Return to Scenes 12-17.
18. INT. FIFTH FLOOR - UBS BUILDING - ELEVATOR
AREA - 10:47 P.M.
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 --
19. INT. FIFTH FLOOR CORRIDOR
-- 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
Lou, can't we clear out that
downstairs lobby? There must be
a hundred people down there, every
TV station and wire service in the
city. I could barely get in --
LOU
How'm I going to clear them out,
Frank?
HACKETT murmurs and peels his way into --
20. INT. ROOM 509 - EXECUTIVES' OFFICES OF THE
NEWS DIVISION
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 --
DONNELLY (on phone)
-- how many spots were wiped out? --
HACKETT
(to GIANINI, who is seated
at another secretary's desk
studying a typescript of
the aborted news show)
Anything litigable? --
GIANINI
Not so far --
DONNELLY
(on phone)
-- We had to abort the show. Ed,
what else could we do? We'll
make good, don't worry about it --
HACKETT
(to ARTHUR ZANGWILL, VP
Standards and Practices,
now coming out of MAX's
office)
Is Nelson in there?
ZANGWILL
He's talking to Wheeler. So far,
over nine hundred fucking phone
calls complaining about the foul
language --
HACKETT
(mutters)
Shit --
P.R. MAN
(in b.g. on phone)
-- come on, Mickey, what page
are you putting it on?! --
HACKETT is already crossing into --
21. INT. MAX'S OFFICE
-- 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 --
CHANEY
(on phone)
Frank Hackett just walked in --
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 --
STEINMAN
(on phone)
I can't release the tape, Marty,
we're still studying it ourselves --
A P.R. MAN sticks his head into the office
P.R. MAN
(calling to STEINMAN)
ABC again, wants the tape --
STEINMAN
Tell him to go fuck himself
(to phone)
And that goes for you too, Marty --
HACKETT
(to HOWARD BEALE,
sitting on the couch)
You're off the air as of now.
CHANEY
(extending his phone
to HACKETT)
He wants to talk to you --
HACKETT
(to MAX, leaning
against a wall)
Who's replacing Beale tomorrow?
MAX
We're flying up Snowden from
Washington.
STEINMAN
(leaning across HACKETT
to turn up the volume
knob on Max's desk)
All right, everybody hold it.
Let's see how the other
networks handled this --
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 --
THACKERAY
(VP Stations Relations,
lounging in the doorway)
The ten o'clock news opened
with it --
HACKETT
(on phone)
Walter's drafted a statement, I
haven't seen it yet -- I just got
here, John, I was at a dinner party --
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:
MARASH
(affably)
An unusual thing happened at one of
our sister networks, UBS, this evening --
ROGER GRIMSBY
(almost simultaneously)
Howard Beale, one of television's
most esteemed newscasters --
CHUCK SCARBOROUGH
Howard Beale interrupted his network
news program tonight to announce --
HACKETT
(mutters)
Shit --
TIM HALLOWAY
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
made a forceful address before the
United Nations General Assembly --
HACKETT
(to MAX)
How are we handling it?
MAX
Halloway's going to make a brief
statement at the end of the show
to the effect Howard's been under
great personal stress, et cetera
HACKETT reaches to click off the bank of monitor
screens. They abruptly go black.
HACKETT
(on phone)
I'll call you back, John.
(returns the phone to
its cradle, regards the
gathered EXECUTIVES)
All right. We've got a stockholders'
meeting tomorrow at which we're going
to announce the restructuring of
management plan, and I don't want
this grotesque incident to interfere
with that. I'll suggest Mr. Ruddy
open with a short statement washing
this whole thing off, and, you,
Max, better have some answers in
case some of those nuts that always
come to stockholders' meetings --
MAX
(back to leaning
against the wall)
Mr. Beale has been under great
personal and professional pressures --
HACKETT
(exploding)
I've got some goddam surprises for
you too, Schumacher! I've had it
up to here with your cruddy division
and its annual thirty-three million
dollar deficit! --
MAX
Keep your hands off my news division
Frank. We're responsible to
corporate level, not to you.
HACKETT
We'll goddam well see about that!
CHANEY
All right, take it easy. Right now,
how' re we going to get Beale out of
here? I understand there's at least
a hundred reporters and camera crews
(Editor: Some material missing here.)
HERRON
(buzzing the projectionist)
Diana asked if she could sit in on
this --
MAX
Fine --
(sits, calls to DIANA)
How's it going?
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 --
MAX
(murmurs into phone)
Max Schumacher -- I'm glad I got
you, John. Listen, I got into a
hassle with Frank Hackett last
night over the Howard Beale thing,
and he made a crack about the
stockholders' meeting this afternoon.
He said something about having
some surprises for me. Is there
something going on, John, I don't
know about? ... John, I'm counting
on you and Mr. Ruddy to back me up
against that son of a bitch
Okay, see you this afternoon --
He hangs up, leans back, watches the documentary film
which has just begun. ON SCREEN, a handsome black
woman in her early 30's --
MAX
Who's that, Laureen Hobbs?
HERRON
Yeah.
-- 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:
LAUREEN HOBBS (ON SCREEN)
The Communist Party believes that
the most pressing political necessity
today is the consolidation of the
revolutionary, radical and democratic
movements into a United Front --
The PHONE BUZZES softly. MAX picks it up --
MAX
(murmurs into phone)
Yeah? ... Oh, goddamit, when, Louise?
Well, did he say anything? ...
All right, thanks.
(hangs up, promptly
picks up again)
Four-eight-oh-seven --
LAUREEN HOBBS (ON SCREEN) (in b.g.)
Repression is the response of an
increasingly desperate, imperialist
ruling clique. Indeed, the entire
apparatus of the bourgeois-democratic
state especially its judicial systems
and its prisons is disintegrating --
MAX (on phone)
Harry, Howard left my house about
ten minutes ago presumably headed here.
Let me know as soon as he gets here.
LAUREEN HOBBS (ON SCREEN) (in b.g.)
The fascist thrust must be resisted
in its incipient stages by the
broadest possible coalition --
25. INT. SCREENING ROOM 7 - TWENTY MINUTES LATER
Room still dark. ON SCREEN, NUMBERED WHITE LEADER
is rolling down --
HERRON
What we're going to see now is
something really sensational.
The Flagstaff Independent Bank
in Arizona was ripped off last
week by a terrorist group called
the Ecumenical Liberation Army,
and they themselves actually took
movies of the rip-off while they
were ripping it off. It's in
black and white, but wait'll
you see it --
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 --
DIANA
The Ecumenical Liberation Army
-- is that the one that
kidnapped Patty Hearst?
HERRON
No, that's the Symbionese
Liberation Army. This is the
Ecumenical Liberation Army.
They're the ones who kidnapped
Mary Ann Gifford three weeks ago.
There's a hell of a lot of
liberation armies in the
revolutionary underground and
a lot of kidnapped heiresses.
That's Mary Ann Gifford --
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 --
DIANA
You mean, they actually shot
this film while they were ripping
off the bank?
HERRON
Yeah, wait'll you see it. I
don't know whether to edit or
leave it raw like this. That's the
Great Ahmed Khan; he's the leader --
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 --
DIANA
This is terrific stuff. Where
did you get it?
HERRON
I got everything through Laureen
Hobbs. She's my contact for
all this stuff.
DIANA
I thought she was straight
Communist Party.
HERRON
Right. But she's trying to unify
all the factions in the
underground, so she knows
everybody.
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.
MAX
(on the phone, while
in b.g. a bank hold-
up goes on screen)
Yeah? ... All right, put him on --
Continue to Scenes 26-39. | 
