"NETWORK" (1976)

BLACK SCREEN

A BANK OF FOUR COLOR TELEVISION ON MONITORS

It is 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 is OFF; and head shots of WALTER CRONKITE, JOHN CHANCELLOR, HOWARD K. SMITH and HARRY REASONER, and of course, the anchorman of our network, HOWARD BEALE, silently flit 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 violations in Beirut, busing trouble in Boston.... NARRATION continues OVER.

CAMERA MOVES IN to isolate Howard Beale, who is everything an anchorman should be. 58 years old silver-haired, magisterial, dignified to the point of divinity. NARRATION continues OVER.

11:30 P.M. The area is deserted except for a few STROLLERS window- shopping the department stores. And way down near 55th Street, TWO roaring drunk middle-aged men, Howard Beale and MAX SCHUMACHER, reeling along and hooting it up. NARRATION continues OVER.

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.

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.

It's too much again. The two men dissolve into silent wheezing spasms of laughter.

He can't go on. He stomps around on the sidewalk. Howard clutches the mailbox.

Any bar. Mostly empty. Max and Howard in a booth, so sodden drunk they are sober.

They snigger and snort. Howard lays his head down on the booth's table and verges on sleep.

Howard, fully clothed, sprawled asleep on his still covered bed in the dark bedroom. Suddenly, he sits bolt upright, SCREAMING out against unseen terrors.

As HOWARD'S HOUSEKEEPER, a middle-aged lady, lets herself into:

The Housekeeper, unbuttoning her coat, is greeted by the sound of a raucous clock ALARM, relentlessly BUZZING O.S. She crosses the:

And opens the blinds letting in an eruption of daylight. The shrill BUZZING getting louder, she proceeds into the:

Where she pauses to look into the bedroom, the door being ajar; the BUZZING is coming from here.

HOUSEKEEPER'S P.O.V – HOWARD BEALE

Still wearing the clothes he wore last night, curled in a position of fetal helplessness on the floor in the far corner of the room.

With some effort, he contrives to get to his feet as the Housekeeper crosses to the alarm clock and turns it off.

CREDITS AND MUSIC ERUPT ONTO THE SCREEN

TITLE: "N E T W O R K"

UNDER AND INTERSPERSED WITH CREDITS, a montage of scenes, occasionally audible, on this seemingly routine day –

A small, unpretentious office, cluttered with books, magazines, periodicals, photographs and awards on the walls, various mementos here and there. Howard (necktied and in shirtsleeves), behind his desk, rattling away his copy for that evening's broadcast on his typewriter, pauses to pour himself a quick shot of Scotch.

The common room off which Howard's office debouches. A large room compactly filled with the desks of producers, associate producers, head writer and writers, production assistants, etc. The walls are festooned like bulletin boards with sheaves of newspaper pages and cutouts and reams of wire releases (there are two wire machines in a corner). Large blowups of Howard Beale are prominently displayed.

There are small, shelved libraries of books, directories and magazines here and there. And the ever-present bank of four television monitors; and, Since it is 10:30 A.M., Tuesday, September 23, 1975, and, since the AUDIO is OFF, the screens silently flicker with whatever was on that day at that time. Howard comes out of his office, crosses through the general HUM of informal industry, an occasional TYPEWRITER CLACKING, a more than occasional phone ringing, as the Nightly News Room PERSONNEL, all in their 20's and 30's, move, MURMUR, confer about their businesses. Howard Beale makes for a ledge of reference books to check out some fact. He spread the reference book out on an unoccupied desk. SOMEONE in b.g. tells him he's wanted on the phone. He nods, takes the call at the desk he is at. Throughout, he belts away at his glass of booze.

Another smallish office debouching off the main room like Howard's, absolutely jammed with nine PEOPLE, a couple of them standing, the others sitting wherever they can. The executive producer, HARRY HUNTER (early 40's), is behind the desk. Howard Beale sits on the small, Finnish modern couch, flanked by an ASSOCIATE PRODUCER and a MAN from the Graphics Department. Aside from Beale and Hunter, everybody else is in their 20's or early 30's, and, with the same exceptions, they're all casually dressed. This is the daily run down meeting at which the schedule for that evening's broadcast is roughed out, and it sounds something like this.

Howard pours himself another shot of booze and sips it.

LOOKING INTO the small network news make-up room where Howard Beale is standing, Kleenex tucked into his shirt collar, getting a few last whisks from the MAKE-UP LADY. Finished, Howard pulls the Kleenex from his collar, takes a last sip from a glass of booze on the make-up shelf, gathers his papers and exits, turns and enters.

Typical Newsroom studio – cameras, cables, wall maps, flats and propping, etc. Howard nods, smiles to various PERSONNEL, CAMERAMEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTORS, ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS as he makes his way to his desk facing Camera One. He sits, prepares his papers, looks up to the control room, nods.

MUSIC ABRUPTLY OUT.

END OF CREDITS

The clock wall reads: 6:30. Typical control room. A room length double bank of television monitors including two color monitor screens, the show monitor and the pre-set monitor. Before this array of TV screens sits the DIRECTOR, flanked on his left by the PRODUCTION ASSISTANT (GIRL) who stop-watches the show, and on his right by the TECHNICAL DIRECTOR who operates a special board of buttons and knobs. (On the TECHNICAL DIRECTOR's right sits the LIGHTING DIRECTOR). At the moment, the show monitor has the network's Washington correspondent, JACK SNOWDEN, doing a follow-up on the attempted assassination of President Ford in San Francisco.

The show monitor screen has switched over to show film of President Ford arriving at the San Francisco airport.

Howard Beale's image suddenly flips on-screen.

The Director and Technical Director turn in their seats to join Harry Hunter and his Secretary in a brief gossip.

The Director has whispered something to Harry Hunter's Secretary which occasions sniggers from the Secretary and from Harry Hunter. The Technical Director stands to get in on the joke.

Harry Hunter's Secretary murmurs something which causes Harry Hunter to burst into laughter.

A bewildered PRODUCTION ASSISTANT nudges the Director, who wheels back to his mike.

The monitor screen erupts into a commercial for cat food.

Everybody's attention is now on the double bank of black-and-white monitor screens showing various parts of the studio, all of which show agitated behavior. Several of the screens show Howard at his desk in vehement discussion with a clearly startled FLOOR MANAGER with headset and no less startled Associate Producer.

On the pre-set monitor screen, the Floor Manager with headset looks up.

At which point, the Technical Director pushes a button; the jangling cat food commercial flips off the show monitor to be instantly replaced by a scene of gathering bedlam around Howard's desk. The Audio Man flees in panic back to the cubicle to turn off the audio but not before Harry Hunter and the Director going out live to 67 affiliates can be heard booming:

Max Schumacher, behind his desk staring petrified at his office console on which pandemonium ha broken out.

The Floor Manager and the Associate Producer and now an ELECTRICIAN are trying to pull Howard away from his desk and Howard is trying to hit anybody he can with an ineffective right hand haymaker.

Max's PHONE RINGS.

On the MONITOR SCREEN, hysteria is clearly dominating. The SCREEN has suddenly leaped into a fragment of the just done cat food COMMERCIAL, then a jarring shot of the bedlam of the studio floor. This particular camera seems unattended as it begins to PAN dementedly back and forth showing the confusion on the studio floor. Then abruptly the SCREEN is filled with Vice President designate Nelson Rockefeller testifying before the Senate Rules Committee.

The SCREEN abruptly goes into BLACK as Max slashes his phone back into its cradle. His PHONE promptly RINGS again, but Max is already headed for the door. The SCREEN goes into STANDBY. His SQUAWK BOX suddenly blares.

He strides into:

A large common room where all the SECRETARIES of the News Division EXECUTIVES have their desks. It is empty now except for one Secretary just now putting the cover on her typewriter. Max strides through and exits into:

A long institutional corridor, part of an endless maze of similar corridors with offices and technical rooms debouching on both sides.

