Network

MAX

You're nuts. You're nuttier than Howard.

HACKETT

I gave her the show, Schumacher. I'm putting the network news show under programming. Mr. Ruddy has had a mild heart attack and is not taking calls. In his absence, I'm making all network decisions, including one I've been wanting to make a long time – you're fired. I want you out of this building by noon. I'll leave word with the security guards to throw you out if you're still here.

MAX

Well, let's just say, fuck you, Hackett. You want me out, you're going to have to drag me out kicking and screaming. And the whole news division will walk out kicking and screaming with me.

HACKETT

You think they're going to quit their jobs for you. Not in this depression, buddy.

MAX

When Ruddy gets back, he'll have your ass.

HACKETT

I got a hit, Schumacher, and Ruddy doesn't count any more. He was hoping I'd fall on my face with this Beale show, but I didn't. It's a big, fat, big-titted hit, and I don't have to waffle around with Ruddy any more. If he wants to take me up before the C.C. and A. board, let him. And do you think Ruddy's stupid enough to go to the CCA board and say: "I'm taking our one hit show off the air?" And comes November Fourteen, I'm going to be standing up there at the annual CCA management review meeting, and I'm going to announce projected earnings for this network for the first time in five years. And, believe me, Mr. Jensen will be sitting there rocking back and forth in his little chair, and he's going to say: "That's very good, Frank, keep it up." So don't have any illusions about who's running this network from now on. You're fired. I want you out of your office before noon or I'll have you thrown out.

(to Diana)

And you go along with this?

DIANA

Well, Max, I told you I didn't want a network hassle over this. I told you I'd much rather work the Beale show out just between the two of us.

MAX

(stands)

Well, let's just say, fuck you too, honey.

(to Hackett)

Howard Beale may be my best friend! I'll go to court. I'll put him in a hospital before I let you exploit him like a carnival freak.

HACKETT

You get your psychiatrists, and I'll get mine.

MAX

(heading for the door)

I'm going to spread this whole reeking business in every paper and on every network, independent, group, and affiliated station in this country. I'm going to make a lot of noise about this.

HACKETT

Great! we need all the press we can get.

Max exits. Hackett clicks his intercom.

HACKETT

(on intercom)

Get me Mr. Cabell –

(to Diana)

Something going on between you and Schumacher?

DIANA

(sighs)

Not any more.

HACKETT

(his PHONE BUZZES, he picks it up)

Tom, Howard Beale has disappeared. Tell Harriman to prepare a big statement for the news media. And call the cops and tell them to find the crazy son of a bitch –

EXT. UBS BUILDING – SIXTH AVENUE – NIGHT – 6:40 P.M.

THUNDER CRASHES – RAIN lashes the street. PEDESTRIANS struggle against the slashing rain. The streets gleam wetly, the heavy TRAFFIC heading uptown crushes and HONKS along, erratic enfilades of headlights in the shiny, black streets –

CLOSER ANGLE

Of entrance to UBS Building. Howard Beale, wearing a coat over his pajamas, drenched to the skin, his mop of gray hair plastered in streaks to his brow, hunched against the rain, climbs the steps and pushes the glass door at the entrance and goes into –

INT. UBS BUILDING – LOBBY

TWO SECURITY GUARDS at the desk watch Howard pass –

SECURITY GUARD

How do you Mr. Beale?

Howard stops, turns, stares haggardly at the Security Guard.

HOWARD
(mad as a loon)

I have to make my witness.

SECURITY GUARD

(an agreeable fellow)

Sure thing, Mr. Beale.

Howard plods off to the elevators.

INT. NETWORK NEWS CONTROL ROOM

Murmured, efficient activity as in previous scenes. Diana stands in the back in the shadows. On the SHOW MONITOR, Jack Snowden, Beale's replacement, has been doing the news straight –

SNOWDEN (ON MONITOR)

... Oil ministers of the OPEC nations meeting in Vienna still haven't decided how much more to increase the price of oil next Wednesday. Iran and some of the Arab states want to jack up the price by as much as twenty percent –

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Five seconds –

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

Twenty-five in Vienna –

DIRECTOR

And... two –

SNOWDEN (ON MONITOR)

The Saudi Arabians are being more cautious. They just want a ten percent increase. More on that story from Edward Fletcher in Vienna –

All this is UNDER and OVERLAPPED by Harry Hunter answering a BUZZ on his phone –

HUNTER

(on phone)

Yeah?... Okay –

(hangs up, to Diana)

He came in the building about five minutes ago.

