November 27, 1976: "Network" Premieres

Peter Finch as Howard Beale

November 27, 1976: The film Network premieres, directed by Sidney Lumet, with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. It becomes recognized as a great satire of the television industry -- and, sadly, all too prophetic about what TV would become.

Howard Beale is the anchorman for the evening news at fictional network UBS, the United Broadcasting Service. (He was played by Peter Finch, born in London, raised in Sydney, Australia, but made a good New Yorker.) On September 23, 1975, he announces, live on the air, that he's going to commit suicide in one week's time, also live on the air.

He and his best friend, his producer, Max Schumacher (William Holden), are sure he'll be fired, maybe committed. But the network gets so many phone calls that they're sure the ratings for the next night will be through the roof. So Howard is given one last broadcast. He begins it as follows:

Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast.

Yesterday, I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide -- admittedly, an act of madness.

Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit.

(He pauses.) Am I still on the air? (He sees the red light on the camera is still on, and knows he is, and resumes.)

I really don't know any other way to say it, other than I just ran out of bullshit. 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. We don't know why we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone, somewhere, who does know. That's the God bullshit.

And then, there's the noble man bullshit: That man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullshit.

I don't have anything going for me. I haven't got any kids. And I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So, I don't have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see.

The switchboard at network HQ lights up like a pinball machine. People want Beale kept. He's kept. The ratings go through the roof. And then comes the night when he shows up without having gotten dressed and made up for the broadcast, still wearing his raincoat, his hair soaked with rain, and he says this:

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work, or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street. And there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe, and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

We know things are bad. Worse than bad: They're crazy. It's like everything, everywhere, is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and, slowly, the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least, leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that, first, you've got to get mad! You've got to say, '"I'm a human being, God damn it! My life has value!"

So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up, right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

I want you to get up, right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad! You've got to say, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But, first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

And, all over the country, people do it. And, instead of getting Beale the help his clear mental breakdowns need, the network, particularly executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), exploit him. She and Max have an affair, she leaving the boyfriend she has at the start of the film, he leaving his wife. But he dumps her at the end. Noticing that she's roughly the same age as television itself (Dunaway was born in 1941), he tells her:

You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.

Including Howard Beale. She sees to it that he gets his own prime-time show where he can say whatever he wants. But then, he exposes ties between the corporation that owns the network and business interests in Saudi Arabia, whose oil price hikes had caused the nasty recession of 1973-75, which Beale calls "the depression."

Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), the network's chairman, takes advantage of Beale's deteriorating mind, and tells him that the only true god is money. Beale believes him, and changes his tune, and starts telling the people that their lives don't have value, and humanity is in irreversible decline. And so, his ratings go down.

And so, having caused Beale to fall into their trap, and give them what they consider to be just cause, the network hires terrorists to assassinate Beale: He gets the on-air death he predicted, but not how. The voice-over narration by actor Lee Richardson concludes by saying, "This is the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings."

Sadly, life came all too close to imitating art: Peter Finch suffered a heart attack and died on January 14, 1977, at the age of 60, just a few weeks after the movie premiered. This is the story of Peter Finch, the first instance of a human being who won a posthumous Academy Award for acting in a leading role. Dunaway also won an Oscar, for Best Actress.

Network taught real-life TV networks the wrong lesson. Beale's show, and Diana's and Jensen's responses to it, led to "reality TV" and Fox News Channel, where the truth doesn't matter, even when you call it "the news."

Paddy Chayefsky, also the author of the novels that became the films Marty and Altered States, died of cancer, even younger than Finch, age 58 -- on August 1, 1981, the day that MTV debuted. What a twist of fate that was!

William Holden also died in 1981, Wesley Addy in 1996, Lee Richardson in 1999, Beatrice Straight in 2001, Sidney Lumet in 2011, Conchata Ferrell in 2020, and Ned Beatty in 2021. As of November 27, 2022, Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall are still alive. So is Kathy Cronkite, daughter of CBS anchorman Walter. She tended to be cast in politically-themed films, including this one, before leaving acting to become a psychologist. Her father, ABC anchorman Howard K. Smith, and NBC anchorman John Chancellor are all shown in the film, at the beginning, and at the end. (UPDATE: Duvall died in 2026.)

*

November 27, 1976 was a Saturday. Actor Jaleel White, best known for playing Steve Urkel on the sitcom Family Matters, was born.