The corridor has begun to fill up with video-tape OPERATORS and other News Division PERSONNEL who happen to be working late, all of whom are either wondering what happened or are telling others what happened. Max yanks an exit door open and disappears down a flight of steps to emerge into:

Which leads directly to the doors for the control room and for the studio. Coming out of the control room is the Technical Director, who, on spotting MAX striding down the corridor to him, says:

He follows Max into the:

Everything seems to have quieted a bit, the hysteria down to mumbles and murmurs and occasional sounds of laughter. TELEPHONES are shrilly and incessantly RINGING. In the far corner of the studio sits Howard Beale surrounded by Harry Hunter, the Director, the Associate Producer, the Production Assistant, and the Floor Manager. CAMERAMEN, GRIPS and other FLOOR PERSONNEL are gathered in a FLUX of little clumps around the studio murmuring and muttering and giggling over the whole absurd episode Max heads straight for the GROUP around Howard. They part to let him in.

Max nods, stares at Howard.

PHONES OFF SCREEN. RING and RING. VOICES OFF SCREEN SHOUT

Howard slowly looks up to Max who is still staring at him. He suddenly smiles broadly at Max and winks.

FRANK HACKETT, Executive Senior Vice President of the network, 41 years old, one of the new cool young breed of management/merchandising executives, wearing a tuxedo (he had been pulled out of a dinner party in Westchester by this unfortunate business) comes out of the elevator and turns briskly into:

Which is clotted with network EXECUTIVES of assorted sizes and ages. Hackett, en route to Room 509, which is clearly the humming hub of activity up here, pauses to comment to one of the Executives.

Hackett murmurs and peels his way into:

Hackett enters the common room, off which debouch the offices of the President of News (Max Schumacher), the VP News Division (ROBERT McDONOUGH), the VP Public Relations News Division (MILTON STEINMAN), the VP Legal Affairs News Division (WALTER GIANINI), VP Owned Stations News (EMIL DUBROVNIK), General Manager News, Radio (MICHAEL SANDIES), all of whom are here and a number of other network EXECUTIVES. The VP Sales (JOE DONNELLY) is just taking the phone from the VP News Sales (RICHMOND KETTERING) who is seated at the desk of the secretary for VP Public Relations News Division.

Hackett is already crossing into:

Which is pretty well jammed with NELSON CHANEY (President of the network), 52, a patrician, sitting behind Max's desk and on the phone, looking up to note Hackett's arrival.

Milton Steinman (VP Public Relations News Division), early 50's, a rumpled, ordinarily amiable man, is standing by the desk on the phone to someone at CBS.

A P.R. MAN sticks his head into the office.

He is referring to the four television monitors. Three on the wall and a large office console monitor of UBS-TV, now blurting out their respective commercials.

Suddenly, the faces of DAVE MARASH and ROLAND SMITH and CHUCK SCARBOROUGH and ROGER GRIMSBY and BILL BEUTEL and the UBS local news anchorman, TIM HALLOWAY, are on the screen. Affable Dave Marash on the CBS monitor is saying:

Hackett reaches to click off the bank of monitor screens. They abruptly go black.

HIGH WIDE ANGLE SHOT and/or SHOTS showing Television Row, that quarter mile of Sixth Avenue where the four television networks have their chrome, marble and glass buildings rearing futuristically into the sky. 30 Rock (NBC-TV), Black Rock (CBS-TV), and Hard Rock (ABC- TV), and, of course, the network of our story, UBS-TV. It is a nice, sunny day.

SUNLIGHT streaming in. Max at his desk, shirtsleeved, on the phone.

MAX'S SECRETARY sticks her head in.

MAX hangs up, stands, gathers his jacket off a chair and heads for the door.

He exits.

A middling-sized screening room with about 20 seats. There are two people already there. A whippet-like, casually-dressed man of 36,

BILL HERRON, and the VP Programs, DIANA CHRISTENSON, dressed in slacks and blouse, 34, tall, willowy, and with the best ass ever seen on a Vice President in charge of Programming.

Max and Diana exchange nods and professionally polite greetings.

Diana shrugs, smiles. The lights in the room go down. A shaft of light shoots out from the projection room. The PHONE at Max's elbow BUZZES. He picks it up.

He hangs up, leans back, watches the documentary film which has just begun. ON SCREEN, a handsome black woman in her early 30's...

...is sitting in a typical panel discussion grouping, flanked by three MEN and a WOMAN, two white, two black, all very urban guerilla, in fatigues, sun glasses and combat boots. MISS HOBBS looks calmly into camera and says:

The PHONE BUZZES softly. Max picks it up.

Room still dark. ON SCREEN, NUMBERED WHITE LEADER is rolling down.

The SCREEN suddenly erupts into film of the interior of a bank being entered in the wake of THREE MEN, two of them black, and TWO WOMEN, one black and one white. They disperse to various parts of the bank as if they were here on legitimate business.

This last in reference to the young white woman on screen who is lugging a shopping bag as she joins a line at a teller's window.

ON SCREEN, the film has gone out of focus a couple of times and bounced meaninglessly around the bank and finally settled on a large, powerful black man at one of the desks, presumably writing out a series of deposit slips.

ON SCREEN, the CAMERA has whooshed amateurishly about, unfocuses and focuses again to pick up MARY ANN GIFFORD bending over her shopping bag and pulling out a Czech service submachine gun 9 Parabellum which she points to the ceiling and apparently fires; the FILM is silent, but the reactions of everyone around suggest clearly something was fired. The FILM gets fragmented and panicky about here, as does the activity in the bank. The PHONE at Max's elbow BUZZES. Max picks it up.

Harry Hunter, on phone, is using an empty desk in the main room. Normal news room activity in b.g.

The silent footage of the frenetic bank robbery is still going on in b.g.

ACROSS Harry Hunter on phone, looking through the open door of Howard's office to Howard at his desk in b.g.

The show is over, the room lights are on. In b.g., Diana and Herron stand, murmur to each other.

In b.g., Diana and Herron move for the door, wave good-byes. Max waves slackly in return. He can't help noticing as Diana leaves that she has the most beautiful ass ever seen on a VP Programs.

And hangs up. For a moment, he just sits, scowling and making curious little grimaces. Then he stands, removes his jacket, dumps it on a chair. He rolls his sleeves up and suddenly makes a strange little GRUNT. He sits behind his desk, fits a piece of paper into the machine and then, again, suddenly, he makes a strange little GROWL.

Our Production Assistant, remembered perhaps from the control room scene, passes Howard's open door and is given pause by the strange little noises coming from Howard's office. She stands in the doorway a moment watching Howard GRUNTING, GROWLING and Snarling as he Clacks away at the typewriter.

The Production Assistant closes the door.

Diana and Herron come out of one of the elevators and turn left to the glass doors marked: "DEPARTMENT OF PROGRAMMING". They continue into:

(Needless to say, there is no one at the receptionist's desk.) Diana and Herron head down.

Diana pauses en route to lean into one of the offices.

She and Herron continue on, turn into:

Where the SECRETARIES are all slaving away, reading magazines and chatting among themselves. An occasional PHONE RINGS. At the far end of the room, a chunky WOMAN in her late 30's is instructing her SECRETARY in something. Diana hails her.

She leads Herron now into:

The Secretary hands a sheaf of telephone messages to Diana which she carries with her into:

Diana enters, followed by Herron. She sits, skims through her messages. The office is executive-size, windows looking out on the canyons of glass and stone skyscrapers on Sixth Avenue, desk piled high with scripts. GEORGE BOSCH (VP Program Development East Coast), a slight, balding man of 39, enters the office, nods to Herron, takes a seat; and is immediately followed by BARBARA SCHLESINGER (Head of the Story Department), the chunky lady just called in by Diana, and TOMMY PELLEGRINO (Assistant VP Programs), 36, swarthy, coifed and mustachioed. They find seats on the chairs, the small couch. Herron remains standing.

She closes the door.

