Peter Finch Howard Beale
Ned Beatty Arthur Jensen
William Holden Max Schumacher
Robert Duvall Frank Hackett
Cindy Grover Caroline Schumacher
Marlene Warfield Laureen Hobbs
Faye Dunnaway Diana Christensen
Arthur Burghardt Great Ahmed Kahn
Kathy Cronkite Mary Ann Gifford
(* NB - You will note that I -- for good and sufficient reasons which will be published on request if anyone is really interested -- have changed the usual order of reporting the acting hierarchy.)
FADE IN:
This story is about Howard Beale
who was the network news anchorman
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 --
-- in his time, Howard Beale had
been a mandarin of television, the
grand old man of news, with a HUT
rating of 16 and a 28 audience
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 --
-- in 1969, however, he fell to a
22 share, and, by 1972, he was
down to a 15 share. In 1973, his
wife died, and he was left a
childless widower with an 8 rating
and a 12 share. He became morose
and isolated, began to drink
heavily, and, on September 22,
1975, he was fired, effective in
two weeks. The news was broken to
2. EXT. 5TH AVE. SOUTH OF 57TH STREET - NIGHT
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 --
-- who was president of the News
Division at UBS and an old friend.
The two men got properly pissed --
CLOSER SHOT of HOWARD and MAX (who is a
craggy, lumbering, rough-hewn, 51-year-old man),
thoroughly plastered and on a drunken laughing jag --
I was at CBS with Ed Murrow in
1951. Didn't you join Murrow
Must've been 1950 then. I was at
NBC. Morning News. Associate
producer. I was a kid, twenty-six
years old. Anyway, they were
building the lower level on the
George Washington Bridge, and we
were doing a remote there. Except
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
-- ten after seven in the morning -- I
get a call -- "Where the hell are
you? -- You're supposed to be on the
George Washington Bridge!" -- I jump
out of bed -- throw my raincoat
over my pajamas -- run down the
stairs -- I get out in the street --
I flag a cab -- I jump in -- I say:
"Take me to the middle of the George
It's too much again. The TWO MEN dissolve into
silent wheezing spasms of laughter --
-- the driver turns around --
he says -- don't do it, buddy --
-- he says -- you're a young man --
you got your whole life ahead
He can't go on. He stomps around on the sidewalk.
HOWARD clutches the mailbox.
