NETWORK x PADDY CHAYEFSRY Producer? Howard Gottfried Director: Sidney Lamer Revissd Rovenb:NETWORK Revised 12/31/75 FAI BLACK SCREEN es NARRATOR This story 1s ebout Howard Beale who was the network news anchorman on UBS-TV -- A BANK OF FOUR COLOR TELEVISION MONITORS lt ts 7:14 P.M., Monday, September ~22, 1975, and we are watching the network news programs on’CBS, NBC, ABC and UBS-TV, the network of our story. The AUDIO 1s OFF; and head shots cf WALTER CRONKITE, JOHN CHANCELLOR, HOWARD K. SMITH and HARRY REASONFR, and, of course, the anchorman of our network, HOWARD BEALE, silentiy flic and flicker across the four television screens, interspersed with the news of the day -- President Ford's new Energy Program, a hearing on Patty Hearst's bail, truce viclations in Beirut, bus~ing yuble in Boston... NARRATION continues OVER -- NARRATOR (Contd) -- In his time, Howard Beale had been a mandarin of television, the grand old man of news, with s HUT rating of 16 and a 28 audience share -- CAMERA MOVES IN to isolate HOWARD BEALE, who is -everything an anchorman shculdc be -- Sf years old, Splver-haired, magisterial, dignified to the point of divinity. NARRATION continues OVER -- NARRATOR (Contd) 5; In 1969, however, he fell to a 22 share, and, by 1972, he was down to a 15 share. In 1973, his wife died, and he was left a childless widower with an 8 rating and a 12 share. He became morose and ‘solated, D began te drink heavily, and, on September 22, 1975, he was fired, : effective in two weeks. The news was broken to him by Max Schumacher -- EXT: STH-AVE. SOUTH OF S7TH STREET - NIGHT 2 i 11:20 P.M. The ares is deserted except for a few | STROLLERS window-shopring the depertment stores. And way down neat 55th Street, roaring drunk middie- men, HOWARD BEALE and MAK SCHUMACHER, reeling Zlona and hooting i: up.’ NARRATION continues OVER -- 0 4NARRATOR (Contd) -- who was president of the News Division at UBS and an old friend. The two men got properly pissed -- CLOSER SHOT of HOWARD and MAX (who is a craggy, lumbering, rough-hewn, 51-year-old man), thoroughly plastered and on a drunken laughing jag -- HOWARD (clutching the corner mailbox to keep from falling) When was this? MAX 1951 == HOWARD I was at CBS with Ed Murrow in 1951. Didn't you join Murrow in 1951? -- MAX Must 've been 1950 then. I was at NBC, Morning News. Associate producer. I was a kid, twenty-six years old. Anyway, they were building the lower level on the George Washington Bridge, and we were doing a remote there. Except nobody told me! -- For some reason, this knocks them out. HOWARD, wheezing with suppressed laughter, clutches the mailbox. MAX has to shout to get the rest of the story out -~ MAX (Contd) -- ten after seven in the morning -- I get a call -- “Where the hell are you? -- You're supposed to be on the George Washington Bridge!" -- I jump out of bed -- I throw my raincoat over my pajamas -- I run down the stairs -- I get out in the street -- I flag a cab -- I jump in -- I say: “Take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge!" -- It's too much again, ‘The TWO MEN dissolve into silent wheezing spasms of laughter --