LONG SHOT. A stockholders' meeting. Standing room only. Some 200 STOCKHOLDERS seated in the audience; others standing around the walls. On the rostrum, a phalanx of UBS CORPORATE EXECUTIVES, seated in three rows, including EDWARD RUDDY, Chairman of the Board, the PRESIDENTS and SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENTS of the other divisions and other groups, the UBS Records Group, the UBS Publishing Group, the UBS Theater Chain, etc. Representing the network are Nelson Chaney and the divisional heads. GEORGE NICHOLS, President of the Radio Division; NORMAN MOLDANIAN, President Owned Stations; General Counsel WALTER AMUNDSEN, and, of course, Max Schumacher, President of the News Division. Frank Hackett, Senior Executive Vice President UBS-TV, is at the lectern making the annual report.

ANOTHER ANGLE SINGLING OUT Max Schumacher in the second row of the phalanx of EXECUTIVES, bored with the proceedings, and whispering to Nelson Chaney seated beside him. INCLUDE in frame the 67 year old,

silver-haired Brahmin of television, Edward Ruddy, who is seated in the front row. Hackett in b.g. It is some twenty minutes later.

Max suddenly begins paying attention.

ANOTHER ANGLE ACROSS Hackett with a smoldering Max Schumacher in b.g.

Max in b.g., stares angrily down his row towards Norman Moldanian, who studiously avoids his eye.

ACROSS Max turning in his seat to scowl at George Nichols in the row behind him.

Max leaning forward trying to catch the eye of Edward Ruddy in the front row. Ruddy is staring stonily ahead.

Max is about ready to blow his stack.

The stockholders' meeting is over. The floor is a swirling CRUSH of STOCKHOLDERS mingling with EXECUTIVES. Max Schumacher is elbowing his way through the crowded aisle to get to where Edward Ruddy is chatting away with a COUPLE of STOCKHOLDERS.

Ruddy turns back to the clutch of Stockholders around him. Max wheels away in a rage.

The Sixth Avenue entrance to the hotel. Taxis pulling in, disgorging PEOPLE; taxis pulling out with new fares. MAX comes striding out of the hotel, sore as a boil. PAN HIM as he bulls his way through the line of taxis and across jammed, clanging 5:50 P.M. Sixth Avenue.

Max, steaming, strides down the corridor to.

Empty except for perhaps one SECRETARY pecking away at her typewriter. Max strides across and into:

Max takes off his jacket, throws it on the couch, sits behind his desk. But he's too steamed to stay there long. A moment later, he's up again, strides around, a caged lion. He thumps his desk angrily, strides around, then whips his jacket up from the couch and strides out.

The wall CLOCK reads 6:28. The Director, Technical Director, Lighting Director and Production Assistant are at their long shelf in front of the double bank of television monitors. The Audio Man is off in his glassed-in cubicle. Harry Hunter and his Secretary and the Unit Manager are on the raised level in the back. Hunter is on the phone, looks up as the door to the control room opens, and MAX,

carrying his jacket, comes in. Curious looks from the PERSONNEL here; presidents of news rarely come down to the control room. Hunter finishes his phone call, offers his seat to Max, but Max prefers standing in the back.

The show monitor, which has been showing color patterns, now suddenly flicks on to show Howard Beale as he looks up from the sheaf of papers on his desk and says:

The MONITOR SCREEN goes black.

Howard's image promptly flicks back on.

Everybody in the control room looks to Max.

The PHONE RINGS. Hunter picks it up. ANOTHER PHONE RINGS. Hunter's Secretary picks it up.

He hangs up. The PHONE promptly RINGS again. Hunter's Secretary picks it up. (Hunter is on the phone that rang before.)

A PHONE RINGS. Hunter's Secretary picks it up.

A breathless and distraught YOUNG WOMAN bursts into the control room.

Diana, sitting alone in her office, watching Howard Beale on her office console.

As Frank Hackett and his assistant, TOM CABELL, wrench the door open and stride in.

The Technical Director taps a button, and the SCREEN mercifully goes black.

White-haired, patrician Edward Ruddy, Chairman of the Board, impeccably groomed, fastidious in a light topcoat, making his way

through the absolute CRUSH of NEWSPAPER PEOPLE, WIRE SERVICE PEOPLE, CAMERA CREWS from CBS, NBC, ABC, from the local stations, WPIX, WOR- TV, METROMEDIA, and from Channel 13, the educational channel. A half dozen SECURITY GUARDS protect the elevators, and three more help Ruddy get through the GLARING CAMERA LIGHTS and the horde of Reporters thrusting mikes at him.

Max, standing by the deserted reception desk, in the empty, silent lounge. This is the top-management floor, and the decor, which is posh-austere, reflects the eminence of the top executives who have their offices here. It is all silent and empty now, cathedral, hushed, echoing. Way down at the far end of the corridor, the double doors of the corner office open, and Nelson Chaney leans out and beckons to Max, who starts down the plush carpeting in response.

Large, regal. Impressionist originals on those walls which are not glass through which the crepuscular grandeur of New York at night can be seen. Ruddy sits behind his desk. JOHN WHEELER, 59, silent, forceful, lounges in one of the several leather chairs. The door opens, and Nelson Chaney and Max Schumacher come in. Everybody nods at everybody else. Max slumps into a leather chair.

Chaney promptly picks up a corner phone and calls down to the Fourteenth Floor.

Howard Beale, bleached almost white by the GLARE of the CAMERA LIGHTS, and almost totally obscured by the tidal crush of cameras, Reporters, Security Guards around him.

Diana, naked, sitting on the edge of her bed in a dark bedroom, watching Howard Beale's impromptu press conference on television.

Also on the bed is a naked young STUD, who isn't really that interested in the 11:00 News. He is fondling, fingering, noodling and nuzzling Diana with the clear intention of mounting her.

The young Stud is getting around to nibbling at Diana's breasts.

Bright morning sunshine. Diana, in a pants suit and carrying half a dozen scripts, enters the building.

Diana, pausing at the newsstand to pick up the morning papers, which she reads en route to the elevators.

Diana briskly enters through the door marked: "DEPARTMENT OF PROGRAMMING", and whisks off down the corridor.

Diana crosses to her own office. THREE SECRETARIES, including Diana's, are abuzz in a corner over last night's Howard Beale show. Diana's Secretary scurries to follow Diana as, in b.g., Barbara Schlesinger comes out of her office carrying four scripts.

Diana, rummaging through the papers on top of the Secretary's desk as the Secretary enters.

She exits into:

Morning SUNLIGHT blasting in. Diana moves to her desk, stands behind it, scanning the front pages of the newspapers piled on her desk, then sits and studies the overnight ratings also on her desk. The Secretary enters with yesterday's overnights, a sheet of paper, which she extends to Diana, who promptly studies them. The Secretary exits as Barbara Schlesinger enters, sinks onto a chair with a sigh.

ACROSS Barbara Schlesinger, half-standing so she can read the newspaper and showing the front page of the Daily News, which consists of a 3/4 page blowup of Howard Beale topped by a 52 point black banner headline: "BEALE FIRED"

Max Schumacher and Bob McDonough (mid-40's) enter. The Network News Room is something less than Front Page, but, nevertheless, a news room. It's a long, large, windowless room, some 40 desks, mostly unoccupied, a wire room, typewriters and banks of television monitors on the wall. At the moment, work has stopped, and the ENTIRE PERSONNEL of the news room, some 60 PEOPLE – EXECUTIVES and SECRETARIES, PRODUCERS, ASSISTANT PRODUCERS, HEAD WRITERS, WRITERS, DUTY AND ASSIGNMENT EDITORS, and DESK ASSISTANTS, ARTISTS, and FILM AND TAPE EDITORS, REPORTERS, NEWSCASTERS and CAMERA and AUDIO MEN, are all gathered, standing and sitting about to hear Max say:

Diana turning into:

The Secretary waves Diana straight into:

Where Hackett sits unhappily at his desk poring over memos from his Stations Relations Department and reports from his Sales Department.

Hackett's intercom BUZZES.

A large room of white-linened tables, almost empty save for the five men at one of the window tables, with the spectacular view of midtown Manhattan. The five are Frank Hackett, Nelson Chaney, Walter Amundsen (General Counsel Network,) Arthur Zangwill (VP Standards and Practices,) and Joe Donnelly (VP Sales).

