
            The following synopsis has mostly been taken from the film's wikipedia page:Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the longtime anchor of the Union Broadcasting System's UBS Evening News, learns from the news division president, Max Schumacher (William Holden), that he has just two more weeks on the air because of declining ratings. The two old friends get roaring drunk and lament the state of their industry. The following night, Beale announces on live television that he will commit suicide on next Tuesday's broadcast. UBS fires him after this incident, but Schumacher intervenes so that Beale can have a dignified farewell. Beale promises he will apologise for his outburst, but once on the air, he launches back into a rant claiming that life is "bullshit". Beale's outburst causes the newscast's ratings to spike, and much to Schumacher's dismay, the upper echelons of UBS decide to exploit Beale's antics rather than pull him off the air. In one impassioned diatribe, Beale galvanises the nation, persuading his viewers to shout out of their windows "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) heads the network's programming department; seeking just one hit show, she cuts a deal with a band of radical terrorists (a parody of the Symbionese Liberation Army called the "Ecumenical Liberation Army") for a new docudrama series called the Mao Tse-Tung Hour for the upcoming fall season. When Beale's ratings seem to have topped out, Christensen approaches Schumacher and offers to help him "develop" the news show. He says no to the professional offer, but not to the personal one, and the two begin an affair. When Schumacher decides to end the Howard as the "Angry Man" format, Christensen convinces her boss, Frank Hackett, to slot the evening news show under the entertainment division so she can develop it. Hackett agrees, bullies the UBS executives to consent, and fires Schumacher at the same time. Soon afterward, Beale is hosting a new program called The Howard Beale Show, top-billed as "the mad prophet of the airwaves". Ultimately, the show becomes the most highly rated program on television, and Beale finds new celebrity preaching his angry message in front of a live studio audience that, on cue, chants Beale's signature catchphrase en masse: "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take this anymore." At first, Max and Diana's romance withers as the show flourishes, but in the flush of high ratings, the two ultimately find their way back together, and Schumacher leaves his wife of over 25 years for Christensen. But Christensen's fanatical devotion to her job and emotional emptiness ultimately drive Max back to his wife, and he warns his former lover that she will self-destruct at the pace she is running with her career. "You are television incarnate, Diana," he tells her, "indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality."When Beale discovers that Communications Corporation of America (CCA), the conglomerate that owns UBS, will be bought out by an even larger Saudi Arabian conglomerate, he launches an on-screen tirade against the deal, encouraging viewers to send telegrams to the White House telling them, "I want the CCA deal stopped now!" This throws the top network brass into a state of panic because the company's debt load has made merger essential for survival. Hackett takes Beale to meet with CCA chairman Arthur Jensen, who explicates his own "corporate cosmology" to the attentive Beale. Jensen delivers a tirade of his own in an "appropriate setting", the dramatically darkened CCA boardroom, that suggests to the docile Beale that Jensen may himself be some higher power describing the interrelatedness of the participants in the international economy and the illusory nature of nationality distinctions. Jensen persuades Beale to abandon the populist messages and preach his new "evangel". But television audiences find his new sermons on the dehumanisation of society depressing, and ratings begin to slide, yet Jensen will not allow UBS executives to fire Beale. Seeing its two-for-the-price-of-one value, solving the Beale problem plus sparking a boost in season-opener ratings. Christensen, Hackett, and the other executives decide to hire the Ecumenical Liberation Army to assassinate Beale on the air. The assassination succeeds, putting an end to The Howard Beale Show and kicking off a second season of The Mao Tse-Tung Hour.The film ends with the narrator stating:"This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings."
    

