Network ***** (1976, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Beatrice Straight) – Classic Movie Review 1,191

Director Sidney Lumet’s 1976 four-Oscar-winner film Network has proved a highly regarded, lasting classic, an American satirical black comedy-drama gem. It has a great script and even greater acting. Network became only the second film to win three of the four Academy Awards for acting, following A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). It was still the last film to do this until Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). There were two nominations for Best Actor: Peter Finch and William Holden. Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway won the 1977 Best Actor and Actress Oscars.

Peter Finch was awarded a posthumous Best Actor Oscar for his outstanding, high-energy performance as the ‘mad prophet of the air-waves’ Howard Beale, a TV news broadcaster and the long-time anchor of America’s fictional Union Broadcasting System’s UBS Evening News. He is told by his old friend the news division president, Max Schumacher (William Holden), that he has just two more weeks on the air because of declining ratings.

Next night Beale announces on live TV that he will commit suicide on Tuesday’s broadcast.UBS fires him but Schumacher intervenes and, once on air again, Beale launches into a rant that life is bullshit. The newscast’s ratings shoot up and the desperate US ratings-chasing network decides to exploit Beale’s antics and his increasing insanity rather than pull him off the air.

This leads him to start a breakdown and finally tell people on air what he really thinks. In one impassioned speech, Beale famously galvanises the nation, commanding his disgruntled viewers to shout out of their windows: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’

Network is a brilliantly smart and intelligent satire loaded with lots of clever, excitingly handled ideas about the media and propelled by electrifying, eye-catching, ear-bashing performances. Because of a dialogue-heavy screenplay that might have worked even better as a stage play, it is not a natural for the screen. But Lumet, who had a special talent for bringing plays to screen (Equus, Twelve Angry Men), succeeds in making it filmic, and it is a riveting, thoughtful film, for adults anyway.

The 1977 Best Actress Oscar went to Faye Dunaway, who is stylish, convincing and just plain extraordinary as Diana Christensen, the infuriatingly manipulative network scheduler and head of the programming department, who is having an affair with the kindly newsman Holden. There were Oscars too for co-starring Best Supporting Actress Beatrice Straight as Holden’s bitter wife Louise Schumacher and for screen-writer Paddy Chayefsky. Straight’s performance had only five minutes and 40 seconds of screen time, making it the shortest performance to win an Oscar (as of 2024).

Network is only one of three films awarded three acting Oscars. It gained nine Oscar nominations at the 49th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, leading to the four wins: Best Actor (Finch), Best Actress (Dunaway), Best Supporting Actress (Straight), and Best Original Screenplay (Chayefsky).

The on-air suicide scene was inspired by the real-life on-air suicide of anchor-woman Christine Chubbuck in Sarasota, Florida two years earlier. She was suffering from depression and battles with her editors, and shot herself on camera as stunned viewers watched on July 15 1974. Chayefsky said later: ‘Television will do anything for a rating… anything!’ Diana Christiansen was allegedly based on NBC daytime TV programming executive Lin Bolen, which she has denied.

Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, Wesley Addy and Conchata Ferrell co-star.

Filming started in Toronto in January 1976 after two weeks of rehearsals. It was released on November 27, 1976. The film was a commercial success, with a $23.7 million box office take, against a $3.8 million budget.

In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

For Howard Beale, Lumet wanted Fonda, with whom he had worked several times, but Fonda declined, finding the role too ‘hysterical’.

Lumet recalled that Chayefsky was usually on set during filming, and sometimes offered advice on how scenes should be played, and Lumet agreed his old friend had better comic instincts. Lumet wanted to cast Vanessa Redgrave, but Chayefsky objected on the basis of her support of the PLO. Lumet said: ‘Paddy, that’s blacklisting!’ and Chayefsky replied: ‘Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile.’

After Dunaway was cast as Diana, Lumet told her he would edit any attempts to make her character sympathetic. Lumet told her: ‘I know the first thing you’re going to ask me. “Where’s her vulnerability?” Don’t ask it. She has none. If you try to sneak it in, I’ll get rid of it in the editing room, so it’ll be a wasted effort.’

Later, she praised Lumet, describing him as ‘one of, if not the, most talented and professional men in the world. In the rehearsals, two weeks before shooting, he blocks his scenes with his cameraman. Not a minute is wasted while he’s shooting and that shows not only on the studio’s budget but on the impetus of performance.’

There was unfulfilled concern that Holden and Dunaway could clash on set as they had sparred working together on The Towering Inferno.

The cast are Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen, William Holden as Max Schumacher, Peter Finch as Howard Beale, Robert Duvall as Frank Hackett, Wesley Addy as Nelson Chaney, Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen, Jordan Charney as Harry Hunter, Conchata Ferrell as Barbara Schlesinger, Darryl Hickman as Bill Herron, Roy Poole as Sam Haywood, William Prince as Edward George Ruddy, Beatrice Straight as Louise Schumacher, and Marlene Warfield as Laureen Hobbs.

Producers feared Australian actor Finch could not sound authentically American and demanded an audition. He clinched the deal by playing Lumet the tapes of his newspaper readings. Finch had heart problems for many years, and became physically and psychologically exhausted playing Beale.

Peter Finch died of a heart attack on 14 January 1977 in Beverly Hills, aged 60. His Oscar nomination and award were both posthumous. Finch became the first posthumous winner in an acting category. His widow Eletha Finch and screen-writer Chayefsky accepted the award on his behalf.

Finch was the only performer to win a posthumous Academy Award until Heath Ledger won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Dark Knight in 2009.

The film’s three Oscar winners for acting, Dunaway, Finch and Straight, share scenes with Holden, but they share no scenes with each other. Finch and Dunaway, who won the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars, have no scenes or dialogue together.

As of the 95th Academy Awards (2022), there have been 15 films with at least one nominated performance in each of the four Academy Award acting categories. No film has won all four acting awards. Three films have won three acting Oscars: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Network (1976) and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), the only film of the three to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Four films hold a total of five acting nominations, each with an additional nomination within one of the four categories: Mrs Miniver (1942) – two nominations for Best Supporting Actress, From Here to Eternity (1953) – two nominations for Best Actor, Bonnie and Clyde (1968) – two nominations for Best Supporting Actor, and Network (1976) – two nominations for Best Actor.

Beatrice Straight (August 2, 1914 – April 7, 2001) died from pneumonia in Northridge, Los Angeles, at the age of 86. She won a Tony Award in 1953 for playing an anguished wife like her role here as Louise Schumacher who is similarly cheated on in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,191

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