Chaney sits.

Chaney sits.

A phone is placed before Hackett, who promptly picks it up and murmurs:

Max is on the phone and cleaning out his desk and office at the same time. There are empty cartons everywhere into which Max is dumping his files. There are piles of files on his desk, which he is skimming through even as he talks on the phone.

Howard Beale walks in, carrying an 8 x 12 photograph.

Howard puts the photograph on the desk in front of Max.

Hangs up.

They both begin wheezing with laughter. Milton Steinman pokes his head in.

Bob McDonough (VP Network News and interim head of the division) enters, frowning. There is a clot of PEOPLE spilling out from Max Schumacher's office from whence sounds of LAUGHTER and SHOUTING emanate. Even the Secretaries have left their desks to share the fun. McDonough, wondering what the hell it's all about, makes his way through the CRUSH at the door, murmuring: "Excuse me... sorry, honey... etc." When he finally gets through the outer office and into:

What he sees is a room filled with News Executives. Max, Howard, Harry Hunter, Walter Gianini (Legal Affairs), Michael Sandies, Milton Steinman, and a COUPLE of younger PRODUCERS, delightedly listening to this gang of middle-aged men remembering their maverick days.

HOWL of LAUGHTER.

The room ROCKS with LAUGHTER. When it subsides, Bob McDonough, standing in the doorway, says:

MR. RUDDY, slim, slight, white-haired, imperially elegant in banker's gray, comes down the corridor towards Room 509. A VIDEOTAPE MAN, popping out of one of the rooms that debouch off this corridor, quickly stops, stands still.

He passes on towards.

As Ruddy enters. The SIX SECRETARIES pecking away at their typewriters all pause to murmur awed.

As Ruddy passes through to:

Where MITZI (Max's Secretary), at her desk, murmurs:

He goes into.

And closes the door.

He opens the door and leaves.

Max sitting alone behind his desk in a dark office lit only by his desk lamp, watching the Network News Show starring Howard Beale on his office console.

On the office console, Howard Beale doesn't seem too much different than he had always been. He scowls, frowns, seems to be muttering.

On the office console, the Network News Show has come to an end; the CLOSING THEME MUSIC emerges into SOUND, and the show's CREDITS begin to roll. Max clicks off the set, folds his hands on the desk and sits glumly regarding his folded hands. After a moment, he becomes aware of another presence in the room and looks to the doorway where Diana Christenson is standing, wearing a white blouse and dark slacks and carrying her jacket and purse. If we haven't already noticed how attractive she is, we do now. Standing as she is, framed in the doorway, backlit by the lights of the deserted common room, suddenly sensuous, even voluptuous.

They appraise each other for a moment; clearly, there are the possibilities of something more than a professional relationship here.

She leans forward to flick her ash into Max's desk ash tray. Half- shaded as she is by the cone of light issuing from the desk lamp, it is nipple-clear she is bra-less, and Max cannot help but note the assertive swells of her body. Diana moves languidly to the door and would leave but Max suddenly says:

Diana moves back to the desk and crushes her cigarette out in the desk tray.

She smiles, glides to the doorway again.

Diana pauses in the doorway, and then moves back briskly to the desk, picks up the telephone receiver, taps out a telephone number, waits for a moment.

She returns the receiver to its cradle, looks at Max; their eyes lock.

She moves for the door. Max stares down at his desk.

He sighs, stands, flicks off his desk lamp.

Max and Diana at the end of their dinner. In fact, Max is flagging a WAITER for two coffees, black.

The Waiter brings the coffee.

They smile at each other.

Dark. Blinds drawn. Max and Diana lying naked on a maelstrom of sheets, both still puffing from what must have been an ebullient bout in the sack.

She bounces out of bed and stands naked in the shadowed darkness, arms akimbo, looking happily down at Max on the bed.

Howard Beale, fast asleep in his dark, empty, hushed room.

He gets up on one elbow, eyes still closed, cocks his head as if he were listening to someone mumbling from the rocking chair across the room.

He sits up, gets out of bed, walks around and perches on the foot of the bed, stares at the empty rocker, nods his head as if he is following a complicated argument.

Whoever he thinks he is talking to apparently gets up and crosses the room to the overstuffed chair and sits there, since Howard follows this movement with his eyes and finally gets up and perches on the side of his bed in order to continue the curious conversation.

Howard listens, sighs, shrugs:

Bright sunny day to establish the next morning.

Max enters. The usual morning hum of activity. PHONES RING. Harry Hunter, going over some wire releases with his HEAD WRITER, looks up as Max approaches.

Max veers off for:

Howard at his typewriter, clicking away. Max leans in through the open doorway.

Howard turns to regard Max in the doorway with a sweet smile.

This gives Max pause, to say the least.

Max takes a step into the office and closes the door.

He opens the door, goes back into:

Where he stops, turns and wheels back to Howard's office.

Howard seems not to have heard him, continues pecking away at his typewriter. Max scowls, turns, exits.

The wall CLOCK says 6:29. The control room STAFF are all at their posts murmuring away. Harry Hunter is on the phone.

On the SHOW MONITOR, Howard Beale at his desk, shuffles his papers, looks up for his cue. The wall CLOCK clicks to 6:30, the Director murmurs into his mike. Howard looks out from the screen to his vast audience and says:

Harry Hunter still on the phone as the rest of the control room staff just sit there staring at Howard on the MONITOR.

Max behind his desk on his phone, chin cupped in his right hand, staring glumly at Howard on his CONSOLE.

TIGHT SHOT OF Howard, his voice rising, his eyes glowing with increasing fervor.

Diana watching Howard on her CONSOLE.

Max, no longer on the phone, is leafing through a loose-leaf address book.

Max taps out a telephone number on his private line.

As Howard and Harry Hunter, followed by the rest of the control room staff, come out of the stairway and head down the corridor to.

Where Hunter and Howard move towards Howard's office while the rest of the control room CREW disperse to their own desks and to exchange muttered comments with those Nightly News PERSONNEL still at their desks. Howard walks straight as a ramrod, eyes uplifted, serene to the point of beatitude. He and Hunter go into:

Where Max is sitting, waiting on the couch. He stands.

Hunter does so.

He stands rigidly erect, his eyes staring mindlessly out, his face revealing the anguish of so transcendental a state.

He stares haggardly at Max, his breath coming with great difficulty now; he shouts:

He promptly falls in a dead swoon onto the floor.

A CRASH OF THUNDER.

THUNDER CRASHES outside. RAIN pelts against the windows. The room is dark. Max and his wife, LOUISE, are fast asleep in their hushed room. CAMERA PANS, DOLLIES slowly out of the bedroom and into:

Dark, hushed, sleeping. Howard is asleep on the living room couch. Or rather he was asleep, for he now slowly sits up, then stands in his borrowed pajamas, goes to the hall closet, fetches out a raincoat, unchains, unbolts and unlocks the front door of the apartment, and goes out.

Another CRASH and RUMBLE of THUNDER. RAIN slashes through the streets. The sky is dark and lowering.

ALARM CLOCK BUZZING. Mrs. Louise Schumacher, a handsome matron of 50, clicks it off and gets out of bed. Max turns in the bed, sleeps on. THUNDER and RAIN. OFF SCREEN Louise starts sleepily for the bathroom, pauses, then goes out into the:

And down that to:

Where she stands, frowning. The couch, which had been made up for a bed, has clearly been slept in but is now empty. She looks back up the hallway to the guest bathroom. The door is open, and there is obviously nobody in the bathroom. She pads across the living room- dining room area and pokes her head into the kitchen, and then back to the back hallway, pauses a moment outside her daughter's closed bedroom door, opens it, looks in, closes it and then returns to:

She sits on Max's side of the bed, shakes him awake.

She moves off.

He slowly sits up.

Hackett in a rage, shouting at Max slumped in a soft chair. Others in the room are Diana and HERB THACKERAY.

Thackeray starts to tell him, but Hackett roars on.