Network


            In the opening scene, Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) travels by helicopter to San Francisco where he is chief architect for Duncan Enterprises, an architectural firm specializing in skyscrapers. Their greatest project, the Glass Tower, is 1,800 feet high and with 137-floors. It is set for dedication in San Francisco, and a lavish ceremony is scheduled to include Mayor Robert Ramsey (Jack Collins) and Senator Gary Parker (Robert Vaughn). Jim Duncan (William Holden), the company's president, is wooing Senator Parker because his support for an urban renewal effort will allow the company to build more such skyscrapers. When Roberts flies back to San Francisco for the party, he finds in his office his fiancee, magazine editor Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway), and when the two renew romantic acquaintances, she reveals that she has received a long-sought promotion - which throws a wrench into their plans to move to the countryside to have a family.Doug, however, is interrupted when he gets a call from the Tower utility room in the building's massive basement. In routine checking of the building's generators, a power surge blows out a circuit breaker - and unknown to everyone the surge blows out another circuit breaker, this one on the 81st floor in a large storage closet that sends a wire flopping onto shop rags that catch fire.Roberts consults his pal, Will Giddings (Normann Burton), and the two confront Jim Duncan about the wiring; Duncan's chief electrical engineer is his son-in-law, Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain), and to all three men's chagrin Simmons cannot be reached by phone. While Will Giddings works with the building's chief security officer, Harry Jernigan (O.J. Simpson), on the electrical systems, Doug Roberts tracks down Roger Simmons and his wife Patty (Susan Blakley), and confronts Simmons about the wiring. Simmons, a thoroughly oily man, insists the wiring is up to city safety codes, but those codes are not sufficient for an 1,800-foot skyscraper. Simmons nonetheless blows off Doug, which agitates Patty as she doesn't want her father's business to suffer because of him.The dedication ceremony goes off as scheduled and the entire building is lit up for the party in the Promenade Room some 135 floors up. Doug and Will miss the party as they examine more wiring, and find it to be in worse shape than they could have imagined. Roberts gruffly orders the main utility room to shut off the power overload (in the process overruling Jim Duncan), then he and Will head to the 81st floor to check relay systems - just as security cameras detect smoke from that floor's storage closet and Harry Jernigan has the fire department called. He proceeds to 81, but before he arrives Doug, Will, and other executives spot the smoke and the fire erupts into the hallway, engulfing Will Giddings. Doug and the others smother Giddings in drapes while one man grabs a fire hose and begins spraying the flaming storage closet. Jernigan arrives and orders Doug to call an ambulance and also to call Jim Duncan and evacuate the Promenade Room while he helps get Giddings to the ground floor. But when Doug calls Duncan, Duncan insists the fire won't spread, and insists that Doug attend the ceremony.The fire department now arrives in force with Battalion Chief Mike O'Halloran (Steve McQueen), who has a distaste for architects because they insist on building skyscrapers even though the department can't easily fight a fire above seven floors. Despite this antagonism, Roberts and O'Halloran work together as the department sets up a forward command two floors below the fire. O'Halloran quietly goes to the Promenade Room and confronts Jim Duncan to evacuate the area, and Duncan reluctantly proceeds. But a gas line ruptures and explodes, detonating more fires around the building and reaching the main elevator banks - and catching a crowd of partiers taking the elevator down only for the elevator to stop on the fire floor and the blaze to engulf them.While evacuating the party guests into the elevators, Senator Parker suggests to Duncan that it will take a great deal of time to evacuate using this method, and suggests "those with stout hearts and trim waistlines" use the stairs. They try the first exit, but immediately find smoke when they open the door. They then try the other door, but it appears stuck. They enlist the aid of Carlos, the head bartender, but the three men are unable to find a way to open the fire door.One of the partiers, painter Lisolette Mueller (Jennifer Jones), being entertained by shady businessman Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astair), doesn't evacuate the building; she instead rushes to the 87th floor where a deaf woman, Mrs. Allbright, lives with her two children, who are students of hers. When security cameras spot Mueller, Harry Jernigan and Doug rush to the 87th floor to rescue the Allbrights. Jernigan rescues Mrs. Allbright, but the fire cuts off her two children and Lisolette Mueller, and when a gas line explodes on the stairway, Doug, Mueller, and the Allbright children must trek up 47 floors to the Promenade Room, in the process surviving a gas explosion that shatters the stairway. They eventually arrive on the 135th floor but now must find a way through a fire door sealed shut by construction cement left over from the week.When word of the sealed door reaches the fire department, two firefighters laboriously trek up to the 135th floor and succeed in blowing open the door, but the stairway below has been destroyed, and with the power failing, the best hope to evacuate the Promenade Room now is helicopter landing on the rooftop helipad - which disintegrates when several panicking partiers rush to the chopper and it has to swerve out of the way and promptly crashes. Now the only hope is to set up a breeches buoy from a building a block away. Doug, however, activates a gravity brake on the outside elevator, so twelve people - the women who were to be carried out on the helicopter, plus the Allbright children, Lisolette Mueller, and one of the two firemen - can at least get to the ground. This, however, goes wrong when more explosions tear the elevator off its track and throws Lisolette Mueller into a fatal fall, forcing O'Halloran to lead a laborious effort with a helicopter to wrench the elevator from its track and place it on the ground with the survivors.After hours of work, the fire reaches critical mass, and O'Halloran is given the grim truth - the only hope left is to explode the building's water tanks on the roof,as they hold one million gallons of water and blowing the tanks is the last hope of extinguishing the fire. This option, however, may kill the remaining partiers trapped on the Tower. O'Halloran explains the plan to Roberts, and while Roberts is explaining it to the remaining trapped guests, the fire makes itself visible.Simmons leads a pack of followers in a takeover of the breeches buoy. He gets in, and Senator Parker attempts to drag him out and restore order so the appropriate people can go. The weight of Parker, Simmons, and several other men carry the breeches buoy out of the window. Simmons pushes Senator Parker and several other men hanging on the breeches buoy to their deaths 135 floors down. Simmons' victory is short-lived, as the rope to the breeches buoy parts, and Simmons falls to his death as well.O'Halloran is helicoptered to the roof. Once there he and Roberts set to work planting explosive charges, then secure themselves with the remaining partiers in the Promenade Room for the fateful vigil before the explosion and ensuing flood. The fire is put out, with the cost of some who aren't securely tied down.Harlee is informed that Lisolette didn't make it, and in grieving disbelief he impotently yells out here name; Jernigan finds him and gives him her cat, Elke, whom he holds, tearing up both in grief and in shame at himself. Patty is also grief-stricken by the death of Simmons. Reunited with Susan, Doug feels the glass Tower should be left shutdown as a "shrine to all the bullshit in the world". He also accepts O'Halloran's bitter comment about architects and the need for them to consult the fire department on how to build skyscrapers.
    