It was Thanksgiving weekend, and the conclusion of college football's rivalry week. Among the games played were these:

* The day before, in a big rivalry, Number 1 University of Pittsburgh beat Number 16 Penn State, 24-7 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* Also the day before, in another big rivalry, Number 8 Oklahoma beat Number 10 Nebraska, 20-17 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska.

* Number 3 Southern California (USC) beat Number 13 Notre Dame, 17-13 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Rivalry: Number 4 Georgia beat Georgia Tech, 13-10 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* Rivalry: Number 7 Houston beat Rice, 42-20 at Rice Stadium in Houston.

* Number 9 Texas Tech beat Arkansas, 30-7 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Arkansas.

* Rivalry: Number 18 Alabama beat Auburn, 38-7 at Legion Field in Birmingham.

* Rivalry: Boston College beat Holy Cross, 59-6 at Alumni Stadium outside Boston in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

* Rivalry: Tennessee beat Vanderbilt, 13-10 at Dudley Field (now FirstBank Stadium) in Nashville, Tennessee.

* Rivalry: Arizona State beat Arizona, 27-10 at Arizona Stadium in Tucson.

* And in the greatest rivalry of them all, Navy beat Army, 38-10 at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.

There were 8 games played in the NBA: 

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 123-109 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Mets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 96-91 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Buffalo Braves, 101-94 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Houston Rockets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 125-116 at The Summit (now the Lakewood Church Central Campus) in Houston.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 111-104 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Indiana Pacers, 122-113 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. David Thompson led all scorers on the day with 37 points,

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 119-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Washington Bullets, 103-95 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Washington Capitals, 6-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-2 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The and the Montreal Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Cleveland Barons, the Vancouver Canucks, the Atlanta Flames and the Colorado Rockies were not scheduled.

There were 5 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the New England Whalers, 3-1 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 8-2 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Cincinnati Stingers beat the Birmingham Bulls, 2-1 at the Riverfront Coliseum (now the Heritage Bank Center) in Cincinnati.

* The Phoenix Roadrunners beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-2 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the San Diego Mariners beat the Calgary Cowboys, 2-0 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.

And in English soccer, North London's Arsenal went to the Midlands, and beat Coventry City, 2-1 at Highfield Road in Coventry.

May 10, 1979: "Apocalypse Now" Premieres

May 10, 1979: Apocalypse Now premieres, Francis Ford Coppola’s film that moved Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness from colonial Africa to the Vietnam War. This is a long movie: 2 hours and 33 minutes. Even the trailer is 4 minutes long.

The filming was long, too: Coppola started in the Philippines in July 1976 -- just over a year after the fall of Saigon -- and ending in May 1977. Things were complicated by Coppola's re-editing, by Marlon Brando being way overweight and more eccentric than ever, and Martin Sheen suffering a heart attack at the age of 36.

The film stars Sheen as a U.S. Army Captain -- named Ben Willard, combining the names of the 1971 horror-film rat and the misfit boy who takes care of him -- assigned to find rogue Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, played by Brando, and "terminate, with extreme prejudice."

This film made Sheen a bigger star, but it almost killed him. It gave Robert Duvall, after 2 Godfather movies, his own catchphrase. And it made it impossible to ever again view Brando as a dashing matinee idol. The joke was that, in the 1950s, men wanted to look like Brando; but, from the 1980s onward, men wanted to not look like Brando.

Also, next time you watch Back to the Future II, set in 2015, check out a poster at the travel agency: "Surf Vietnam." It is an inside joke, a reference to Duvall's line in this film: "Charlie don't surf!" I don't know if surfing is good on the Vietnam coast, but the country does now welcome American tourists. It's their former colonial masters, the French, that they really hate.

Later in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released. It, too, was a lot longer than it should have been, earning it the nicknames "Star Trek: The Motionless Picture" and, in a nod to this movie, "A Spockalypse Now." (With the antagonist V'Ger resembling the that of the series' episode "The Changeling," it was also nicknamed "Where Nomad Has Gone Before."

*

May 10, 1979 was a Thursday. This was also the day the Boston Bruins committed the most famous penalty in hockey history, leading to them losing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Semifinals to the Montreal Canadiens, 5-4 in overtime at the Montreal Forum. I have a separate entry for that event.

The World Hockey Association's last Finals, as it turned out, began the next day. The Winnipeg Jets beat the Edmonton Oilers in 6 games.

Football was out of season. The NBA's Conference Finals were in progress, but no games were scheduled for this day. These games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 8-1 at Yankee Stadium. Tommy John went the distance for the win. Mickey Rivers hit a home run. Reggie Jackson went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 14-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Andy Messersmith was the winning pitcher, but injury ended his career after 4 more starts. This was the 130th and last win of his career, only 33 years old. His place in baseball history was secure, however, not because he a 4-time All-Star and a 20-game winner for a Pennant winner (the 1974 Dodgers), but because he was the free agent whose arbitration broke the reserve clause after the 1975 season.

Ron Cey, Bill Russell and Steve Yeager hit home runs for the Dodgers. Lee Mazzilli hit one for the Mets.

* The California Angels beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Don Aase outpitched Dennis Eckersley. Rod Carew went 2-for-5. Brian Downing hit a home run for the Angels, Jim Rice for the Red Sox.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Oakland Athletics, 3-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Gary Roenicke hit a home run. Eddie Murray went 0-for-4.

* Unusually, both Chicago teams were at home on the same day. The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-2 at Comiskey Park. Claudell Washington hit a home run. George Brett went 0-for-4.

* And the Chicago Cubs played the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field. The game went to extra innings, and, because Wrigley did not have lights, it was called due to darkness in the top of the 10th, with the score 7-7. It was resumed on July 23.

Each team scored a run in the 11th. Ken Henderson led off to the bottom of the 18th inning with a single, and was bunted over to 2nd base by relief pitcher Lynn McGlothen. Dave Kingman was intentionally walked to set up the double play. It didn't work, as Steve Ontiveros singled Henderson home, and the Cubs won, 9-8. So, while both Chicago teams were at home on the same day, and both won, they did not both win at home on the same day.

Kingman hit a home run, surprising few people. Barry Foote and Ted Sizemore also hit home runs, surprising nearly everybody. Johnny Bench went 2-for-8 with 3 RBIs, but Dave Concepción hit the only Cincy homer.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 8-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Robin Yount went 1-for-3 with a walk. Paul Molitor went 1-for-5.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Houston Astros, 3-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium.) Pete Rose went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-4. Dave Winfield went 1-for-3 with a walk.

Nino Espinosa outpitched Gaylord Perry. Perry did, however, hit a home run, the 5th of 6 he would hit during his career. Legend has it that, early in his career, Giants manager Alvin Dark saw Perry take a pathetic batting practice, and said that a man would be on the Moon before he hit a home run. Was Dark right? Sort of: Perry did indeed hit his 1st major league home run on July 20, 1969, apparently just a few minutes after Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, but a few hours before Armstrong stepped onto its surface. 

* The Montreal Expos beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-0 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Steve Rogers (not the fictional superhero of the same name, a.k.a. Captain America) pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* And the Detroit Tigers, the Minnesota Twins, the Texas Rangers, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates were not scheduled. 

March 14, 1972: "The Godfather" Premieres

Al Pacino (left) and Marlon Brando

March 14, 1972: The film The Godfather premieres at Loew's State Theatre in New York, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It follows the Corleone family and its organized crime business in New York City from 1945 to 1955.

Marlon Brando was already a legend, but his legend grew by leaps and bounds with his portrayal of Vito Corleone, a crime boss but a dedicated family man. James Caan had become a star the year before, by playing dying football player Brian Piccolo in Brian's Song. But his role as Vito's son, Santino, a.k.a. Sonny, lifted him into the stratosphere. Robert Duvall had played Major Frank Burns in the film version of M*A*S*H, but became a star by playing Tom Hagen, consigliere (counselor) to the Corleone family.

Launched to stardom were Al Pacino as Vito's son and successor Michael Corleone; Talia Shire (Coppola's sister) as the Don's daughter Connie, whose wedding begins the film; Diane Keaton as Michael's girlfriend and eventual wife Kay Adams; Richard Castellano and Abe Vigoda as longtime Corleone caporegimes Peter Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio, respectively; and Alex Rocco as Las Vegas casino boss Moe Greene, whose status within the film as the man who made Las Vegas made him a thinly-veiled version of real-life Los Angeles gangster Bugsy Siegel.

The film was nominated for 9 Academy Awards. It won 3: For Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is regarded by many as the greatest film of all time, or one of the greatest. Of course, it's a very masculine film, with the women little more than plot points. I often joke that men have The Godfather, while women have The Way We Were.

The performances were iconic, the scenes legendary, the music (scored by Nino Rota) unforgettable. It's also one of the most-quoted movies ever:

* Vito: "Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me."

** "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

** "Revenge is a dish best served cold." (This was already an old saying.)

** "Women and children can be careless, but not men."

** "Look how they massacred my boy."

** "I refused to be a fool, dancing on the strings held by all of those big shots."

* Clemenza: "He wants to go to the mattresses already."

** "It's a Sicilian message: It means 'Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.'"

** "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." (The 2nd half was an ad-lib by Castellano.)

** "Oh, Paulie? You won't see him no more."

* Jack Woltz (a film studio boss, played by John Marley): "A man in my position can't afford to look ridiculous."

* Calò (Michael's bodyguard in Sicily, played by Franco Citti): "In Sicily, women are more dangerous than guns."

* Tessio: "Tom, can you get me off the hook, for old times' sake?"

* Michael: "It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business."

** "Fredo, you're my older brother, and I love you. But don't ever take sides against the family again."

** "Don't ever ask me about my business, Kay."

And while Michael was a U.S. Marine Corps officer in World War II, he'd only killed men from far away, never up close like a "made man." It was Sonny, the originally-intended heir to the Don, who told him that, in order to kill a man their way, you had to get up close and fire. The sound effect he used also entered the American lexicon: "Ba-da-bing!"

It's also worth noting that, while the film is about organized crime in New York's Italian community, the words "Mafia," "mob" and "Cosa Nostra" are never spoken. In the Spring of 1971, as preparations for filming were underway, one of the producers, Albert Ruddy, met with Joseph Colombo, boss of the New York crime family that bears his name and (in 1964) the 1st American-born boss of a crime family. Colombo agreed to drop all opposition to the film, and to allow the labor unions that New York's real "Five Families" controlled to work on the film, if those words were not used in the film. Ruddy took the deal to Coppola, who agreed. The words did not appear in the film -- although they were used in the sequels.

(In real life, the Five Families are named, in alphabetical order -- that's the only way to show proper respect -- Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese. In the film, in order of most mentions, they are Corleone, Barzini, Tattaglia, Cuneo and Stracchi.)

Sequels weren't really a thing at the time. But there was enough material in the original novel that they could make The Godfather Part II in 1974, going back and forth between Vito's youth from 1901 to 1925, showing how he went from a boy targeted by a Sicilian boss to an American boss who could go back home and get his revenge; and 1958 to 1960, as Michael struggled to find a way to "go straight," but, unlike his father, lost his family in the process.

John Cazale played the middle Corleone son, Fredo, whose physical and mental shortcomings led to his overreach in the 2nd film. Cazale made 5 films over 7 years, before dying of cancer in 1978: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon (also with Pacino), and The Deer Hunter (with Robert De Niro, who played the younger Vito in The Godfather Part II). All 5 were nominated for Best Picture. The Godfather and The Deer Hunter won it.

Since the 1st 2 Godfather films, Pacino has become a self-caricature: He has had many iconic performances, usually showing him yelling and out of control: Dog Day Afternoon, ...And Justice for All, Scarface, Scent of a Woman, The Devil's Advocate, Any Given Sunday. He's also become one of the easy choices for impressionists. The genius of his portrayal of Michael is that, once he becomes the new Don, he is calm, cool, collected, and totally in control. On those occasions where events fall out of his control, he quickly figures out how to regain it.

Part II is considered one of the few sequels to a great film that is as good as, or perhaps even better than, the original. That would not be the case with The Godfather Part III, released in 1990. Set in 1979 and 1980, it brings Michael's story to a shocking close, but it's long, it drags, and the acting isn't as sharp as in the 2 previous films. Duvall did not reprise his role as Tom Hagen, saying he didn't mind making half as much money as Pacino, but didn't want to make only a fraction of it. And a criticism I have of the 3rd film is that, aging and sick, Michael does lose control, bit by bit, both of his power and his emotions, until the shocking close.

And, after Winona Ryder had to back out of the role, Coppola cast his own daughter Sofia as Michael's now-grown daughter Mary, and her acting was horribly ripped by the critics, and by original Godfather fans. She has since become a director herself, and gotten considerably better reviews. Maybe she followed the advice Michael quoted from his father in Part II: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." Or maybe she proved what Fredo was unable to prove in Part II: "I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says, like dumb! I'm smart, and I want respect!" She now has it.

The 1st film was 2 hours, 57 minutes long; the 2nd, 3 hours, 20 minutes; the 3rd, 2 hours, 42 minutes. All tolled, just under 9 hours. At that rate, they could have made 5 separate films, averaging 1 hour and 48 minutes each:

* 1901-25: The rise of Vito.

* 1945-48: Vito's decline, Sonny's murder, and Michael's exile.

* 1948-55: Michael's return, Vito's death, and "The Baptism of Fire" that puts Michael firmly on top.

* 1958-60: Michael's death struggle with Hyman Roth, and his life struggles with Kay and Fredo.

* 1979-80: Michael's coda.

Would that have worked better? Someday, and that day may never come, we may get an answer -- if not in this life, then in the next. Until then, accept this post, on the 50th Anniversary of the original film's release.

As I said, John Cazale died in 1978. Richard Conte (opposing boss Emilio Barzini) and Al Lettieri (opposing boss Virgil "The Turk" Sollozo) both died in 1975, Lee Strasberg (Hyman Roth in Part II) in 1982, John Marley in 1984, Sterling Hayden (Captain Mark McCluskey) in 1986, Richard Castellano in 1988, Lenny Montana (Luca Brasi) in 1992, Michael Gazzo (Frank Pentangeli in Part II) in 1995, Marlon Brando in 2004, Richard Bright (Al Neri) in 2006, Al Martino (singer Johnny Fontane) in 2009, Alex Rocco in 2015, Abe Vigoda in 2016, and Morgana King (Carmela Corleone, too young to be the mother of the Corleone children) in 2018.

As of March 14, 2022, Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Talia Shire, Diane Keaton, Gianni Russo (Connie's husband Carlo Rizzi), John Martino (Paulie Gatto) and Simonetta Stefanelli (Apollonia Vitelli, Michael's ill-fated 1st wife in Sicily) are still alive.

UPDATE: James Caan died later in 2022. Diane Keaton died in 2025. Robert Duvall died in 2026.

*

March 14, 1972 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 7 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 115-107 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Golden State Warriors, 124-110 at the Boston Garden. John Havlicek scored 38 points.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 127-118 in overtime at the Baltimore Civic Center (which is now named the CFG Bank Arena).

* The Buffalo Braves beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 108-105 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Elmore Smith had 33 points and 24 rebounds for the Braves.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 129-116 at Cobo Hall (which is now named Huntington Place) in Detroit. Bob Lanier scored 35 for the Pistons, but Jim McMillian had 30, Wilt Chamberlain had 28, Jerry West had 23 and Gail Goodrich had 21.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Chicago Bulls, 115-111 at the Chicago Stadium. Lee Winfield scored 38 for the Sonics.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 109-98 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had 36 points and 17 rebounds.

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The Virginia Squires beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 156-133 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. No, there was no overtime. Julius "Dr. J" Erving scored 33 for the Squires. 

* The Dallas Chaparrals beat the Carolina Cougars, 113-105 at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas.

* And the Denver Rockets beat the Indiana Pacers, 123-106 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. The Rockets became the Denver Nuggets in 1974.

There were 2 games played in the NHL that day. The Buffalo Sabres beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. And the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Vancouver Canucks, 7-4 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

January 25, 1970: The Film Version of "M*A*S*H" Has Hollywood's 1st F-Word

Left to right: Donald Sutherland, Sally Kellerman, Elliott Gould

January 25, 1970: The film M*A*S*H premieres, directed by Robert Altman, on a screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr., based on the novel by Richard Hooker. It was the pen name of Richard Hornberger, who really was a surgeon from Maine, and was basically a thinly-veiled memoir of his time at a real Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War.

The only actors who played the same characters in the 1972-73 TV show were Gary Burghoff as the company clerk, Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly; and George Wood (for some reason, billed as "G. Wood") as General Charlie Hammond. Corey Fischer and former NFL player Timmy Brown (credited as an actor as "Timothy Brown") were in both, but as different characters. Also in it from the ranks of pro football were Ben Davidson and Fred "the Hammer" Williamson.

There were a lot of differences, and not just having Donald Sutherland as Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Elliott Gould as Captain "Trapper" John McIntyre, Robert Duvall as Major Frank Burns, and, perhaps most shocking of all, René Auberjonois (yes, Clayton from Benson and Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as Father Mulcahy.

For one thing, the movie opens with the famous theme song, complete with sung lyrics: "Suicide Is Painless." For another, for the TV show, the character of Captain Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt) was dropped. For another, "Dish" was the nickname of Lieutenant Maria Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug), whereas on the show, the character was renamed Lt. Maggie Dish (and, as played by Karen Philipp, was quickly dropped).

For yet another, while fooling around with Frank, the head nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan, inadvertently gives herself the nickname "Hot Lips." On the show, she already had the nickname when she got there. Sally Kellerman (movie) and Loretta Swit (TV show) are the same age, and they didn't look much alike then, but they did once they got older. Roger Bowen played the bedraggled commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake.

Bobby Troup, who wrote the song "Route 66" and played Dr. Joe Early on Emergency!, played Sgt. Gorman. Sylvester Stallone, although not credited, played a soldier. And John Schuck, as dentist Walter "the Painless Pole" Waldowski, utters the first F-word in a major Hollywood release. It came during the football game near the end of the film. Screenwriter Andy Sidaris told Schuck to look at the player across from him, and, "Say something that'll annoy him." He said, "All right, Bud, your fucking head is coming right off!" 

The new film rating system had officially replaced the puritanical Hays Code on November 1, 1968, just a little over a year earlier. The line was allowed into the film, which got an "R" rating. The rules would later be rewritten so that the word could appear in a film once, and it could keep a "PG" rating; but a 2nd use meant an "R."

The TV show took a few liberties with language. The episode "The Interview," intended to mimic a 1950s TV documentary, had the reporter/narrator, Clete Roberts, say, "Some of their saltier comments have been deleted." As Hawkeye, Alan Alda said, "I don't really give a shit what happens," and said that he'd written President Harry S Truman, himself a practitioner of earthy language, and said, "The least he could do was call me a son of a bitch." And as Blake's successor, Colonel Sherman Potter, Harry Morgan used the term "Bullshit." All three examples were bleeped. Only Potter apologized to Roberts (and, by extension, to the documentary's viewers).

M*A*S*H the TV show, running from 1972 to 1983, used the words "hell" and "damn" more than any TV show before it, to the point where Radar told Blake following a brush with death, his language would contain "no more hells, damns, and especially not the big one!" And there were 3 uses, 2 by Hawkeye, of "You son of a bitch!"

But no F-word. There was a scene at the end of a Season 1 episode, "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet," where this sequence occurred:

Hawkeye: Henry, I know why I'm crying. Tommy was my friend, and now, he's dead, and I'm crying. I've watched guys die in there every day. Why didn't I ever cry over them?

Henry: Because you're a doctor.

Hawkeye: What the hell does that mean?

Henry: I don't know. If I knew that, I'd be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic?

In hindsight, I have to think that, were M*A*S*H to be rebooted as "prestige TV," that episode would have been made exactly as before, with the addition of an F-word in that sequence: "Does this fucking place... " or "Does this place look like the fucking Mayo Clinic?"

At any rate: From the M*A*S*H film, Roger Bowen died in 1996 (by a weird coincidence, just 1 day after Henry's TV portrayer, McLean Stevenson), Richard Hornberger (Hooker) in 1997, Bobby Troup in 1999, George Wood and Ring Lardner Jr. (the last survivor of the Hollywood Ten) in 2000, Robert Altman in 2006, Ben Davidson in 2012, René Auberjonois in 2019, and Timothy Brown in 2020.

As of January 25, 2022, Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Gary Burghoff, John Schuck, Fred Williamson and Jo Ann Pflug are still alive. (UPDATE: Kellerman died in 2022, just a few days after this post; Sutherland in 2024, Duvall in 2026.)

*

January 25, 1970 was a Sunday -- an unusual day of the week to release a film, in any era. Baseball was out of season. Football season ended 2 weeks earlier, with the Kansas City Chiefs winning Super Bowl IV over the Minnesota Vikings.

There were 6 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 102-96 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the San Diego Rockets, 159-131 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Archie Clark scored 36 points for the Sixers.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 131-116 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the Hank McCamish Pavilion) in Atlanta. Flynn Robinson scored 33 for the Bucks.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Baltimore Bullets, 129-122 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Oscar Robertson scored 41 points.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Detroit Pistons, 120-111 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 118-106 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Jerry West scored 38. Wilt Chamberlain did not play.

There were 4 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Indiana Pacers, 96-83 at the Island Garden in West Hempstead, Long Island, New York.

* The Pittsburgh Pipers beat the Carolina Cougars, 108-101 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Washington Capitols beat the Miami Floridians, 113-106 in the gymnasium at North Dade Junior College North in Miami.

* And the Denver Rockets, the team that would become the Denver Nuggets, beat the Dallas Chaparrals, the team that would become the San Antonio Spurs, 127-118 at the Denver Auditorium Arena.

And there were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at the Boston Garden. Yes, it hosted the Celtics and the Bruins on the same day.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the St. Louis Blues, 2-0 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Oakland Seals beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.