Network

MAX

You have heard voices. Swell. What kind of voices, Howard? Still small voices in the night or the mighty thunder of God? Howard, you've finally done it. You've gone over the edge. You're nuts.

HOWARD

I have been called. This is my witness, and I must make it.

MAX

Not on my goddam network news show.

He opens the door, goes back into –
 

INT. NIGHTLY NEWS ROOM

– where he stops, turns and wheels back to Howard's office –

MAX

Now, look, Howard, I'm not kidding around about this. You go back to being a straight anchorman tonight. I'm the voice you're hearing now, and this voice is telling you we're doing a straight news show from now on. Okay?

Howard seems not to have heard him, continues pecking away at his typewriter. Max scowls, turns, exits –

INT. NETWORK NEWS CONTROL ROOM

The wall CLOCK says 6:29. The control room STAFF are all at their posts murmuring away. Harry Hunter is on the phone –

HUNTER

(muttering into phone)

Max, I'm telling you he's fine. He's been sharp all day, he's been funny as hell. He had everybody cracking up at the rundown meeting... I told him, I told him...

INT. NETWORK NEWS CONTROL ROOM – LATER

On the SHOW MONITOR, Howard Beale at his desk, shuffles his papers, looks up for his cue. The wall CLOCK clicks to 6:30, the Director murmurs into his mike. Howard looks out from the screen to his vast audience and says:

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

Last night, I was awakened from a fitful sleep at shortly after two o'clock in the morning by a shrill, sibilant, faceless voice that was sitting in my rocking chair. I couldn't make it out at first in the dark bedroom. I said: "I'm sorry, you'll have to talk a little louder." And the Voice said to me: "I want you to tell the people the truth, not an easy thing to do; because the people don't want to know the truth." I said: "You're kidding. How the hell would I know what the truth is?" I mean, you have to picture me sitting there on the foot of the bed talking to an empty rocking chair. I said to myself: "Howard, you are some kind of banjo-brain sitting here talking to an empty chair." But the Voice said to me: "Don't worry about the truth. I'll put the words in your mouth." And I said: "What is this, the burning bush? For God's sake, I'm not Moses." And the Voice said to me: "And I'm not God, what's that got to do with it –"

INT. NETWORK NEWS CONTROL ROOM

Harry Hunter still on the phone as the rest of the control room staff just sit there staring at Howard on the MONITOR –

HUNTER

(on phone)

What do you want me to do? –

INT. MAX'S OFFICE

Max behind his desk on his phone, chin cupped in his right hand, staring glumly at Howard on his CONSOLE –

MAX

(on phone)

Nothing –

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

And the Voice said to me: "We're not talking about eternal truth or absolute truth or ultimate truth! We're talking about impermanent, transient, human truth! I don't expect you people to be capable of truth! But, goddamit, you're at least capable of self-preservation! That's good enough! I want you to go out and tell the people to preserve themselves – "

MAX

(mutters on phone)

Right now, I'm trying to remember the name of that psychiatrist that took care of him when his wife died –

INT. STUDIO – NETWORK NEWS

TIGHT SHOT OF Howard, his voice rising, his eyes glowing with increasing fervor –

HOWARD

(growing fervor)

And I said to the Voice: "Why me?" And the Voice said: "Because you're on television, dummy! – "

INT. DIANA'S OFFICE

Diana watching Howard on her CONSOLE –

DIANA

Beautiful!

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

"You have forty million Americans listening to you; after tonight's show, you could have fifty million. For Pete's sake, I don't expect you to walk the land in sackcloth and ashes preaching the Armageddon. You're on Teevee, man! – "

INT. Max'S OFFICE

Max, no longer on the phone, is leafing through a loose-leaf address book –

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

So I thought about it for a moment –

Max taps out a telephone number on his private line –

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

And then I said: "Okay – "

MAX

(on phone)

Doctor Sindell? My name is Max Schumacher, I'm at the Union Broadcasting Systems, and I hope you remember me? I'm a friend of Howard Beale whom you treated for a few months last year –

INT. FIFTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

As Howard and Harry Hunter, followed by the rest of the control room staff, come out of the stairway and head down the corridor to –

INT. ROOM 517 – NIGHTLY NEWS ROOM

Where Hunter and Howard move towards Howard's office while the rest of the control room CREW disperse to their own desks and to exchange muttered comments with those Nightly News PERSONNEL still at their desks. Howard walks straight as a ramrod, eyes uplifted, serene to the point of beatitude. He and Hunter go into –

INT. HOWARD'S OFFICE

Where Max is sitting, waiting on the couch. He stands –
 

MAX

Close the door, Harry –

Hunter does so.

MAX

Sit down, Howard. Howard, I'm taking you off the air. I called your psychiatrist.

HOWARD

(serene, sits behind his desk)

What's happening to me, Max, isn't mensurate in psychiatric terms.

MAX

I think you're having a breakdown, require treatment, and Dr. Sindell agrees.