The Towering Inferno


            
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Breezy

The Earthling

Fedora

Du sollst nicht langweilen: Billy Wilder

Wild Rovers

21 Hours at Munich


            The story is a satire of the film industry and Hollywood society. The main character, Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan), is a phenomenally successful producer-director who has just made the first flop of his career, to the dismay of the studio and the loss of his own sanity. Felix attempts suicide several times:First, he attempts to die of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car, only to have it slip into gear and drive through the side of his garage, down a sand dune and ending up in the Pacific Ocean.Secondly, he turns on the gas in the kitchen oven, but is prevented from carrying out his intent by two house guests with other things on their mind.Thirdly, he attempts to hang himself from a rafter in an upstairs bedroom, only to fall through the floor, landing on a poisonous Hollywood gossip columnist named Polly Reed (Loretta Swift) standing in the living room below.Finally, he tries to shoot himself with a police officer's gun but is prevented from doing so by the ministrations of a sweet young thing in a pair of panties, and experiences a revelation of what was missing from his movie: Free Love!Thereafter he spends most of the time heavily sedated while his friends and hangers-on occupy his beach house. The occupation leads to a party which degenerates into an orgy.Newly energized, Felix resolves to save both the film and his reputation. With great difficulty he persuades the studio and his wife Sally Miles (Julie Andrews), a movie star with a goody-goody image, to allow him to revise the film into a soft-core pornographic musical in which she must appear topless. He liquidates most of his wealth to buy the existing footage and to bankroll further production. If he fails, both he and Sally will be impoverished, at least by Hollywood standards.At first the studio head David Blackman (Robert Vaughn) is keen to unload the film onto Felix and move on, but as it becomes apparent that it will be a success, they plot to regain control. Using California's community property laws, they get the distribution and final-cut rights by persuading Sally to sign them over. Felix then tries to get the movie negatives from a bank vault, armed with a water pistol, and is shot by police who think it is a real pistol.Felix's untimely and violent death creates yet another crisis, particularly for his cronies lawyer Tim Culley (William Holden), agent Ben Coogan (Robert Webber) and his personal doctor Dr. Finegarten (Robert Preston), who plan to give him a burial at sea. They kidnap his corpse from the funeral home, substituting the body of a well-known but underrated character (Paul Stewart) actor who died in the first scene of the movie, having a heart attack while jogging on the beach in front of Felix's home. Felix gets a Viking funeral, being sent out to sea in a burning dinghy, while the actor finally gets the Hollywood burial many thought he deserved.
    