The PHONE RINGS, Hackett seizes it.

He hangs up, snaps at Thackeray.

Thackeray exits. Hackett roars on.

Max exits. Hackett clicks his intercom.

THUNDER CRASHES. RAIN lashes the street. PEDESTRIANS struggle against the slashing rain. The streets gleam wetly, the heavy TRAFFIC heading uptown crushes and HONKS along, erratic enfilades of headlights in the shiny, black streets.

CLOSER ANGLE

Of entrance to UBS Building. Howard Beale, wearing a coat over his pajamas, drenched to the skin, his mop of gray hair plastered in streaks to his brow, hunched against the rain, climbs the steps and pushes the glass door at the entrance and goes into:

TWO SECURITY GUARDS at the desk watch Howard pass.

Howard stops, turns, stares haggardly at the Security Guard.

Howard plods off to the elevators.

Murmured, efficient activity as in previous scenes. Diana stands in the back in the shadows. On the SHOW MONITOR, Jack Snowden, Beale's replacement, has been doing the news straight.

All this is UNDER and OVERLAPPED by Harry Hunter answering a BUZZ on his phone.

The Stage Manager nods, passes on the instructions to his A.D. on the studio floor. On the SHOW MONITOR, we see footage of the OPEC Vienna meeting. Lots of Arab headdresses and bearded Levantine faces at conference tables, and we are hearing the VOICE of Edward Fletcher in Vienna.

On the SHOW MONITOR, the footage flicks to Sheik Zaki Yamani being interviewed by a corps of correspondents outside the meeting hall.

Nobody in the control room is paying too much attention to Yamani, they are all watching the double bank of black-and-white monitors which show Howard Beale entering the studio, drenched, hunched, staring gauntly off into his own space, moving with single-minded purpose across the studio floor past cameras and ASSISTANT DIRECTORS, CAMERAMEN, SOUND MEN, ELECTRICIANS and ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS, to his desk which is being vacated for him by Jack Snowden. On the SHOW MONITOR, the film clip of Yamani has come to an end.

And, suddenly, the obsessed face of Howard Beale, gaunt, haggard, red-eyed with unworldly fervor, hair streaked and plastered on his brow, manifestly mad, fills the MONITOR SCREEN.

ANOTHER ANGLE showing the rapt attention of the PEOPLE in the control room, especially of Diana.

But Diana has already left the control room and is scurrying down.

Yanking doors open, looking for a phone, which she finds in:

Diana bursts out of the just-arrived elevator and strides down to where a clot of EXECUTIVES and OFFICE PERSONNEL are blocking an open doorway. Diana pushes through to:

Herb Thackeray on the phone, staring up at Howard Beale on his wall monitor.

Both THACKERAY'S SECRETARY's office and his own office are filled with his STAFF. The Assistant VP Station Relations, a 32-year-old fellow named RAY PITOFSKY, is at the Secretary's desk, also on the phone. Another ASSISTANT VP is standing behind him on the Secretary's other phone.

The GENERAL MANAGER of WCGG, Atlanta, a portly 58-year-old man, is standing by the open windows of his office, staring out into the gathering dusk, holding his phone. The station is located in an Atlanta suburb, but from far off across the foliage surrounding the station, there can be heard a faint RUMBLE. On his office console, Howard Beale is saying.

Diana grabs the phone from him and listens to the people of Baton Rouge yelling their anger in the streets.

Max, Mrs. Schumacher, and their 17-year-old daughter, CAROLINE, watching the Network News Show.

Caroline gets up from her chair and heads for the living room window.

Caroline opens the window and looks out on the rain-swept streets of the upper East Side, the bulking, anonymous apartment houses and the occasional brownstones. It is thunder dark; a distant clap of THUNDER CRASHES somewhere off and LIGHTNING shatters the dank darkness. In the sudden HUSH following the thunder, a thin voice down the block can be heard shouting:

Max joins his daughter at the window. RAIN sprays against his face.

MAX'S POV

He sees occasional windows open, and, just across from his apartment house, a MAN opens the front door of a brownstone.

OTHER SHOUTS are heard. From his twenty-third floor vantage point, Max sees the erratic landscape of Manhattan buildings for some blocks, and, silhouetted HEADS in window after window, here, there, and then seemingly everywhere, SHOUTING out into the slashing black RAIN of the streets.

A terrifying enormous CLAP of natural THUNDER, followed by a frantic brilliant FULGURATION of LIGHTNING; and now the gathering CHORUS of scattered SHOUTS seems to be coming from the whole, huddled, black horde of the city's people, SCREAMING together in fury, an indistinguishable tidal roar of human rage as formidable as the natural THUNDER again ROARING, THUNDERING, RUMBLING above. It sounds like a Nuremberg rally, the air thick and trembling with it. FULL SHOT – MAX

Standing with his daughter by the open terrace window-doors, RAIN spraying against them, listening to the stupefying ROARS and THUNDERING rising from all around him. He closes his eyes, sighs, there's nothing he can do about it any more, it's out of his hands.

A jumbo 747 touches down at L.A. Airport.

AIRPORT – LATER

Diana and Barbara Schlesinger, carrying attach‚ cases, scripts, hand baggage, deplane.

A towering glass building on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Diana at a luncheon meeting (sandwiches and containers of coffee), with her West Coast Programming Department.

These are FOUR MEN and TWO WOMEN; GLENN KOSSOFF and Barbara Schlesinger; the THREE OTHER MEN are the Assistant VP Program Development West Coast, Head of the Story Department West Coast, and a MAN from Audience Research; the WOMAN is VP Daytime Programming West Coast. They are all sitting around a typical mod-shaped conference table except for DIANA who is moving towards a large display board at the far end of the table stretching the length of the wall. This is an improvised programming "board". It shows through movable heavy cardboard pieces – what all four networks have on by the half hour for all seven days of the week.

Bill Herron pokes his head into the room.

An utterly bland office kept for visiting firemen. Diana is behind the desk. Barbara Schlesinger is sitting on the couch. Glenn Kossoff is ushering TWO GENTLEMEN out, spots someone in the outer office.

He ushers in a silver-haired, suntanned, fresh-from-the-tennis-court man dressed in California elegance, rakish blazer, archetype of all L.A. television packagers. HY NORMAN.

Norman opens the door to leave, looks out into the outer office, closes the door, turns to Diana.

DIANA'S OFFICE – LATER

He opens the door and goes out. On his heels, Glenn Kossoff is already ushering in Bill Herron, Laureen Hobbs, (a handsome black woman of 35 in Afro and dashiki); SAM HAYWOOD, (late 50's, a shaggy, unkempt lawyer in the Clarence Darrow tradition, galluses, string- tie, folksy drawl and all). A younger lawyer, ROBERT MURPHY, (early 30's, Harvard intellectual type); and THREE AGENTS from the William Morris Office named LENNIE, WALLIE and ED, (all in their mid-30's, all wearing trim blue suits and all indistinguishable from each other). DIANA rises to greet them, extends her hand to Laureen Hobbs.

In b.g., meanwhile, Schlesinger is exchanging hellos with the THREE WILLIAM MORRIS AGENTS and is being introduced to the lawyers and looking at baby pictures proffered to her by one of the agents. It's all jolly as hell, a lot of chuckling and smiling.

Kossoff and a SECRETARY are hauling in chairs.

Handshakes, nods, smiles, everybody begins to sit. The Secretary goes around taking coffee orders.

More chairs are brought in. Diana would answer Haywood but he booms along, beginning to hit his stride.

The necessary chairs are in by now, and everyone is seated. The Secretary has gone off to fetch the coffee. A sudden HUSH follows Haywood's Hegelian instruction, and Diana would answer, but Haywood is now center-stage, into the full swell of rhetoric.

A moment of HUSH, in which everybody digests this opening statement.

Everybody looks to Laureen Hobbs.

