“I Love Duvall”: Sidney Lumet Watches NETWORK
18 Video Views·Mar 1, 2026
Rewatching his incisive, hilarious, and unnervingly relevant media satire thirty years on, in 2006, director Sidney Lumet discusses the joy of shooting on location, marvels at Robert Duvall’s brilliantly against-type performance, and remembers the filming of an iconic scene—and the poignancy that laces it. Playing over the 4K restoration of NETWORK, the entire feature-length director's commentary can be enjoyed on Criterion’s new edition of the film.
This sequence, which appears fifty minutes into the film, sees a pair of ambitious television executives–Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) and Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall)–basking in the unexpected response to the on-air meltdown of one of their longtime newscasters, Howard Beale (Peter Finch). With the presenter’s longtime friend and colleague (William Holden) watching in horror, Christensen and Hackett conspire to transform Beale from madman into modern-day prophet of the airwaves.
From Albuquerque to Sandusky, the response is sensational.
Yes. All right.
You, Herb, get back to your office.
One of the wonderful things is that we when you're working on location,
when we shot this scene, as you can see, it was raining like mad outside,
which meant that we had to, of course, match everything to it.
So the previous shot in the
in their kitchen, when Beatrice Strait went in there,
we had to put rain on those windows.
And coming up, we're going to have to put rain on Howard Beale
as he's walking down the street.
Some special spirit.
But again, part of the joy of location.
No way we could have faked this rain because we're up on about the 32nd floor.
Even a manufactured one, even if he's as mad as Moses.
By tomorrow, he'll have a 50 share, maybe even a 60.
Howard Beale is processed instant God.
And right now it looks like he may just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore.
You never take those things personally.
You don't think, oh, well, aren't we lucky or anything like that?
You just trust that it's going to work out for the best,
because if you planned it right, all the breaks go for you.
If you haven't, they they just don't.
This is one of those fortuitous pictures where everything broke right.
Building by new.
I'll call the security guards and have you thrown out if you still here.
And thank God it didn't.
The sun didn't come out while we were shooting me out of here.
You're going to have to drag me out, kicking and screaming
in the whole news division, kicking and screaming with me.
I think they're going to quit their jobs for you.
Not in this recession, buddy.
But he gets back. He'll have your ass.
I got a hit. Schumacher and Ruddy doesn't count anymore.
He was hoping I'd fall on my face with this Beale show, but I didn't.
It's a big, fat, big hit.
I love Duval.
He's got he's got a kind.
Kind of sincerity about him.
That makes the vulgarity twice as effective.
The annual CCA management review meeting.
And I'm going to announce projected earnings for this network
for the first time in five years.
And believe me, Mr.
You'd never you'd never think of Duval on a part like this.
He's going to say, that's very good, Frank. Keep it up.
So don't have any illusions about who's running this network from now on.
You're fired.
I want you out of your office before noon or I'll have you thrown out.
Wonderful actor.
You go along with this.
Max, I told you I didn't want a network hassle on this.
I told you I'd much rather work the Beale show out just between the two of us.
I don't know what to say about actors
reacting perfectly because it's so much a part of the norm.
Of what they're doing.
If they're working well, spread this whole reeking business
in every newspaper, on every network group and affiliate in this country.
I'm going to make a lot of noise about this.
So many times on pictures because they haven't rehearsed it,
because they haven't worked it out cleanly and in advance.
Not anymore.
These things are mechanical and forced, but
not here, not with these actors.
This is rain that we provided because we had to buy them.
It was shot on another day, but it had to match.
How do you do, Mr. Beale?
I must make my witness.
Sure thing, Mr. Beale.
Oil ministers.
One of the things that happened was
Patty, of course, knows so much more about comedy than I do.
And on just that scene where you saw him coming through
in the guard, treated him absolutely normally.
Six, five, four, three, two, one.
When when he first came in, I had the guard look at him, look at him strangely.
And then when he said, sure thing, Mr.
Beale, he looked at him as if, my God, I'm dealing with a lunatic here.
And Patty came rushing over to me.
And he said, Sidney, no, no, no.
It's as if it's absolute norm for him.
He's not. This is television.
Nutty people are a norm for him.
And of course, Patty was absolutely right to Q Howard.
I don't have to tell you things.
And here, of course, is coming one of the
famous scenes in movies, I must say.
I never thought that it would achieve the kind of iconic significance it has.
But it sure has.
Punks are running wild in the street.
There's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do.
And there's no end to it.
There's a wonderful story about this scene.
Most of the time, I'm not even
aware of the number of takes I go because I do so few.
And we shot this.
What you're looking at is take two.
When we got to the second part of the scene, you will be looking at take one
because Peter just did a brilliant job on take one.
And I said to Peter,
it's just marvelous.
Do one more and let's just see just for the sake of it.
And he started again
between the length of the speech and the amount of emotion it took.
You've got to say, I'm a human being.
God damn it. My life has value.
And he just ran out of gas.
He stopped halfway through.
He said, Sidney, I can't do anymore.
I didn't know at the time that he was a sick man.
Get up right now and go to the window.
Open it and stick your head out.
A number, I think it was like eight or ten months later
when we were out in Hollywood getting ready for the Academy Award.
Peter was sitting on a bench downstairs in the Beverly Hills Hotel.
And as I came down the steps to join him,
we were going to go to a radio broadcast together.
He keeled over in a heart attack.
And his inability to get through this a second time was the
only indication I'd ever had of of him not being in the best physical shape.