Network

HARRY HUNTER

All right, cut him off.

The MONITOR SCREEN goes black.

MAX

(from the back wall)

Leave him on –

Howard's image promptly flicks back on –

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

(looking O.S.)

Am I still on the air?

Everybody in the control room looks to Max –

MAX
If this is how he wants to go out, this is how he goes out.

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

I don't know any other way to say it except I just ran out of bullshit...

The PHONE RINGS. Hunter picks it up. ANOTHER PHONE RINGS. Hunter's Secretary picks it up.

HUNTER

(on first phone)

Look, Mr. Schumacher's right here, do you want to talk to him?

(extends the phone to Max)

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living, and, if we can't think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit –

HUNTER'S SECRETARY

(awe)

Holy Mary Mother of Christ –

MAX

(on phone)

Yeah, what is it, Tom? –

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

We don't know why the hell we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation and decay, so there better be someone somewhere who does know; that's the God bullshit –

MAX

(on phone)

He's saying life is bullshit, and it is, so what're you screaming about? –

He hangs up. The PHONE promptly RINGS again. Hunter's Secretary picks it up. (Hunter is on the phone that rang before.)

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

If you don't like the God bullshit, how about the man bullshit? Man is a noble creature who can order his own world, who needs God?

HUNTER'S SECRETARY

(to Max)

Mr. Amundsen for you, Mr. Schumacher.

MAX

I'm not taking calls.

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

Well, if there's anybody out there who can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me man is a noble creature, that man is full of bullshit –

DIRECTOR

(staring in awe at Howard on the screen)

I know he's sober, so he's got to be just plain nuts –

(starts to giggle)

HARRY HUNTER

(screaming)

What's so goddam funny?

DIRECTOR

I can't help it, Harry, it's funny –

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

I don't have any kids –

A PHONE RINGS. Hunter's Secretary picks it up.

HARRY HUNTER

Max, this is going out live to sixty-seven affiliates –

MAX

Leave him on.

HOWARD (ON MONITOR)

– and I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud –

A breathless and distraught YOUNG WOMAN bursts into the control room.

YOUNG WOMAN

Mr. Hackett's trying to get through to you –

MAX

Tell Mr. Hackett to go fuck himself –

INT. DIANA'S OFFICE

Diana, sitting alone in her office, watching Howard Beale on her office console –

HOWARD (ON CONSOLE)

I don't have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see –

INT. CONTROL ROOM – NETWORK NEWS SHOW

– as Frank Hackett and his assistant, TOM CABELL, wrench the door open and stride in –

HACKETT

(roaring)

Get him off! Are you people nuts?!

The Technical Director taps a button, and the SCREEN mercifully goes black.

INT. LOBBY – UBS BUILDING

White-haired, patrician Edward Ruddy, Chairman of the Board, impeccably groomed, fastidious in a light topcoat, making his way through the absolute CRUSH of NEWSPAPER PEOPLE, WIRE SERVICE PEOPLE, CAMERA CREWS from CBS, NBC, ABC, from the local stations, WPIX, WOR-TV, METROMEDIA, and from Channel 13, the educational channel. A half dozen SECURITY GUARDS protect the elevators, and three more help Ruddy get through the GLARING CAMERA LIGHTS and the horde of Reporters thrusting mikes at him –

RUDDY

(moving through the crowd)

– I'm sorry, I don't have all the facts yet –

INT. 20TH FLOOR – LOBBY, LOUNGE, CORRIDOR

Max, standing by the deserted reception desk, in the empty, silent lounge. This is the top-management floor, and the decor, which is posh-austere, reflects the eminence of the top executives who have their offices here. It is all silent and empty now, cathedral, hushed, echoing. Way down at the far end of the corridor, the double doors of the corner office open, and Nelson Chaney leans out and beckons to Max, who starts down the plush carpeting in response –

INT. MR. RUDDY'S OFFICE

Large, regal. Impressionist originals on those walls which are not glass through which the crepuscular grandeur of New York at night can be seen. Ruddy sits behind his desk. JOHN WHEELER, 59, silent, forceful, lounges in one of the several leather chairs. The door opens, and Nelson Chaney and Max Schumacher come in. Everybody nods at everybody else. Max slumps into a leather chair.