Laureen Hobbs, sitting on the stoop of the front porch talking to another member of the Central Committee, a middle-aged white man named WITHERSPOON. The door behind them opens, and DOWLING, a young white man in his 20's, wearing a fatigue jacket and torn Levi's and dark sunglasses, pokes his head out:

Laureen and Witherspoon rise, go up the steps and follow Dowling into:

Dark. An absolute shambles. Cartons, crates, newspapers and scraps of food have been littered about. A young black man, WATKINS, (early 20's, standing on the stairway to the second floor holding an army rifle), watches Laureen and Witherspoon following Dowling, and himself follows them into:

Or what had been the dining room. A naked overhead BULB is the only light in here. Sitting on a wooden folding chair is the GREAT AHMED KHAN, a powerful, brooding black man in his early 30's. He wears a hussar's shako and the crescent moon of the Midianites hanging pendant around his neck. The chair he sits on is the only visible piece of furniture. There are two tattered sleeping bags on the floor, part of a general welter of torn newspapers, empty grocery bags, hamburger leftovers, etc. The walls are bare except for blowups of Che Guevara, Mao, Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda, scotch- taped to the torn wall-paper. Cartons and crates here and there, automatic guns leaning against the walls. Boxes of ammunition and grenades and mortar shells stacked against a wall. In attendance on the Great Ahmed Khan is a young black woman in her late 20's, named JENKINS, and a young white woman in her early 20's, Mary Ann Gifford, who is a fire-eating militant with a bandolier of cartridges across her torn shirt and with a B.A.R. held in her hands. Laureen pulls up an empty crate, sits, waves a limp hand of hello to the others and regards the Great Khan.

MUSIC: A RATAPLAN OF KETTLEDRUMS AND A TARANTARA OF TRUMPETS.

Everybody murmuring away.

The Show Monitor cuts to a beaming ANNOUNCER.

SHOW MONITOR now shows packed AUDIENCE happily roaring:

The Announcer beaming away in front of a curtain.

The SHOW MONITOR.

MUSIC: A FLOURISH OF DRUMS.

MUSIC: A FULL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SOARS INTO AN IMPERIAL CRESCENDO.

As the HOUSE LIGHTS go to BLACK. The curtain slowly rises. An absolutely bare stage except for one stained glass window, suspended by wires high above stage left through which shoots an overpowering SHAFT of LIGHT as if emanating from heaven. Howard Beale, in an austere black suit with black tie shambles on from the wings, finds the SPOTLIGHT and stands there for a moment shielding his eyes from the blinding light. TUMULTUOUS APPLAUSE from the audience.

At which point, Howard Beale, sweating and red-eyed with his prophetic rage, collapses to the floor in a prophetic swoon.

A Valhalla of a room taking up the 43rd and 44th floors of the CC and A Building. It is dark and theatrical, the lighting at the moment being provided by the shaft of LIGHT issuing from a slide projector at the back of the room onto a large SCREEN on the raised podium where Frank Hackett in banker's gray stands making his annual report. On the SCREEN, we see charts of figures, one after the other, which accompany Hackett's explication. A little red ARROW darts from one figure to another as Hackett drones on. Seated in a semi-circular arrangement like a miniature United Nations are 214 SENIOR EXECUTIVES, (late 40's, 50's, and 60's). They each have their own little desks with swivel chairs, pin-spot lights, piles of bound company reports, and name plates giving their names and companies they represent. NOTE one specific CHAIR in the dead center of the first row that swivels back and forth, back and forth.

ANOTHER CLOSER ANGLE on the CHAIR in the first row that keeps swiveling back and forth.

ANOTHER ANGLE closer on the swiveling CHAIR but still not revealing its occupant.

FULL SHOT of Hackett barely concealing his pride.

CAMERA PANS ACROSS the huge dark room of tiered seats to the swiveling CHAIR in the front row which now swivels to face CAMERA, revealing a short, balding, bespectacled man with a Grant Woods face. This is ARTHUR JENSEN, the President and Chairman of the Board of CC and A.

TIGHT SHOT of Hackett, basking in this praise, suffused with pride.

Edward George Ruddy lying in state.

ANOTHER ANGLE showing the vaulted reaches of the Temple packed with a standing room audience of condolers with the white yarmalka-ed RABBI in b.g. officiating. All the NETWORK BRASS are spotted around the congregation.

CLOSER ANGLE ACROSS Max among the condolers, following his eyes to several rows of pews down on the other side of the aisle where Diana is sitting. Aware of Max's eyes on her, she turns her face a bit so that their eyes meet briefly. She smiles, turns back to the Rabbi's eulogy.

SNOW drifting down. CROWD of overcoated condolers flooding the sidewalk. A cortege of black limousines lined up in front of the temple as FUNERAL DIRECTORS guide condolers into their respective limousines. A curious crowd of PASSERSBY watch. Max Schumacher threads his way through the CRUSH to where Diana Christenson stands, murmuring to Nelson Chaney and Walter Amundsen, all bundled up in winter coats. There are muttered "Hello, Max, how are you's" and "How's everything, Walter," etc.

Good-byes all around, and Max and Diana move off through the fringe of the CRUSH on the sidewalk. CAMERA DOLLIES with them. They turn the corner onto:

They head downtown. They walk silently. SNOW drifts down on them. CAMERA DOLLIES with them.

They walk on silently.

They both suddenly stop on Fifth Avenue between 65th and 64th Streets and regard each other. An occasional snowflake moistens their cheeks, wets their hair.

They stare at each other, bemused by the abrupt fragile explosion of their feelings. The SNOW drifts down. PEDESTRIANS move back and forth around them. The Fifth Avenue TRAFFIC honks and grinds its way downtown.

She laughs, then he. A PASSERBY darts them a curious glance.

Max and his wife, Louise, in the middle of an ugly domestic scene. Louise sits erect on an overstuffed chair, her eyes wet with imminent tears; Max strides around the room. He is clearly under great stress.

She stares, her cheeks streaked with tears, at Max standing at the terrace glass door, staring blindly out, his own eyes wet and welling. After a moment, he turns and regards his anguished wife.

He enfolds her; she sobs on his chest.

He struggles to restrain his tears. She releases herself from his embrace.

Diana, murmuring into her squawk box and, at the same time, putting last minute things into a weekend bag. She is ebullient.

Clicks off her squawk box, snaps her weekend bag shut, whisks her sheep wool-lined coat out of her closet and strides out into:

Where there is no one sitting, and continues out into:

Where a few SECRETARIES are still at their desks. Tommy Pellegrino is just coming out of his office.

Pellegrino turns to Barbara Schlesinger now poking her head out of her office.

Diana, now wearing her sheep wool-lined coat and carrying her weekend bag, comes striding happily out through the entrance doors, heads for 55th Street, spots a double-parked car, and heads heedless of traffic across the street to:

Max Schumacher in a rented Chevy, leaning across to open the door for her. She slips into the front seat, slams the door shut, nestles her head on Max'S over-coated shoulder, as he starts the ignition.

They move out into the heavy traffic of Sixth Avenue.

Traditional lyric love scene. The two mackinawed lovers walking hand-in-hand on a lovely stretch of deserted winter beach. The tide is coming in.

The obligatory Italian restaurant, checkered table-cloth, candles, wine, etc. Diana and Max at dinner, utterly rapt in each other.

Diana and Max getting out of their car and heading for one of the ground-level rooms, Max unlocking the door.

They go into:

Max flicks the light on, kicks the door shut, and they are instantly into each other's arms in a passionate embrace.

She busily removes her shoes and unbuttons her blouse and whisks out of her slacks; and, down to her bikini panties, she is now scouring the walls for a thermostat.

Nubile and nearly naked, she entwines herself around Max, who, by now, has stripped down to his trousers; and the two hungering bodies slide down onto the bed where they commence an affable moment of amative foreplay.

Groping, grasping, gasping and fondling, they contrive to denude each other, and, in a fever of sexual hunger, Diana mounts Max, and the SCREEN is filled with the voluptuous writhings of love, Diana crying out with increasing exultancy.

She screams in consummation, sighs a long, deliciously shuddering sigh, and sinks softly down into Max's embrace. For a moment, she rests her head on Max's chest, eyes closed in feline contentment.

