Network

NARRATOR

– for what the trade calls pow-wows and confabs with her West Coast programming execs –

These are FOUR MEN and TWO WOMEN; GLENN KOSSOFF and Barbara Schlesinger; the THREE OTHER MEN are the Assistant VP Program Development West Coast, Head of the Story Department West Coast, and a MAN from Audience Research; the WOMAN is VP Daytime Programming West Coast. They are all sitting around a typical mod-shaped conference table except for DIANA who is moving towards a large display board at the far end of the table stretching the length of the wall. This is an improvised programming "board". It shows – through movable heavy cardboard pieces – what all four networks have on by the half hour for all seven days of the week –

DIANA

Wednesday night looks weak on all three of the other networks for next September, so we concentrate on Wednesday night. We're going to expand the Howard Beale show to an hour in January, which'll give us a hell of a lead-in to eight o'clock. So, on Wednesday nights, I want to follow that with two strong dramatic hours, no sit-coms, nothing lightweight –

Bill Herron pokes his head into the room –

HERRON

(to Diana)

I've got Laureen Hobbs' lawyer on the phone. Is five-thirty okay, and where would you like to meet, here or at the hotel?

DIANA

(to Schlesinger)

Let's put Hy Norman at five –

(to Herron)

Five-thirty is fine, and at my office, if they don't mind.

(back to her "board" and her exhortation to the programming people)

– What I want right now are movies of the week we can use for pilots. I want five movies of the week ready by March at the outside, preferably sooner –

INT. UBS BUILDING WEST COAST – DIANA'S OFFICE

An utterly bland office kept for visiting firemen. Diana is behind the desk. Barbara Schlesinger is sitting on the couch. Glenn Kossoff is ushering TWO GENTLEMEN out, spots someone in the outer office –

KOSSOFF

(to anteroom)

Hy, come on in –

He ushers in a silver-haired, suntanned, fresh-from-the-tennis-court man dressed in California elegance, rakish blazer, archetype of all L.A. television packagers – HY NORMAN –

KOSSOFF

Hy, I think you know Barbara Schlesinger, but I don't know if you know Diana Christenson –

NORMAN

(sinking casually into the visitor's chair, crossing his legs, flashing a fully-capped set of teeth)

As a matter of fact, I think we met during the 1972 McGovern-for-President campaign, of which, I am proud to say, I was a principal fund raiser –

DIANA

(leaning across the desk to shake his hand)

No, I'm afraid not. Now, Hy, we're running a little late, so I'd like to get right to it. I have an idea for an hour television series, and I'd like to lay it in your lap. Here's the back-up story. The hero is white-collar middle-class, an architect, aviation engineer, anything, a decent law-abiding man. He lives with his wife and daughter in a large city. His wife and daughter are raped and he's mugged. He appeals to the police, but their hands are tied by the Warren Court decisions. There's nothing but pornography in the movies, and vandals bomb his church. The animals are taking over. So he decides to take the law into his own hands. He buys a gun, practices till he's an expert. He takes up karate, becomes a black belt, an adept in Kung Fu and all the other martial arts. Now, he starts walking the streets of the city, decoying muggers into preying on him. He kung fu's them all. Pretty soon, he's joined by a couple of neighbors. What we've got now is a vigilante group. That's the name of the show – the Vigilantes. The idea is, if the law won't protect the decent people, they have to take the law into their own hands.

NORMAN

That may be he most fascistic idea I've heard in years.

DIANA

Right.

NORMAN

And a shameless steal from a movie called "Death Wish."

DIANA

I know. And, so far, "Death Wish" has grossed seventeen million domestic. It obviously struck a pulse in Americans. I want to strike the same pulse. Now, let me finish, Hy. The format is simple. Every week a crime is committed, and the police are helpless to deal with it. The victim turns to our group of vigilantes. What the hell, it's FBI, Mission Impossible, Kojack, except the heroes are ordinary citizens, your neighbors and mine.

NORMAN

(standing)

I find the whole thing repulsive.

DIANA

You give me a pilot script we can use as a movie of the week for January, and I'll commit to twelve segments on the basis of that script.

NORMAN

(turns)

You'll commit on the basis of the pilot script?

DIANA

That's what I said. That's a three million dollar commitment. I figure you could skim a quarter of a million for yourself out of that. Of course, we all know you're a highly principled political liberal, and you may find this kind of show repulsive –

NORMAN

(slowly sitting again)

Well – not necessarily. I deplore vigilante tactics, of course, but the vigilante tradition is a profound, even proud tradition in the American social fabric. This sort of program also offers opportunities for coming to grips with the burning issues of our times, to do meaningful drama and at the same time providing mass entertainment –

DIANA

Beautiful, Hy.

