Funny Picture

We watched NETWORK, which I hadn't seen in decades. Now it seems prescient. Paddy Chayefsky predicts reality TV, Fox News and Glenn Beck.

It's fully of chewy, operatic dialog; no wonder Aaron Sorkin loves it.

One thing I noticed was how well-constructed a story it is. In 1976 it was hard to imagine someone could stay on the air ranting and raving. It would have been easy to say "his ratings are good," but how do you plausibly get to that point? So everyone in a position to shut him down gets a strong personal reason not to shut him down, until he's too big to shut down.

Talk about big-deal screenwriters: Chayefsky gets authorial credit. On screen it's "Network by Paddy Chayefsky" followed by "Produced by" and "Directed by." Chayefsky actually had script protections built into his scripts. Anyone know how he got those?