A black LIMOUSINE winds its way up the dirt road to the front porch, where the car is halted and checked out by an armed guard (DOWLING).

Slivers of lights slither out from behind the drawn shades of the farmhouse, and we can hear the sounds of ANGRY VOICES.

TWO AGENTS from ICM disgorge from the limousine. A young man in his early 30's, FREDDIE, carrying a large manila envelope, and a fat young woman in her mid-30's, HELEN MIGGS, carrying an attach‚ case.

MIGGS and FREDDIE go up the porch and into:

Cartons, crates, newspapers, scraps of food, torn grocery bags, stacks of pamphlets, cases of weapons and ammunition, broken furniture and sleeping bags are littered every which way about. There seems to be some sort of conference going on in the living room, off screen left.

As the TWO ICM AGENTS head for the living room, we can see Laureen Hobbs and the three William Norris agents, WALLIE, LENNIE and ED, perhaps remembered from earlier scenes. We can also see the Great Ahmed Khan, still wearing his shako, Mary Ann Gifford, still wearing her bandoliers of bullets, and OTHER MEMBERS of the Khan's group in fatigues and bearing arms. There is also a middle-aged LAWYER from ICM named WILLIE STEIN. Everybody, with the exception of the Great Khan's retinue, is seated on broken chairs and cartons and crates.

Everybody in the living room conference is studying 80-page contracts from which one of the agents (WALLIE) is reading.

There is a genial exchange of helloes and waves between the phalanxes of AGENTS.

The Great Khan decides to offer an opinion by SHOOTING his PISTOL off into the air. This gives everybody something to consider, especially Willie Stein who almost has a heart attack.

Everybody starts flipping through their contracts.

A HOTEL MARQUEE which reads: "WELCOME UBS AFFILIATES CONVENTION"

Across the marquee, looking down on the CRUSH of station managers, program executives and sales vice-presidents from the various affiliates, all tuxedoed and evening-gowned and milling about. Spotted in the cheerful CRUSH can be seen Diana, Mr. and Mrs. Amundsen, Mr. and Mrs. Zangwill, jollying it up with the affiliates' executives and their wives.

A huge BANNER reading "UBS AFFILIATES 1975" hanging high over the ballroom.

PAN DOWN to show 1000 tuxedoed and evening-gowned PEOPLE, mostly middle-aged in the vast shuffle of cocktail time – HUBBUB, intermingling flux and a slow general shuffling surge through the doors leading into:

CLOSER ANGLE of the CRUSH of PEOPLE at the doors. Herbert Thackeray, (VP Stations Relations,) and Norman Moldanian (VP Owned Stations,) with their WIVES and carrying their drinks and exchanging pleasantries with the GENERAL MANAGER of WJGL Cincinnati and his WIFE and the GENERAL MANAGER of KBEX Albuquerque and his WIFE as well as the SALES MANAGER of that station and his WIFE. High CHATTER and HUBBUB, lots of hearty chuckles and general Rotarian bonhomie. In b.g., Frank Hackett and his WIFE exchanging Rotarian bonhomie with some other GENERAL MANAGERS and PROGRAM DIRECTORS and SALES MANAGERS of various affiliates and their WIVES.

ANOTHER ANGLE as Diana, evening-gowned, beautiful, glowing and effulgent, leans down from her place on the dais to accept congratulatory comments from the Sales Manager of KGIM, Boise, and his wife standing on the floor level.

She turns to accept some more enthusiastic greetings from another GENERAL MANAGER and his WIFE being brought down the dais to her by Walter Amundsen, (General Counsel Network).

WIDE ANGLE SHOT of the whole ballroom, dark, everybody seated at their tables now, listening to an address by Nelson Chaney (President UBS Network), a spotlighted figure at the podium.

CLOSER SHOT of Chaney.

An OVATION from the AUDIENCE. In response to Chaney's beckoning, Diana rises from her chair in the glistening shadows of the dais and comes down to the podium. She stands there showered with APPLAUSE, beaming, exultant.

ANOTHER ANGLE ACROSS Hackett at the dais with Diana in b.g. An ASSISTANT MANAGER leans across Hackett and murmurs to him.

Hackett rises, murmurs apologies to his neighbors, follows the Assistant Manager through the shadows of the dais and heads out.

MUSIC: A RATAPLAN OF KETTLEDRUMS AND A TARANTARA OF TRUMPETS.

A portable Teevee set perched on a bar.

PULL BACK to show we are in the vast cocktail area of the Grand Ballroom, now being cleared away by a staff of WAITERS and BUSBOYS. Hors d'oeuvres, spreads and booze being carried away, table and chairs being packed off, linens being whisked and folded. A couple of waiters are watching the Howard Beale show on the portable TV set perched on the room's bar.

On the TV set, the house lights go down, the curtain rises, and, as before, bare stage, shimmering stained glass window, an ethereal shaft of light, and Howard Beale in his austere black suit trudges out and explodes.

LONG WIDE ANGLE SHOT with TV set in f.g. showing the spacious cocktail area being cleared away, as far across the room the doors to the Ballroom open and Hackett follows the Assistant Manager in. Hackett lingers at the doors while the Assistant Manager gets a WAITER to bring a jack phone to one of the tables still standing.

REVERSE ACROSS Hackett as a jack phone is brought to his table; the cluster around the TV set in b.g.

REVERSE ACROSS TV set with Hackett in b.g.

REVERSE ON Hackett.

REVERSE ACROSS TV set. In b.g., Hackett has hung up and is slowly walking toward the group around the TV set.

Hackett peers over the shoulder of a WAITER to watch the television show.

Hackett, Nelson Chaney and Walter Amundsen, all tuxedoed, and Diana, evening-gowned, sit and stand in the dark smallish room, cluttered with electronic equipment, watching a replay of the Howard Beale show on the big screen. TWO TECHNICIANS fiddle with their equipment.

Hackett, who's seen all this already, isn't even watching. He is sprawled in his chair, eyes closed, numbed, even serene with despair.

At which point, Howard keels over in his now familiar prophetic swoon. On SCREEN, ATTENDANTS come and carry Howard off.

The other Technician pushes a button and the SCREEN goes white. The first Technician flicks the room lights on.

Hackett stares silently into space.

The two Technicians exit. SILENCE fills the cluttered room. Amundsen and Hackett sit in their chairs, Chaney leans against a side wall, Diana lounges against a rear wall. After a moment, Amundsen stretches, stands.

Hackett sighs.

Tears stream shamelessly down his cheeks as he shuffles, a broken man, around the room.

The PHONE RINGS. A moment of anxious silence. Hackett picks it up.

He returns the phone to its cradle, regards Diana for a moment.

A black limousine pulls to the curb in front of the C.C. and A. Building, disgorging Hackett, and, a moment later, Howard Beale, both dressed in banker's gray. As they move for the building's entrance, Hackett herding Howard along, it becomes clear that Howard is in a beatified state. His eyes glisten transcendentally, and he smiles the smile of the elevated spirit. He suddenly pulls up abruptly, raises his arms over his head, and announces at the top of his lungs:

This outburst doesn't seem to bother most of the PEOPLE passing by except for ONE or TWO who murmur: "Hey, that's Howard Beale, isn't it?" The outburst does appall Frank Hackett, who stares in distress and entreaty to some god in the heavens, and clutches at Howard's arm to get him moving again.

An enormous office with two walls of windows towering over the Manhattan landscape and through which SUNLIGHT streams in. Arthur Jensen is rising from behind his massive desk.

CAMERA DOLLIES to include Howard just coming into the room.

He takes Howard'S arm and moves him to a large oaken door leading out of Jensen's office.

They pass into:

The overwhelming cathedral of a conference room remembered perhaps from an earlier scene where Frank Hackett gave his annual report.

When last seen, it was in pitch darkness, but now the enormous curtains are up, and an almost celestial light pours in through the huge windows. Being on the 43rd and 44th floors, the sky outside is only sporadically interrupted by the towers of other skyscrapers. The double semi-circular bank of seats are all empty, and the general effect is one of hushed vastness.

