Review of Network (1976) by W. David L — 13 Feb 2011

This is a good picture for all the reasons you'll expect it to be if you know or read anything about it. Why only 3 stars then? Well, because it's covering territory done better in A Face In The Crowd and to a smaller degree The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

Where it differs from A Face In The Crowd is that that film is more about the demagogue and his show, while Network is about the executives behind the scenes, but it shares a reliance on our alarm at the both the power and vapidness of television, and where it could go.

Both were prescient, but Face was more interesting to watch minute by minute. There was more going on with its characters than surprising callousness, which is occasionally all Network offers. So in its main thrust, Network felt a little like an also-ran, but that said it's still smartly written by Paddy Chayefsky, and well acted by just about everyone.

If you haven't seen A Face In The Crowd, it will probably work better for you than it did for me, and then A Face In The Crowd will probably be even more interesting to you, as you see some of the same themes and warnings delivered about 20 years earlier (and in a better film, says me).

And Manchurian Candidate (1962) makes a nice go between, because it touches on the abuses of television, and has Network's cynicism, though about politics rather than business.