Reverse Angle on Network

Fifty years later, you’ve got to get mad!

In Network, which turns 50 this year, Union Broadcasting System (UBS) programmer Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) previews footage of criminals robbing the Flagstaff Independent Bank of Arizona, filming the heist in progress. Diana wonders if that is the group that kidnapped Patty Hearst.

“No, that’s the Symbionese Liberation Army,” explains colleague Bill Herron (Darryl Hickman) “This is the Ecumenical Liberation Army. They’re the ones who kidnapped Mary Ann Gifford three weeks ago. There’s a hell of a lot of liberation armies in the revolutionary underground and a lot of kidnapped heiresses. That’s Mary Ann Gifford.” She is played by Kathy Cronkite, daughter of CBS icon Walter Cronkite.

Directed by Sidney Lumet and scripted by Paddy Chayefsky, Network has fearful symmetry to burn. The Symbionese Liberation Army, which did kidnap Patty Hearst, also assassinated Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster. The Black Liberation Army (BLA) featured cop-killer Joanne Chesimard. The New World Liberation Frontplanted a bomb at the home of San Francisco Supervisor Dianne Feinstein and set off many others across the Bay Area. The May 19th Communist Organization, an offshoot of the Weather Underground, robbed banks and bombed the US Capitol. And so on.

The Ecumenicals star in the “Mao Tse-Tung Hour” and Diana seeks a show for anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), who boosted ratings by threating to kill himself on television. “I see Howard Beale as a latter-day prophet, a magnificent messianic figure, inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times,” Diana tells UBS executive Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), “a strip Savonarola, Monday through Friday.”

Initially skeptical, Hackett goes for it. Howard’s colleague Max Schumacher (William Holden) opposes the show and says UBS boss Edward Ruddy (William Prince) will “have your ass.” Hacket fires back, “I got a hit, Schumacher, and Ruddy doesn’t count anymore. He was hoping I’d fall on my face with this Beale show but I didn’t. It’s a big, fat, big-titted hitand I don’t have to waffle around with Ruddy anymore.”

Howard tells the people they need to get “mad as hell” and rages against television. Also worth attention is the response of “badass commie” Laureen Hobbs (Marlene Warfield) to Diana’s pitch on the Ecumenicals. As Hobbs explains:

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.

But with the political content entirely in her hands, Laureen tells ELA leader the Great Ahmed Kahn (Arthur Burghardt) that she will make him a television star “just like Archie Bunker.” That doesn’t sit well with Mary Ann Gifford, who screams at Hobbs: “Fuggin’ fascist! Have you seen the movies we took at the San Marino jail break-out demonstrating the rising up of a seminal prisoner-class infrastructure?” Hobbs tells her to “blow the seminal prisoner-class infrastructure out your ass!” and she’s not knocking down her distribution charges or “giving this pseudo insurrectionary sectarian a piece of my show!”

Howard’s show falls on hard times but Communication Corporation of America (CCA) magnate Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) keeps the mad prophet on the air. “I think I can get the Mao Tse-Tung people to kill Beale for us as one of their shows,” Diana says. “It could be done right on camera. We ought to get a fantastic lookin audience for the assassination of Howard Beale as our opening show.” Fifty years later, assassination and wildcat violence are again in vogue.

The Black Liberation Army lives on as Black Lives Matter, whose icon is Assata Shakur, also known as cop-killer Joanne Chesimard. In the style of the Ecumenicals, looters livestreamed the murder of former police officer David Dorn in 2020. In 2023, “transassassin” Audrey Hale gunned down three children and three adults at school, and last year Robert Westman, who “identified” as Robin Westman, shot dead two children in church and wounded many others. The Zizians, a violent vegan cult, have been tied to the murder of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont.

Criminal illegals murder Laken Riley and other innocents. Punkass leftists gun down health executives and murder Jewsin Washington DC. The Muslim mayor of Dearborn tells a resident he’s “not welcome” in the city. Governors and mayors defraud taxpayers by the billions, and so on. So once again, “you’ve got to get mad!” and fight back with that “transient human truth” and of course your vote. At some point, the people might have to take it to the streets, as Michael McDonald said back in 1976. Pasty faced poltroons need to understand that, as Howard said, “we’re not going to take this anymore!” Meanwhile, as Steve likes to say, a couple chasers here.

When Hackett pitches the Beale show, UBS president Nelson Cheney (Wesley Addy) says “I don’t want any part of it.” Hacket calmly replies, “your indignation has been duly recorded. You can always resign tomorrow.” Those are lines everybody can use.

Robert Duvall turned 95 on January 5 and Faye Dunaway turned 85 on the 14th. Finch, Holden, Beatty, Lumet, and Chayefsky are long gone. To all, thanks for the memories.