Network

Network. 1976 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty
Director: Sidney Lumet
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Let's just get it out of the way right off the bat: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" You've probably heard this line before. Network is the original source of that quote. Consider yourselves enlightened.

UBS Evening News anchor Howard Beale (Finch) has been terminated from the network due to sliding ratings. He had two more weeks, but he announces the next night that he plans to commit suicide on a live broadcast. Beale is terminated immediately, but Beale's producer and best friend (and the network news editor) Max Schumacher (Holden) pleads for Beale to be let back on the air. Instead of apologizing, Beale starts ranting about how life is "bullshit", and UBS keeps him on the air. To Schumacher's distress, the network begins to exploit Beale's public breakdown rather than pulling the plug on him.

Beale delivers his inspired diatribe, complete with the oft-quoted catchphrase. UBS gives him a new program called The Howard Beale Show, billing him as the "mad prophet of the airways". Beale's new show becomes the top rated program on the network.

While Beale's popularity skyrockets with the public, Diane Christensen (Dunaway) rises to power. Originally a producer of entertainment programming, she acquires footage of terrorists robbing banks for a new UBS series, charmes other network executives, and ends up in charged of a merged news and entertainment division. It also doesn't hurt that she's having an affair with a married Max Schumacher, but the success of the network remains her obsession...even in the bedroom. It was Christensen's idea to keep Beale on the air.

After finding out that UBS and its owners will be purchased by a gigantic Saudi Arabian conglomerate, Beale attacks the merger on his show, urging his viewers to bombard the White House with telegrams with the oft-quoted catchphrase in hopes of stopping the merger. Beale, by now nearly delusional, meets with Arthur Jensen (Beatty), who owns the parent company of UBS. Jensen manages to talk Beale into abandoning his populist messages in future broadcasts...which results in plummeting ratings. Christensen, ever obsessed with the network's ratings, arranges for the same group of terrorists (who also have their own UBS show) to kill Beale in the middle of one of his broadcasts. The movie ends with news footage of the assassination, mixed in with commercials.

A winner of several film awards, Network is a true classic. Highly, highly recommended.