NORMAN

Who do I talk numbers with, Charlie Kinkaid?

DIANA

Right. I'll call Charlie and tell him we'll go to forty thousand for the first script. If you come in with anything good, Hy, I'll slot you on Wednesday nights at eight coming right off the Howard Beale Show, and that's the best lead-in you'll ever get.

Norman opens the door to leave, looks out into the outer office, closes the door, turns to Diana.

NORMAN

Is that Laureen Hobbs out there? What the hell is Laureen Hobbs doing out there?

DIANA

We're going to put the Communist Party on prime-time television, Hy.

NORMAN

I wouldn't doubt it for a minute.

DIANA'S OFFICE – LATER

He opens the door and goes out. On his heels, Glenn Kossoff is already ushering in Bill Herron, Laureen Hobbs, (a handsome black woman of 35 in Afro and dashiki); SAM HAYWOOD, (late 50's, a shaggy, unkempt lawyer in the Clarence Darrow tradition, galluses, string-tie, folksy drawl and all).; a younger lawyer, ROBERT MURPHY, (early 30's, Harvard intellectual type); and THREE AGENTS from the William Morris Office named LENNIE, WALLIE and ED, (all in their mid-30's, all wearing trim blue suits and all indistinguishable from each other). DIANA rises to greet them, extends her hand to Laureen Hobbs –

DIANA

Christ, you brought half the William Morris West Coast office with you. I'm Diana Christenson, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles.

LAUREEN

I'm Laureen Hobbs, a bad-ass Commie nigger.

DIANA

Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship.

(to Kossoff)

We're going to need more chairs –

In b.g., meanwhile, Schlesinger is exchanging hellos with the THREE WILLIAM MORRIS AGENTS and is being introduced to the lawyers and looking at baby pictures proffered to her by one of the agents. It's all jolly as hell, a lot of chuckling and smiling –

SCHLESINGER

(in b.g.)

Anybody want coffee?

LENNIE

Black with Sucaryl –

Kossoff and a SECRETARY are hauling in chairs –
 

LAUREEN

(introducing to Diana)

This is my lawyer, Sam Haywood, and his associate, Robert Murphy –

Handshakes, nods, smiles, everybody begins to sit. The Secretary goes around taking coffee orders

HAYWOOD

(an old union lawyer, given to peroration)

Well, MS. Christenson, just what the hell's this all about? Because when a national television network in the person of bubby here –

(indicates Herron)

– comes to me and says he wants to put the ongoing struggle of the oppressed masses on prime-time television, I have to regard this askance –

More chairs are brought in. Diana would answer Haywood but he booms along, beginning to hit his stride

HAYWOOD

I have to figure this as an antithetical distraction. The thesis here, if you follow me, is that the capitalist state is in a terminal condition now, and the antithesis is the maturation of the fascist state, and when the correlative appendages of the fascist state come and say to me they want to give the revolution a weekly hour of prime-time television, I've got to figure this is preventive co-optation, right? –

The necessary chairs are in by now, and everyone is seated. The Secretary has gone off to fetch the coffee. A sudden HUSH follows Haywood's Hegelian instruction, and Diana would answer, but Haywood is now center-stage, into the full swell of rhetoric –

HAYWOOD

The ruling classes are running scared, right? You turned the full force of your cossack cops and paramilitary organs of repression against us. But now the slave masters hear the rumble of revolution in their ears. So you have no alternative but to co-opt us. Put us on teevee and pull our fangs. And we're supposed to sell out, right? For your gang- stergold? Well, we're not going to sell out, baby! You can take your fascist teevee and shove it right up your paramilitary ass! I'm here to tell you, we don't sell out! We don't want your gold! We're not going on your teevee!

A moment of HUSH, in which everybody digests this opening statement.

DIANA

(sighs, mutters)

Oh, shit, Mr. Haywood, if you're not interested in my offer, why the hell did you bring two lawyers and three agents from the William Morris office along?

MURPHY

(Mr. Cool)

What Mr. Haywood was saying, Ms. Christenson, was that our client, Ms. Hobbs, wants it up front that the political content of the show has to be entirely in her control.

DIANA

She can have it. I don't give a damn about the political content.

WALLIE

What kind of show'd you have in mind, Diana?

DIANA

We're interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army, and I'll tell you what the first show has to be – a two-hour special on Mary Ann Gifford. We open this two-hour special with that bank rip-off footage, which is terrific stuff, and then we tell the story of how a rich young heiress like Mary Ann Gifford becomes a flaming revolutionary. Would you people be interested in making such a movie for us?

Everybody looks to Laureen Hobbs.