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Ten seconds coming to one –

DIANA

Tell Snowden if he comes in the studio to let him go on.

HUNTER

(to the Stage Manager)

Did you get that, Paul?

The Stage Manager nods, passes on the instructions to his A.D. on the studio floor. On the SHOW MONITOR, we see footage of the OPEC Vienna meeting. Lots of Arab headdresses and bearded Levantine faces at conference tables, and we are hearing the VOICE of Edward Fletcher in Vienna –

FLETCHER (ON MONITOR)

This has probably been the most divisive meeting the oil-producing states have ever had. The thirteen nations of OPEC have still not been able to decide by how much to increase the price of oil –

On the SHOW MONITOR, the footage flicks to Sheik Zaki Yamani being interviewed by a corps of correspondents outside the meeting hall –

FLETCHER (V.O.)

Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheik Zaki Yamani flew to London yesterday for further consultations with his government. He returned to the Vienna meetings today –

Nobody in the control room is paying too much attention to Yamani, they are all watching the double bank of black-and-white monitors which show Howard Beale entering the studio, drenched, hunched, staring gauntly off into his own space, moving with single-minded purpose across the studio floor past cameras and ASSISTANT DIRECTORS, CAMERAMEN, SOUND MEN, ELECTRICIANS and ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS, to his desk which is being vacated for him by Jack Snowden. On the SHOW MONITOR, the film clip of Yamani has come to an end.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Ready 2.

DIRECTOR

Take 2.

– and, suddenly, the obsessed face of Howard Beale, gaunt, haggard, red-eyed with unworldly fervor, hair streaked and plastered on his brow, manifestly mad, fills the MONITOR SCREEN.

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job, the dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter, punks are running wild in the streets, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air's unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit and watch our tee-vees while some local newscaster tells us today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We all know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything's going crazy. So we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we live in gets smaller, and all we ask is please, at least leave us alone in our own living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my tee-vee and my hair-dryer and my steel- belted radials, and I won't say anything, just leave us alone. Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad –

ANOTHER ANGLE showing the rapt attention of the PEOPLE in the control room, especially of Diana –

HOWARD

I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to write your congressmen. Because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the defense budget and the Russians and crime in the street. All I know is first you got to get mad. You've got to say: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more. I'm a human being, goddammit. My life has value." So I want you to get up now. I want you to get out of your chairs and go to the window. Right now. I want you to go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell. I want you to yell: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!"

DIANA

(grabs Hunter's shoulder)

How many stations does this go out live to?

HUNTER

Sixty-seven. I know it goes out to Atlanta and Louisville, I think –

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

– Get up from your chairs. Go to the window. Open it. Stick your head out and yell and keep yelling –

But Diana has already left the control room and is scurrying down –

INT. CORRIDOR

– yanking doors open, looking for a phone, which she finds in –

INT. AN OFFICE

DIANA

(seizing the phone)

Give me Stations Relations –

(the call goes through)

Herb, this is Diana Christenson, are you watching because I want you to call every affiliate carrying this live – I'll be right up –

INT. ELEVATOR AREA – FIFTEENTH FLOOR

Diana bursts out of the just-arrived elevator and strides down to where a clot of EXECUTIVES and OFFICE PERSONNEL are blocking an open doorway. Diana pushes through to –

INT. THACKERAY'S OFFICE – STATIONS RELATIONS

Herb Thackeray on the phone, staring up at Howard Beale on his wall monitor –

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

– First, you have to get mad. When you're mad enough –

Both THACKERAY'S SECRETARY's office and his own office are filled with his STAFF. The Assistant VP Station Relations, a 32-year-old fellow named RAY PITOFSKY, is at the Secretary's desk, also on the phone. Another ASSISTANT VP is standing behind him on the Secretary's other phone –

DIANA

(shouting to Thackeray)

Whom are you talking to?

THACKERAY

WCGG, Atlanta –

DIANA

Are they yelling in Atlanta, Herb?

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

– we'll figure out what to do about the depression –

THACKERAY

(on phone)

Are they yelling in Atlanta, Ted?

