Stuthman	...	Mosaic Figure
Cameron Thomas	...	TV Technical Director
Marlene Warfield	...	Laureen Hobbs
Lydia Wilen	...	Hunter's Secretary
Lee Richardson	...	Narrator (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Chancellor	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Walter Cronkite	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Andrew Duncan	...	Agent (uncredited)
Todd Everett	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Betty Ford	...	Herself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Gerald Ford	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
John Gabriel	...	TV Anchor Reporting Beale's Suicide Threat (uncredited)
Lance Henriksen	...	Network Lawyer at Khan's Place (uncredited)
Raymond Martino	...	Window Person (uncredited)
Howard K. Smith	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
David Susskind	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Michael Tucker	...	Man at Desk (uncredited)
Ahmed Yamani	...	Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)

Directed by
Sidney Lumet

Writing credits
Paddy Chayefsky		(by)

Produced by
Fred C. Caruso	....	associate producer (as Fred Caruso)
Howard Gottfried	....	producer

Original Music by
Elliot Lawrence		(original music composed by)

Cinematography by
Owen Roizman		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Alan Heim

Casting by
Juliet Taylor

Production Design by
Philip Rosenberg

Set Decoration by
Edward Stewart

Costume Design by
Theoni V. Aldredge

Makeup Department
John Alese	....	makeup artist
Susan Germaine	....	hair stylist: Ms. Dunaway
Lee Harman	....	makeup artist: Ms. Dunaway
Philip Leto	....	hair stylist (as Phil Leto)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Alan Hopkins	....	first assistant director (as Jay Allan Hopkins)
Ralph S. Singleton	....	second assistant director (as Ralph Singleton)

Art Department
Connie Brink	....	property master (as Conrad Brink)

Sound Department
Jack Fitzstephens	....	sound editor
Marc Laub	....	sound editor (as Marc M. Laub)
Sanford Rackow	....	sound editor
James Sabat	....	sound mixer
Dick Vorisek	....	re-recordist
Louis Cerborino	....	assistant sound editor (uncredited)
Mel Zelniker	....	adr recordist (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Michael Ginsburg	....	still photographer
Kenneth Goss	....	key grip
Norman Leigh	....	gaffer
Gary Muller	....	second assistant cameraman
Tom Priestley Jr.	....	assistant cameraman
Fred Schuler	....	camera operator

Costume and Wardrobe Department
George Newman	....	costumer
Marilyn Putnam	....	costumer

Editorial Department
Michael Jacobi	....	assistant editor
Don Dittmar	....	color timer (uncredited)
Norman Hollyn	....	apprentice editor (uncredited)
Jeffrey Wolf	....	apprentice editor (uncredited)

Music Department
Elliot Lawrence	....	conductor: original music

Other crew
Selma Brown	....	production auditor
Kay Chapin	....	script supervisor
Stephen Frankfurt	....	title designer
Steve Rutt	....	video logo by: U.B.S., EUE Video Services
Connie Schoenberg	....	office coordinator
John H. Starke	....	location coordinator (as John Starke)
Mark Hurwitz	....	production assistant (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (A Howard Gottfried - Paddy Chayefsky Production)
• United Artists

Distributors

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1976) (USA) (theatrical)
• United Artists (1976) (USA) (theatrical)
• United Artists (1977) (France) (theatrical) (as Les Artistes Associés)
• Home Box Office (HBO) (1977) (USA) (TV)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1978) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (1996) (USA) (VHS) (pan and scan)
• Chapel Distribution (1997) (Australia) (theatrical) (35mm print)
• Warner Home Video (2000) (USA) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (Europe) (2003) (UK) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2003) (Germany) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (2006) (USA) (DVD) (included in "Controversial Classics: Volume 2")
• Warner Home Video (2006) (USA) (DVD) (remastered two-disc special edition)
• Warner Home Video (2010) (USA) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (2011) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
• MGM/UA Home Video (198?) (USA) (VHS) (pan and scan)
• Warner Home Video (198?) (Germany) (VHS)
• Warner Home Vídeo (19??) (Brazil) (VHS)

Other Companies

• EUE/Screen Gems Video Services  U.B.S. video logo by (as EUE Video Services)
• Todd/Champion Ltd.  extra casting

Also Known As:

Runtime:

121 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Singapore:M18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R (PCA #24546) | West Germany:16 | Canada:R (Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Iceland:12 | South Korea:15 | Portugal:M/12

Filming Locations:

CFTO-TV Studios, Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Black radical Laureen Hobbs's character is loosely modeled after communist activist Angela Davis.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Just after Beale announces his intention to commit suicide on the air, we see a row of TV screens showing how the story is being covered by the other channels. Playing a news anchor, John Gabriel claims that "something happened at one of our sister networks..." It should have been referred to as a "competitive" network - a "sister" implies the same corporate ownership, something prohibited by the FCC in 1976.

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?

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Screenwipe: Episode #3.1" (2007)

We Have Seen the Future, And It Sucks

This movie came out when I was nine years old, and I saw it on network TV the following year, lured by the brouhaha that surrounded the use of the "barnyard epithet" during prime time. I loved this movie before I understood it, and I worship it now. Like "Elmer Gantry" or "1984," it's a work of didactic art that only fails on an imaginative level -- Sinclair Lewis couldn't grasp how debased evangelism would become, Orwell couldn't foresee the excesses of Mao or Pol Pot, and Chayevsky couldn't envision the absolute decline of television from a vast wasteland to a malevolent sewer. Fox News, reality TV, even the OJ chase, "Network" anticipates every vile bit of it.

Now, it's ridiculously overwritten -- NO ONE is as articulate as the characters in this film, and most certainly, no one who works in television is as literate as Diana Christensen (the Faye Dunaway character). I doubt that poet laureates or even Eminem could spew as witty an aside as "muttering mutilated Marxism." But damn if that isn't part of its charm. Plus, outside of Max Schumacher (William Holden), the characters are pretty much archetypes instead of real people (the Robert Duvall character might as well wear a black cape and top hat), but their two-dimensionality works as a good metaphor for Max's seduction into the "shrieking nothingness" or television. Plus the actors are so superb they make screeching caricatures into almost-sympathetic characters: Duvall is a credible and charismatic villain, Finch is a fine mad prophet and Faye Dunaway manages to make a shrill, manipulative, soulless neurotic so damn cute and sexy you'll want to leave your wife for her, too, just as long as she promises to keep sitting cross-legged on your desk and hitching up her skirt. (Therein lies the real eroticism, forget the intentionally mechanical, unerotic coupling later in the flick). Anyway, this is complex, high art masquerading as popular entertainment, go rent it now.