Most scenes together: Max Schumacher & Diana Christensen (5), Diana Christensen & Frank Hackett (3), Howard Beale & Max Schumacher (2)
Harry Hunter Mr. Schumacher's right here, do you want to talk to him?
Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. If we can't think up reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit.
We don't know why we go through all this pointless pain, humiliation, and decay. So there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God bullshit.
He's saying that life is bullshit, and it is, so what are you screaming about?
[hangs up]
I'm gonna blow my brains out right on the air, right in the middle of the seven o'clock news.
Well, you'll get a hell of a rating, I'll tell you that. A 50 share, at least. We could make a series of it. "Suicide of the Week." Aw, hell, why limit ourselves? "Execution of the Week."
"Terrorist of the Week."
I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: "The Death Hour." A great Sunday night show for the whole family. It'd wipe that ****in' Disney right off the air.
Don't **** with my distribution costs! I'm making a lousy two-fifteen per segment and I'm already deficiting twenty-five grand a week with Metro! I'm paying William Morris ten percent off the top, and I'm giving this turkey ten thou per segment, and another five to this fruitcake! And Helen, don't start no shit about UBS again! I'm paying Metro twenty-thousand for all foreign and Canadian distribution, and that's after recoupment! The communist party's not gonna see a nickel out of this goddamn show until we go into syndication!
Helen Miggs C'mon Laurene. The party's in for seventy-five hundred a week of the production expenses.
I'm not giving this pseudoinsurrectionary sectarian a piece of my show! I'm not giving him script approval, and I sure as shit ain't cuttin' him into my distribution charges!
Mary Ann Gifford You **** fascist! Did you see the film we made of the San Reno jail breakout, demonstrating the rising of the seminal prisoner class infrastructure?
You can blow the seminal prisoner class infrastructure out your ass! I'm not knockin' down my goddamn distribution charges!
Great Ahmed Kahn Man, give her the **** overhead clause. Let's get back to page twenty-two, number 5, small 'a'. Subsidiary rights.
Do you love her?
I don't know how I feel. I'm grateful I can feel anything.
Then say it. You keep telling me that you're obsessed, you're infatuated. Say that you're in love with her.
I'm the man that you presumably love. I'm a part of your life. I live here. I'm real. You can't switch to another station.
Well, what exactly is it you want me to do?
I just want you to love me. I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all. You understand that, don't you?
You need me. You need me badly. Because I'm your last contact with human reality. I love you. And that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day.
It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. 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. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love.
And it's a happy ending: Wayward husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife, with whom he has established a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation. Music up with a swell; final commercial. And here are a few scenes from next week's show.
Nelson Chaney All I know is that this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting.
We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get.
Nelson Chaney Well, I don't want any part of it. I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse.
That's very commendable of you, Nelson. Now sit down. Your indignation is duly noted; you can always resign tomorrow.
Nelson Chaney The affiliates won't carry it.
The affiliates will kiss your ass if you can hand them a hit show.
Mr. Hackett's trying to get through to you.
Tell Mr. Hackett to go **** himself.
Lou?... Lou... Lou!... YOU'RE his freaking agent, Lou! I AM COUNTING ON YOU TO TALK SOME SENSE INTO THE LUNATIC! NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT DYING DEMOCRACY AND DEHUMANIZATION!... Our share stock is shrinking, and we're doomed for! ANOTHER COUPLE OF WEEKS OF THIS AND THE SPONSORS WILL BE BAILING OUT!... Look, this is a breach of contract, Lou! This isn't the Howard Beale we signed! YOU BETTER GET HIM OFF THAT CORPORATE UNIVERSE KICK, OR SO HELP ME, I'LL PUT HIM OFF THE AIR! I'VE TOLD HIM, LOU, I'VE BEEN TELLING HIM EVERY DAY FOR A WEEK! I AM SICK OF TELLING HIM! NOW YOU TELL HIM!
I'm not sure she's capable of any real feelings. She's television generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny.
You know, Barbara, the Arabs have decided to jack up the price of oil another 20%... uh, the CIA has been caught opening Senator Humphrey's mail... there's a civil war in Angola... another one in Beirut... the, uh, New York City's still facing default... they finally caught up with Patricia Hearst... and the whole front page of the "Daily News" is Howard Beale.
What's really bugging me now is my daytime programming. NBC's got a lock on daytime - lousy game shows - and I'd like to bust them. I'm thinking of doing a homosexual soap opera, "The ****": The heart-rending saga about a woman hopelessly in love with her husband's mistress.