HOWARD

This is not a psychotic episode. It is a cleansing moment of clarity.

(stands, an imbued man)

I am imbued, Max. I am imbued with some special spirit. It's not a religious feeling at all. It is a shocking eruption of great electrical energy: I feel vivid and flashing as if suddenly I had been plugged into some great cosmic electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things, to flowers, birds, to all the animals of the world and even to some great unseen living force, what I think the Hindus call prana.

He stands rigidly erect, his eyes staring mindlessly out, his face revealing the anguish of so transcendental a state.

HOWARD

It is not a breakdown. I have never felt so orderly in my life! It is a shattering and beautiful sensation! It is the exalted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and of such loveliness! I feel on the verge of some great ultimate truth.

He stares haggardly at Max, his breath coming with great difficulty now; he shouts:

HOWARD

You will not take me off the air for now or for any other spaceless time!

He promptly falls in a dead swoon onto the floor.

MAX

(hurrying to his friend's prostrate form)

Jesus Christ –

HUNTER

(from the door)

Is he okay?

MAX

(bent over Howard)

He's breathing anyway. I'll have to take him to my house again for the night –

A CRASH OF THUNDER –

INT. MAX'S APARTMENT – BEDROOM – NIGHT

THUNDER CRASHES outside. RAIN pelts against the windows. The room is dark. Max and his wife, LOUISE, are fast asleep in their hushed room. CAMERA PANS, DOLLIES slowly out of the bedroom and into –

INT. LIVING ROOM

Dark, hushed, sleeping. Howard is asleep on the living room couch. Or rather he was asleep, for he now slowly sits up, then stands in his borrowed pajamas, goes to the hall closet, fetches out a raincoat, unchains, unbolts and unlocks the front door of the apartment, and goes out –

EXT. A STREET IN THE EAST 60'S – OVERCAST DAY – FRIDAY , OCTOBER 3 – 7:30 A.M.

Another CRASH and RUMBLE of THUNDER. RAIN slashes through the streets. The sky is dark and lowering –

INT. Max'S APARTMENT – BEDROOM

ALARM CLOCK BUZZING. Mrs. Louise Schumacher, a handsome matron of 50, clicks it off and gets out of bed. Max turns in the bed, sleeps on. THUNDER and RAIN. OFF SCREEN Louise starts sleepily for the bathroom, pauses, then goes out into the –

INT. BACK HALLWAY
 

– and down that to –

INT. LIVING ROOM

– where she stands, frowning. The couch, which had been made up for a bed, has clearly been slept in but is now empty. She looks back up the hallway to the guest bathroom. The door is open, and there is obviously nobody in the bathroom. She pads across the living room-dining room area and pokes her head into the kitchen, and then back to the back hallway, pauses a moment outside her daughter's closed bedroom door, opens it, looks in, closes it and then returns to –

INT. THE BEDROOM

She sits on Max's side of the bed, shakes him awake.

LOUISE

Wake up, Max, because Howard's gone. I'll make you some coffee.

She moves off.

MAX

(mutters)

Shit.

He slowly sits up.

INT. FRANK HACKETT'S OFFICE

Hackett in a rage, shouting at Max slumped in a soft chair. Others in the room are Diana and HERB THACKERAY.

HACKETT

What do you mean you don't know where he is? The son of a bitch is a hit, goddammit! Over two thousand phone calls! Go down to the mailroom! As of this minute, over fourteen thousand telegrams! The response is sensational! Herb, tell him! –

Thackeray starts to tell him, but Hackett roars on –

HACKETT

Herb's phone hasn't stopped ringing! Every goddam affiliate from Albuquerque to Sandusky! The response is sensational!

The PHONE RINGS, Hackett seizes it.

HACKETT

What?... All right

He hangs up, snaps at Thackeray –

HACKETT

It's your office, Herb. You better get back there.

Thackeray exits. Hackett roars on –

HACKETT

Moldanian called me! Joe Donnelly called me! We've got a goddam hit, goddam it! Diana, show him the Times! We even got an editorial in the holy goddam New York Times. "A Call to Morality!" That crazy son of a bitch, Beale, has caught on! So don't tell me you don't know where he is!

MAX

(roaring back)

I don't know where he is! He may be jumping off a roof for all I know. The man is insane. He's no longer responsible for himself. He needs care and treatment. And all you grave-robbers care about is he's a hit!

DIANA

You know, Max, it's just possible that he isn't insane, that he is, in fact, imbued with some special spirit.

MAX

My God, I'm supposed to be the romantic; you're supposed to be the hard-bitten realist!

DIANA

All right. Howard Beale obviously fills a void. The audience out there obviously wants a prophet, even a manufactured one, even if he's as mad as Moses. By tomorrow, he'll have a 50 share, maybe even a 60 share. Howard Beale is processed instant God, and right now it looks like he may just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore.

MAX

I'm not putting Howard back on the air.

DIANA

It's not your show any more, Max, it's mine.