INT. GENERAL MANAGER'S OFFICE – UBS AFFILIATE – ATLANTA

The GENERAL MANAGER of WCGG, Atlanta, a portly 58-year-old man, is standing by the open windows of his office, staring out into the gathering dusk, holding his phone. The station is located in an Atlanta suburb, but from far off across the foliage surrounding the station, there can be heard a faint RUMBLE. On his office console, Howard Beale is saying –

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

– and the inflation and the oil crisis –

GENERAL MANAGER

(into phone)

Herb, so help me, I think they're yelling –

INT. THACKERAY'S OFFICE

PITOFSKY

(at Secretary's desk, on the phone)

They're yelling in Baton Rouge.

Diana grabs the phone from him and listens to the people of Baton Rouge yelling their anger in the streets –

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

– Things have got to change. But you can't change them unless you're mad. You have to get mad. Go to the window –

DIANA

(gives phone back to Pitofsky; her eyes glow with excitement)

The next time somebody asks you to explain what ratings are, you tell them: That's ratings!

(exults)

Son of a bitch, we struck the mother lode!

INT. MAX'S APARTMENT – LIVING ROOM

Max, Mrs. Schumacher, and their 17-year-old daughter, CAROLINE, watching the Network News Show –

HOWARD (ON THE SET)

– Stick your head out and yell. I want you to yell: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!"

Caroline gets up from her chair and heads for the living room window.

LOUISE SCHUMACHER

Where are you going?

CAROLINE

I want to see if anybody's yelling.

HOWARD (ON TV SET)

Right now. Get up. Go to your window –

INT. / EXT. MAX'S APARTMENT – LIVING ROOM

Caroline opens the window and looks out on the rain-swept streets of the upper East Side, the bulking, anonymous apartment houses and the occasional brownstones. It is thunder dark; a distant clap of THUNDER CRASHES somewhere off and LIGHTNING shatters the dank darkness. In the sudden HUSH following the thunder, a thin voice down the block can be heard shouting:

THIN VOICE (O.S.)

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!
 

HOWARD (ON TV SET)

– open your window –

Max joins his daughter at the window. RAIN sprays against his face –

MAX'S POV

He sees occasional windows open, and, just across from his apartment house, a MAN opens the front door of a brownstone –

MAN

(shouts)

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!

OTHER SHOUTS are heard. From his twenty-third floor vantage point, Max sees the erratic landscape of Manhattan buildings for some blocks, and, silhouetted HEADS in window after window, here, there, and then seemingly everywhere, SHOUTING out into the slashing black RAIN of the streets –

VOICES

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any morel

A terrifying enormous CLAP of natural THUNDER, followed by a frantic brilliant FULGURATION of LIGHTNING; and now the gathering CHORUS of scattered SHOUTS seems to be coming from the whole, huddled, black horde of the city's people, SCREAMING together in fury, an indistinguishable tidal roar of human rage as formidable as the natural THUNDER again ROARING, THUNDERING, RUMBLING above. It sounds like a Nuremberg rally, the air thick and trembling with it –

FULL SHOT – MAX

Standing with his daughter by the open terrace window-doors, RAIN spraying against them, listening to the stupefying ROARS and THUNDERING rising from all around him. He closes his eyes, sighs, there's nothing he can do about it any more, it's out of his hands.

EXT. LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT – WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16 – 12:00 NOON – DAY

A jumbo 747 touches down at L.A. Airport –
 

NARRATOR

By mid-October, the Howard Beale show had settled in at a 42 share, more than equaling all the other network news shows combined –

AIRPORT – LATER

Diana and Barbara Schlesinger, carrying attach‚ cases, scripts, hand baggage, deplane –

NARRATOR

In the September rating book, the Howard Beale show was listed as the fourth highest-rated show of the month, surpassed only by All in the Family, Rhoda, and Chico and the Man – a phenomenal state of affairs for a news program –

EXT. UBS BUILDING – L.A. – DAY

A towering glass building on Santa Monica Boulevard.

NARRATOR

And, on October the Sixteenth, Diana Christenson flew to Los Angeles –

INT. WEST COAST UBS BUILDING – A CONFERENCE ROOM

Diana at a luncheon meeting (sandwiches and containers of coffee), with her West Coast Programming Department –