He leads Howard down the steps to the floor level, himself ascends again to the small stage and the podium. Howard sits in one of the 200 odd seats. Jensen pushes a button, and the enormous drapes slowly fall, slicing away layers of light until the vast room is utterly dark. Then, the little pinspots at each of the desks, including the one behind which Howard is seated, pop on, creating a miniature Milky Way effect. A shaft of white LIGHT shoots out from the rear of the room, spotting Jensen on the podium, a sun of its own little galaxy. Behind him, the shadowed white of the lecture screen. Jensen suddenly wheels to his audience of one and roars out:

Howard slowly rises from the blackness of his seat so that he is lit only by the ethereal diffusion of light shooting out from the rear of the room. He stares at Jensen spotted on the podium, transfixed.

In b.g., up on the podium, Jensen considers this curious statement for a moment.

The CREW at their various control panels. Business as usual. If anything, EVERYBODY in the control room appears a little more bored. On the SHOW MONITOR, Howard Beale stands in his stained-glass- filtered spotlight, but, rather than his old enraged self, he seems sad, resigned, weary.

As Max lets himself into the apartment. Max seems depressed.

Max moves into the living room as Diana's Voice erupts shrilly from the bedroom.

Diana perched on her bed, shrilling into the telephone.

She slams the receiver down, sits in silent rage on the bed, turns up the volume on her remote control unit. Howard's Voice suddenly emanates from the television set across the room from her.

Diana reaches for the phone again, dials briskly. She looks up to note Max regarding her from the doorway. She regards him sullenly. They are both clearly in foul tempers.

They exchange dully sullen looks. Max turns back into:

Where he sprawls morosely on one of the soft chairs.

Diana perched on her bed, cross-legged.

Diana clicks the remote control thing, and the TV set goes black.

Max sprawled on the soft chair. We notice that, in the back of the living room, a bridge table has been set up as a makeshift desk. It has a typewriter on it and a welter of papers and books and filing folders. Diana appears in the bedroom doorway, regards Max coldly.

He finds himself by the upstage typewriter, which he sweeps crashing off the bridge table, sending the welter of papers there flying off in a storm.

For a moment, it looks as if Max is going to slug her. Then he deflates.

For one brief moment, you could almost believe she does understand. She stares, eyes-locked with Max, her eyes threatening to well with tears. There are certainly tears in Max's eyes.

Then, shatteringly, the PHONE OFF SCREEN in the bedroom RINGS; and DIANA promptly turns to answer it.

He sighs, the inchoate moment of love evanesced.

Laureen Hobbs in a shrill, wide-eyed panic, raging all over Diana's office as Diana's PHONE RINGS, and Diana answers it.

She is already out of her office.

CLOSEUP of an imposing MOSAIC FIGURE, fully bearded and wearing ankle-length black robes and thonged sandals, standing on a lonely mountain spur inveighing against the idolatries of the world.

PULL BACK to show the screening room half-filled with network and programming executives, spotted around the room. Diana is there and her top assistants Barbara Schlesinger and Tommy Pellegrino. Frank Hackett is there; Nelson Chaney, Herb Thackeray (Stations Relations); and Joe Donnelly and Harry Hunter. In b.g., the ranting Mosaic Figure on the wall console roars out his inveighing until otherwise indicated.

The MONITOR SCREEN goes blank.

Diana sinks down in a chair and turns to Hackett in the row immediately behind.

Apparently it is.

Diana letting herself into her apartment.

Dark, shadowed. She moves down to.

Max has fallen asleep in one of the soft chairs. The newspaper he was reading has fallen to his lap. His mouth is a bit agape and he wheezes a little. In the stark lighting of the lamp behind the chair, he seems suddenly an old man. Diana stands and regards him with perceptible distaste. She slips out of her jacket, crosses to the bedroom.

All the lights are on. Diana, freshly scrubbed and in a shower robe, is packing Max's things. A large valise lies opened on the bed, and Diana is fetching Max's suits from the closet, folding them and packing them away. Max appears rumpled and in his shirt-sleeves in the doorway behind her. She senses him there, glances at him, continues with her packing.

He moves to the bed to take over the packing. She sits in one of the bedroom chairs.

Max, who had gone into the bathroom for his toilet articles, comes out with them, stands, regards Diana.

She exits out into:

And across that to the:

Where a kettle is steaming. She fetches a cup and saucer from the cupboard and would make some instant coffee but she is overtaken by a curious little spasm. Her hand holding the cup and saucer is shaking so much she has to put them down. With visible effort, she pulls herself together. She moves out of the kitchen to the:

Where she stands in the middle of the room and shouts at Max through the opened bedroom doorway.

He slams the valise shut.

He turns back to his valise and buckles it. Diana finds a chair, sits in it. A moment later, Max comes out of the bedroom, lugging a raincoat as well as the valise. He lugs his way across the living room, then pauses for a moment, reflects.

He disappears down the foyer. We can hear the CLICK of the front door being opened and the CLACK of the door closing. Diana sits in her chair, pulling the shower robe around her, alone in her arctic desolation.

A solemn Frank Hackett in blue suit walks down the long, empty, hushed corridor to the large double doors of his office (which had originally been Edward Ruddy's office). At the doors, Nelson Chaney is waiting for him.

Hackett sighs, enters.

Where Herb Thackeray and Joe Donnelly are lounging. Everybody follows Hackett into:

Nighttime outside, the crepuscular grandeur of Manhattan glittering below us. Waiting in the office, seated here and there, are Walter Amundsen and Diana. Hackett sits behind his desk. The others all find places around the room.

Nobody has anything to say to this.

A sad silence settles over the top management of UBS-TV as they lounge about the enormous room.

Another long contemplative silence.

Bustling and crowded. Long lines of PEOPLE, four abreast, roped off and waiting to get into the Howard Beale show. Uniformed USHERS here and there, occasionally chatting with the waiting CROWD. OVER THIS, the VOICES of the network meeting just interrupted CONTINUE:

As the waiting AUDIENCE is herded into the elevators. OVER THIS, the VOICES of the meeting CONTINUE:

As the elevator load of audience is led out of the elevator and down the long, carpeted corridors, past the large wall photographs of TV stars, glass-enclosed control rooms, and other showpieces of the network's electronic glory. OVER THIS, the VOICES CONTINUE:

The meeting is still going on.

The new load of audience finds seats in the rapidly-filling auditorium. On the floor of the studio, the CREW is setting the cameras, checking the booms. The stage curtain is down. OVER THIS, the VOICES of the meeting CONTINUE:

The warm-up is over; the stage footlights are on; the audience sits expectantly. The big wall CLOCK shows: 6:29, clicks to 6:30. On the studio stage, the ANNOUNCER strides out from the wings, bellows happily at the audience.

REVERSE SHOT of the audience. Suddenly SPOT the Great Ahmed Khan and some of his FOLLOWERS, right in the middle, happily joining all the others in their communal response:

MUSIC: A FLOURISH OF DRUMS.

MUSIC: A FULL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SOARS INTO AN IMPERIAL CRESCENDO.

As the HOUSE LIGHTS go to BLACK. The curtain slowly rises. The bare stage, the stained glass window, the celestial SHAFT of light. Howard Beale, in his black suit and tie, strides on from the wings, stands basking in the SPOTLIGHT. APPLAUSE UP.

The meeting is still going on.

The APPLAUSE for Howard Beale has died. HUSH. Suddenly, the HUSH is shattered by a HORRENDOUS ENFILADE of GUNFIRE. An embroidery of red bullet holes perforate Howard'S shirt and jacket, and we might even see the impact of a head wound as he pitches backwards dead.

A BANK OF FOUR COLOR TELEVISION MONITORS

It is 7:14 P.M., Wednesday, July 9, 1975, and we are watching the network news programs on CBS, NBC, ABC and UBS-TV. The AUDIO is ON: head shots of Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, and Jack Snowden, substituting for Howard Beale, interspersed with tapes of the horrible happening at UBS the day before, flit and flicker across the four television screens. Television continues relentlessly on.

THE END