SYNOPSIS

Howard Beale (Peter Finch), veteran anchor of the fictional Union Broadcasting System's UBS Evening News, is informed by his best friend, network executive Max Schumacher (William Holden), that he is being retired because he "skews old" and his newscast is losing the ratings battle. Beale announces on his next show that during his final broadcast, in protest, he is going to kill himself on live television. That doesn't happen, but the suicide threat turns Beale into the hottest star on TV. With his ratings suddenly going through the roof, the ruthlessly ambitious programming executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) convinces network head Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) to promote Beale as a kind of messiah, "The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves." The nation is galvanized by Beale's enraged on-air outbursts, particularly what has become his signature rant, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Meanwhile, Diana has created an exploitive show about the "Ecumenical Liberation Army" and has entered into a lustful affair with Max, threatening his 25-year marriage to Louise (Beatrice Straight). When CCA, the company that owns UBS, is bought out by a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, CCA chairman Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) lectures Beale about the necessity of changing his message, leading the broadcaster's career to a violent end.

Director: Sidney Lumet
Producers: Fred Caruso, Howard Gottfried
Screenplay: Paddy Chayefsky
Cinematography: Owen Roizman
Editing: Alan Heim
Production Design: Philip Rosenberg
Original Music: Elliot Lawrence
Costume Design: Theoni V. Aldredge
Cast: Faye Dunaway (Diana Christensen), William Holden (Max Schumacher), Peter Finch (Howard Beale), Robert Duvall (Frank Hackett), Ned Beatty (Arthur Jensen), Beatrice Straight (Louise Schumacher), Wesley Addy (Nelson Chaney), Arthur Burghardt (Great Ahmed Khan), Bill Burrows (TV Director), John Carpenter (George Bosch), Jordan Charney (Harry Hunter)

Why NETWORK Is Essential

Network, made some 40 decades ago, remains a model of bold, outrageous satirical comedy, with sterling work by one of the strongest dramatic ensembles in the history of film. The bravura, Oscar®-winning performance of Peter Finch alone - at once funny, frightening and haunting - makes the movie must-see viewing. In addition, the movie offers a scathing indictment of the world of broadcast television and its many corrupting influences.

Many journalists and other screenwriters have remarked upon the movie's enduring relevance. In 2011 Dave Itzkoff wrote in The New York Times that "Thirty-five years later, Network remains an incendiary if influential film, and its screenplay is still admired as much for its predictive accuracy as for its vehemence." Aaron Sorkin, who cited Chayefsky when he accepted his Oscar® for the screenplay of The Social Network (2010), wrote that "no predictor of the future -- not even Orwell -- has ever been as right as Chayefsky was when he wrote Network." Stephen Colbert, anchor of Comedy Central's news satire The Colbert Report" has said that "Howard Beale is a precursor of people who are telling you how you feel. Not just the nighttime people that I'm sort of a parody of, not just the opinion-making people, but even what is left of straight news."

"What's that again, Paddy?" Chuck Ross wrote on TVweek.com. "You say this is the basic problem of television? That we've lost our sense of shock, our humanity? Watch Network again - or for the first time - and see if you don't find some tears welling up behind your laughter."

By Roger Fristoe