LAUREEN

The Ecumenical Liberation Army is an ultra-left sect creating political confusion with wildcat violence and pseudo-insurrectionary acts, which the Communist Party does not endorse. The American masses are not yet ready for open revolt. We would not want to produce a television show celebrating historically deviational terrorism.

DIANA

Even better. I see the story this way. Poor little rich girl kidnapped by ultra-left sect. She falls in love with the leader of the gang, converts to his irresponsible violence. But then she meets you, understands the true nature of the ongoing people's struggle for a better society, and, in an emotion-drenched scene, she leaves her deviational lover and dedicates herself to you and the historical inevitability of the socialist state.

LAUREEN

(smiles)

That would be better, of course.

ED

What kind of numbers are we talking, Diana?

DIANA

We'll give you our top deal, which I think is two fifteen and twenty- five. You'll have to talk to Charlie Kinkaid about that. But as long as we're talking series now, I'll tell you what I want. I want a lot more film like the bank rip-off the Ecumenicals sent in. The way I see this series is every week we open with the authentic footage of an act of political terrorism, taken on the spot and in the actual moment; then we go into the drama behind the opening film footage. That's your job, Ms. Hobbs. You've got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film for us. The network can't deal with them directly. They are, after all, wanted criminals.

LAUREEN

The Ecumenicals are an undisciplined ultra-left gang, and the leader is an eccentric to say the least. He calls himself the Great Ahmed Khan and wears a hussar's shako.

DIANA

Ms. Hobbs, I'm offering you an hour of prime-time television every week into which you can stick whatever propaganda you want. We're talking about thirty to fifty million people a shot. That's a lot better than handing out mimeographed pamphlets on ghetto street corners.

LAUREEN

I'll have to take this matter to the Central Committee, and I'd better check this out with the Great Ahmed Khan.

DIANA

I'll be in L.A. until Saturday, and I'd like to get this thing rolling.

(smiles at Schlesinger, Herron and Kossoff)

That's going to be our Wednesday night. Seven to eight – Howard Beale; eight to nine – the Vigilantes; nine to ten – the Mao Tse Tung Hour.

KOSSOFF

God, fascism and the revolution all on one night.

DIANA

(tired, rubs her eyes)

I suppose that's what's called balanced programming.

EXT. A SMALL ISOLATED FARMHOUSE IN ENCINO – NIGHT

Laureen Hobbs, sitting on the stoop of the front porch talking to another member of the Central Committee, a middle-aged white man named WITHERSPOON. The door behind them opens, and DOWLING, a young white man in his 20's, wearing a fatigue jacket and torn Levi's and dark sunglasses, pokes his head out:

DOWLING

Okay –

Laureen and Witherspoon rise, go up the steps and follow Dowling into –

INT. THE ECUMENICALS' HEADQUARTERS – ENTRANCE FOYER

Dark. An absolute shambles. Cartons, crates, newspapers and scraps of food have been littered about. A young black man, WATKINS, (early 20's, standing on the stairway to the second floor holding an army rifle), watches Laureen and Witherspoon following Dowling, and himself follows them into –

INT. DINING ROOM

– or what had been the dining room. A naked overhead BULB is the only light in here. Sitting on a wooden folding chair is the GREAT AHMED KHAN, a powerful, brooding black man in his early 30's. He wears a hussar's shako and the crescent moon of the Midianites hanging pendant around his neck. The chair he sits on is the only visible piece of furniture. There are two tattered sleeping bags on the floor, part of a general welter of torn newspapers, empty grocery bags, hamburger leftovers, etc. The walls are bare except for blowups of Che Guevara, Mao, Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda, scotch-taped to the torn wall-paper. Cartons and crates here and there, automatic guns leaning against the walls. Boxes of ammunition and grenades and mortar shells stacked against a wall. In attendance on the Great Ahmed Khan is a young black woman in her late 20's, named JENKINS, and a young white woman in her early 20's, Mary Ann Gifford, who is a fire-eating militant with a bandolier of cartridges across her torn shirt and with a B.A.R. held in her hands. Laureen pulls up an empty crate, sits, waves a limp hand of hello to the others and regards the Great Khan –

LAUREEN

Well, Ahmed, you ain't going to believe this, but I'm going to make a teevee star out of you. Just like Archie Bunker. You're going to be a household word.

AHMED

What the fuck are you talking about?

MUSIC: A RATAPLAN OF KETTLEDRUMS AND A TARANTARA OF TRUMPETS.

INT. UBS BUILDING – NEW YORK – A CONTROL ROOM – MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 1975

Everybody murmuring away –
 

DIRECTOR

(murmurs into mike)

– and one –

The Show Monitor cuts to a beaming ANNOUNCER –

ANNOUNCER

Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it – how do you feel?

SHOW MONITOR now shows packed AUDIENCE happily roaring: