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.)

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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 Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

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.

April 10, 1957: "12 Angry Men" Premieres

April 10, 1957: The film 12 Angry Men premieres, directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the made-for-TV play by Reginald Rose. (The film's title has always included the numeral 12, without spelling out the word "Twelve.")

The play had aired as part of the CBS anthology series Studio One on September 20, 1954, and was acted out live. Robert Cummings, who had just come off the Alfred Hitchcock film Dial M for Murder, played Juror #8, the only one who starts out with any doubts. He later started billing himself as "Bob," and starred in the sitcom The Bob Cummings Show, sometimes titled Love That Bob! in syndication. Franchot Tone, an older actor known for playing gentlemanly types, was cast against type as Juror #3, the play's main antagonist.

The 12 men are a jury, at the New York County Courthouse in Lower Manhattan, deciding the case of an 18-year-old man, played by John Savoca, who lived with his father, accused of killing the father after years of abuse.

Rudy Bond plays the Judge, who reminds the jury that their verdict must be unanimous, or the case will have to be tried all over again; that if there is any "reasonable doubt" as to the defendant's guilt, they must find him Not Guilty; and that, if they find him Guilty, the penalty is death by execution -- which, in the State of New York at that time, meant the electric chair. And these were the men who had to decide his fate:

* Juror #1 (played by Martin Balsam, later to win a Tony and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar): The jury foreman; a calm and methodical assistant high school football coach.

* #2 (John Fiedler): A meek and unpretentious bank teller who is easily flustered, but eventually stands up for himself.

* #3 (Lee J. Cobb, known for playing Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront): A hot-tempered owner of an answering service, who is estranged from his son.

* #4 (E.G. Marshall, later to play a District Attorney on the TV series The Defenders): An unflappable, conscientious, and analytical stockbroker who is concerned only with facts, not opinions.

* #5 (Jack Klugman, later to play Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple and, more pertinent here, a medical examiner on Quincy, M.E.): The youngest juror, a fan of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, who grew up in a violent slum, and is sensitive to bigotry towards "slum kids" like the defendant.

* #6 (Edward Binns): A tough but principled and courteous house painter who stands up to others, especially over the elderly being verbally abused.

* #7 (Jack Warden, later to star in the TV version of The Bad News Bears): A wisecracking salesman, who is eager to get out, because he has tickets to the New York Yankees' game that night.

* #8 (Henry Fonda, aside from Cobb the only castmember who was already a "big name"): An architect, who mentions having 3 children.

* #9 (Joseph Sweeney, then 72 years old but looking even older, the only actor from the 1954 teleplay to reprise his role): Easily the oldest juror, to whom age has granted wisdom, and picked up on the witnesses' behaviors and their possible motivations.

* #10 (Ed Begley, who later won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and the father of actor Ed Begley Jr.): A garage owner who is unafraid to voice his opinions, including bigoted ones.

* #11 (George Voskovec, a Czech immigrant): A polite European watchmaker and naturalized American citizen, who demonstrates strong respect for democratic values, such as due process.

* #12 (Robert Webber): An indecisive and easily distracted advertising executive.

The foreman immediately polls the jurors, and the vote is Guilty 11, Not Guilty 1. Only #8 votes to acquit, because he has doubts, and he doesn't want a man (especially one who is only 18) to die when there's doubt as to his guilt. Some of the others mock him for this, saying the case is open-and-shut.

He takes this for a little while, and asks for another vote, which he says will stay out of: If it's 11-0 Guilty, he'll go along. The vote is 10-1, with the elderly #9 voting Not Guilty, not because he's now sure of innocence, but because he respects #8's motives, and agrees there should be more discussion. The hardliners, #s 3 and 10, are upset; while #7 just wants to make his game. That becomes academic, as it starts to rain, so the game is postponed. But the thunder and lightning end up being matched by the stormy atmosphere in the jury room.

A neighbor testified to witnessing the defendant stab his father, from her window, through the windows of a passing elevated train. #8 argues that the noise of the passing train would have obscured everything the witness claimed to have overheard. This causes #s 5 and 11 to accept that the doubt is more than reasonable, and to change their votes: It's now 8-4 Guilty.

Another witness testified that he heard the defendant threaten to kill his father, heard the father's body hit the floor, ran to his door, and saw the defendant running downstairs. But the witness walked with a limp, and, after looking at a diagram of the witness's apartment and conducting an experiment, the jurors determine that it is impossible he could have made it to the door in time. #3, infuriated, argues with and tries to attack #8, yelling a death threat, and it takes 3 jurors to physically restrain him. Knowing that anyone could be driven by anger to say, "I'll kill you!", and having seen the logistics of the disabled witness' apartment, #s 2 and 6 change their votes. The jury is now evenly split, 6-6.

A point is made that the defendant was noticeably shorter than his father. #5, who grew up in a slum, and had seen a switchblade knife used before, demonstrates that these facts made it all but impossible for the defendant to have killed the father with the knife that the prosecution claimed was the murder weapon: If that was the right weapon, the right way to kill with it would have been to stab the target in the abdomen, taking the least amount of time to wound the target, and causing the most blood loss. But the fatal would was high in the chest, which would have required the killer to turn the knife in his hand, and then raise his hand. Thus, the father would have had time to stop the son from doing it. #s 1, 7 and 12 change their votes: It's now 9-3 Not Guilty.

One of the remaining Guilty voters is #4. He believes that, in spite of the passing train, the woman in the apartment across the street is still a reliable witness. This causes #12 to switch back, and it's 8-4 Not Guilty.

But #9, the old man, sees #4 remove his glasses, and rub the impressions the glasses made on his nose. #9 says that the witness in question, though she did not wear glasses in court, did the same rubbing while on the witness stand, meaning that she wore glasses.

This causes #8 to remember that the witness claimed she was trying to sleep when she saw the murder. This means she wouldn't have had her glasses on, and couldn't possibly have made out the face of the killer with any accuracy. This causes the previously adamant #4 to accept the available facts, and change his vote. #s 10 and 12 do the same. It's now 11-1 Not Guilty, and only #3 remains. 

But it's going to be a hung jury, because #3 is still completely convinced of the son's guilt. He goes on a rant about rotten kids. (This was the era of Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause, and the young Elvis Presley.) He takes a picture out of his wallet, showing his own son, about the same age, talks of their estrangement, and gets so angry that he tears the picture up. Seeing that he has symbolically "killed" the image of his son, he breaks down in tears, realizes his faulty logic, and makes it a unanimous Not Guilty vote.

Only at the end do we learn the names of any of the jurors: #9 introduces himself to #8 as McCardle, and #8 tells #9 his name is Davis.

Joseph Sweeney died in 1963, Ed Begley Sr. in 1970, Lee J. Cobb in 1976, George Voskovec in 1981, Henry Fonda and Rudy Bond (the judge) in 1982, Robert Webber in 1989, Edward Binns in 1990, Martin Balsam in 1996, E.G. Marshall in 1998, John Fiedler in 2005, and Jack Warden in 2006. Jack Klugman was the last survivor of the actors who played the jurors, living until 2012. He outlived John Savoca, who played the defendant at age 17, by 5 years.

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April 10, 1957 was a Wednesday. The baseball season was 5 days away from starting -- so the Yankees being rained out did not reflect reality, at least not on this day.

Football was out of season. The NBA Finals were between Games 5 and 6, and the Boston Celtics would beat the St. Louis Hawks in 7 games. And the Stanley Cup Finals were between Games 2 and 3, and the Montreal Canadiens would beat the Boston Bruins in 5 games. So there were no scores on this historic day.