Network (1976)

Plot: A TV network exploits a deranged anchorman's ravings for its own profit.
Stars: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch
Best Quote: So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is an amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you'll ever find it.

Still astoundingly popular (8.1 rating), I don't have much to say about this creaky old gas-bag of a movie. Written by Paddy Chayefsky, an old gas-bag himself, (and one of my least favorite authors),  Network is a dated satire of "Network News" - which doesn't really exist anymore.  At that time,  a small cabal of Manhattan news execs at CBS/NBC/ABC, had a monopoly on news for 200 million Americans. "And that's the way it is" said Walter Cronkite, and in 1976, most Americans were no position to disagree.

Chayefsky, of course, had no problem with that East Coast media monopoly. His beef? The Networks were being driven by ratings and the "least common denominator".  Y'see things were grand in the 1940's, when Liberal elitists, of the right sort (like Ed Murrow and his boys), were giving us one side of the story.  But now (1976) things had gone all to Hell.

Anyway, the whole dated story is unbelievable, and filled with the usual Chayefsky verbose speeches & tirades. We also get a lot of  unbelievably nasty, corporate execs struggling for power and $$.

However, the acting is great.  Bill Holden, looking craggy as hell, shows he was criminally underused in his old age.  He's not only has charisma - he's a very good film actor. And Faye Dunaway, Beatrice Straight, and Peter Finch are even better. Inexplicably, Robert Duvall gives the only bad performance - he's way too shrill and over-the-top.

Summary:  As I turned off the DVD player,  I yelled out my window:  "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to watch Paddy Chayefsky movies anymore!" - and I suggest everyone do the same.