Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is news anchor for the Evening News on fictional TV network UBS. He is fired due to low ratings and his termination will be effective in two weeks. The next night, Beale announces on the air that he will commit suicide by "blowing his brains out" with a gun in a future broadcast.
United Broadcasting System fires Beale because of his madness and problems with sponsors, but lets him back on the air when he promises to apologize. Instead, he rants about life being "bulls**t". Ratings for his show skyrocket, and because UBS is in fourth place, the executives are actually pleased and decide to exploit Beale's popularity. They will do anything to improve their ratings.
Beale's mental breakdown manifests itself in screaming diatribes on the air. He galvanizes the viewing audience with his rant, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore", and urges everybody to shout the same thing out their windows--which they do. Ratings soar, and Beale is given another program to host, "The Howard Beale Show", where he is the "mad prophet of the airwaves". It becomes the highest rated show on TV.
Some of Howard Beale's raving revelations:
"I want you to get mad. I don't want you to protest, I don't want you to riot, I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write."
"All I know is, you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a human being, goddamn it. My life has value.'"
"You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion."
"Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people."
"All human beings are becoming humanoids. All over the world, not just in America. We're just getting there faster since we're the most advanced country."
"We'll tell you anything you want to hear, we lie like hell."
At the same time, UBS producer and programmer Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) is also improving her status at the network. She is ruthless, cunning, predatory, and obsessed with her work, even when having sex with Max Schumacher (William Holden), a conscientious newsman. Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) is a shark-like Vice President and Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) is an evangelistic Board Chairman. The network executives take turns yelling at each other. Performances are superb and startlingly realistic.
Diana: "I'm sorry for all those things I said to you last night. You're not the worst f**k I ever had. Believe me, I've had worse. You don't puff or snorkel and make death-like rattles. As a matter of fact, you're rather serene in the sack."
Max: "Why is it that a woman always thinks that the most savage thing she can say to a man is to impugn his c**ksmanship."
Diana: "I'm sorry I impugned your c**ksmanship."
Max: "I gave up comparing genitals back in the schoolyard."
When Beale discovers that UBS will be bought by a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, he asks the audience to contact the White House to stop the merger. Jensen lectures Beale on macroeconomics and persudes him to stop his populist messages. However, the audience is bored and depressed by his views on dehumanization, and ratings drop. Christensen arranges for Beale's on-air murder by terrorists from the UBS show, "The Mao-Tse Tung Hour", a new program in the fall season.
NETWORK is an outrageous and timeless satire on TV. This black comedy and fantasy is even more relevant today than when it was produced. It is a scathing indictment of the television industry that blurs the difference between reporting news and creating it. Uninhibited as it explores the inner workings of our most powerful medium, the director and screenwriter claimed it is not a satire, but a reflection of reality. NETWORK is noisy and tiresome at times. Also the cinematography is a little fuzzy and the soundtrack is mono.
Others in the cast include: Wesley Addy (Nelson Chaney), Arthur Burghardt (Great Ahmed Kahn), 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), Ken Kerch..Merrill Grant), Michael Lipton (Tommy Pellegrino), Michael Lombard (Willie Stein), Pirie MacDonald (Herb Thackeray), Bernard Pollock (Lou), Roy Poole (Sam Haywood), William Prince (Edward George Ruddy), Sasha von Scherler (Helen Miggs), Lane Smith (Robert McDonough), Ted Sorel (Giannini), Beatrice Straight (Louise Schumacher), Marlene Warfield (Laueen Hobbs), and many others. John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite, Gerald Ford, Betty Ford, Howard K. Smith, and David Susskind play themselves.
Paddy Chayefsky wrote the script. Sidney Lumet directed. Elliot Lawrence composed the original music, although there is no incidental music whatsoever in the film. The only music comes from commercials and TV show themes. Budget for the production was $3.8 million and it grossed $23,689,000 at the box office.
NETWORK was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won four. Peter Finch won a Best Actor award, the first person to win an acting award posthumously. Faye Dunaway won an Oscar for Best Actress. Sidney Lumet won the Best Director award. And Paddy Chayefsky won his third Oscar for Best Screenplay.