RUDDY

(murmurs to Chaney)

I'll want to see Mr. Beale after this.

Chaney promptly picks up a corner phone and calls down to the Fourteenth Floor.

RUDDY

(regards Max briefly, murmurs)

The way I hear it, Max, you're primarily responsible for this colossally stupid prank. Is that the fact, Max?

MAX
That's the fact.

RUDDY

It was unconscionable. There doesn't seem to be anything more to say.

MAX

I have something to say, Ed. I'd like to know why that whole debasement of the News Division announced at the stockholders' meeting today was kept secret from me. You and I go back twenty years, Ed. I took this job with your personal assurance that you would back my autonomy against any encroachment. But ever since CCA acquired control of the UBS Systems ten months ago, Hackett's been taking over everything. Who the hell's running this network, you or some conglomerate called CCA? I mean, you're the Chairman of the Systems Group, and Frank Hackett's just CCA's hatchet man. Nelson here – for Pete's sake, he's the president of the network – he hasn't got anything to say about anything anymore. Who the hell's running this company, you or CCA?

RUDDY

(murmurs)

I told you at the stockholders' meeting, Max, that we would discuss all that at our regular meeting tomorrow morning. If you had been patient, I would've explained to you that I too thought Frank Hackett precipitate and that the reorganization of the News Division would not be executed until everyone, specifically you, Max, had been consulted and satisfied. Instead, you sulked off like a child and engaged this network in a shocking and disgraceful episode. Your position here is no longer tenable regardless of how management is restructured. I expect you to bring in your resignation at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, and we will coordinate our statements to the least detriment of everyone.

(to Wheeler)

Bob McDonough will take over the News Division till we sort all this out.

(Wheeler nods, Ruddy turns to Chaney still in the corner of the room on the phone)

I'd like to see Mr. Beale now –

CHANEY

(on phone)

They're looking for him, Ed. They don't know where he is –

INT. LOBBY – UBS BUILDING

Howard Beale, bleached almost white by the GLARE of the CAMERA LIGHTS, and almost totally obscured by the tidal crush of cameras, Reporters, Security Guards around him –

HOWARD

– every day, five days a week, for fifteen years, I've been sitting behind that desk – the dispassionate pundit –

INT. DIANA'S APARTMENT – BEDROOM

Diana, naked, sitting on the edge of her bed in a dark bedroom, watching Howard Beale's impromptu press conference on television –

HOWARD

(on TV screen)

– reporting with seemly detachment the daily parade of lunacies that constitute the news – and –

Also on the bed is a naked young STUD, who isn't really that interested in the 11:00 News. He is fondling, fingering, noodling and nuzzling Diana with the clear intention of mounting her –

HOWARD

(on TV screen)

– just once I wanted to say what I really felt –

The young Stud is getting around to nibbling at Diana's breasts –

DIANA

(watching the TV set with single-minded intensity)

Knock it off, Arthur –

EXT. UBS BUILDING – 9:00 A.M., THURSDAY, SEPT. 25 – DAY

Bright morning sunshine. Diana, in a pants suit and carrying half a dozen scripts, enters the building –

INT. UBS BUILDING – LOBBY

Diana, pausing at the newsstand to pick up the morning papers, which she reads en route to the elevators –

INT. UBS BUILDING – 14TH FLOOR – 9:15 A.M.

Diana briskly enters through the door marked: "DEPARTMENT OF PROGRAMMING", and whisks off down the corridor –

INT. PROGRAMMING DEPARTMENT – COMMON ROOM

Diana crosses to her own office. THREE SECRETARIES, including Diana's, are abuzz in a corner over last night's Howard Beale show. Diana's Secretary scurries to follow Diana as, in b.g., Barbara Schlesinger comes out of her office carrying four scripts –

INT. DIANA'S OUTER OFFICE

Diana, rummaging through the papers on top of the Secretary's desk as the Secretary enters –