S.O.B.


            Jerusalem, Israel. One week after the burial of Robert and Katherine Thorn (in the first Omen movie), archeologist Carl Bugenhagen (Leo McKern) asks his friend Michael Morgan (Ian Hendry) to deliver a box to the guardian of Thorn's young son, Damien. He reveals that Damien is the Antichrist and that the box contains a warning and the means to kill Damien. As Morgan is unconvinced, Bugenhagen takes him to the ruin of Yigael's wall, showing him an ancient depiction of the Antichrist with Damien's face. Morgan is convinced, but the two are buried alive as a tunnel collapses.Seven years later, 12-year old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is living with his uncle, industrialist Richard Thorn (William Holden) and his wife, Ann (Lee Grant) at a large house outside of Chicago, Illinois. He gets along well with his 15-year-old cousin Mark (Lucas Donat), Richard's son, with whom he is enrolled in a military academy. However, he is despised by Aunt Marion (Sylvia Sidney), who favors Mark and thinks Damien a bad influence, even threatening to cut Richard out of her will if he does not separate the two boys. The same night, the appearance of a raven wakes her up and causes a fatal heart attack.Through a friend, Dr. Charles Warren (Nicholas Pryor), who is the curator of the Thorn Museum, Richard is introduced to journalist Joan Hart (Elizabeth Shephard), who was a colleague of Keith Jennings (from the previous film). Having seen Yigael's Wall and drawing a link to all the deaths that surrounded Damien, including Jennings', Joan tries to warn Richard but he throws her out of his limo. After a confrontation with Warren and Ann Thorn at the Thorn Museum, Joan became unsure on whether Damien's face matches the painting on Yigael's Wall. Joan goes to meet Damien at his school, but when she sees his face she drives off in panic. On the road, her car mysteriously dies down. When she gets out of the car, she is attacked by a raven, which pecks her eyes out, causing her to be run over by a passing truck.A few months later at Thorn Industries, manager Paul Buher (Robert Foxworth) suggests expanding the company's operations into agriculture; however, the project is shelved by senior manager Bill Atherton (Lew Ayres), who calls Buher's intention of buying up land in the process immoral. At Mark's birthday party, Buher introduces himself to Damien, invites him to see the plant, and also speaks of his approaching initiation.Buher seemingly makes up with Atherton, who drowns after falling through the ice at a hockey game on a frozen lake the following day. The black raven again makes an appearance at the scene. A shocked Richard leaves on vacation. As Richard agrees to the agriculture project in principle and leaves Buher in charge of the company, Buher then initiates plans on his own... revealing himself to be some kind of follower of Satan. Buher plots to buy up land in various Third World countries and use the weapon of famine to sell to the people the bought up crops at high prices.Meanwhile at the academy, Damien's new commander, Sgt. Dan Neff (Lance Henriksen), takes the boy under his wing and warns him not to draw any attention on himself until the right moment. He also points him to the Bible's Revelation, Chapter 13, in which Damien reads about the beast. Finding its number, 666, scarred onto his scalp, he flees the Academy grounds in a terrified panic, distraught at being chosen as the vehicle for Satan's will.A few days later, David Pasarian (Allan Arbus), an engineer at Thorn Industries, alerts Buher that some people were murdered after having refused to sell their land. Pasarian intends to inform Richard about his suspicions about Buher, but on the very next day, some chemical machinery explodes and releases toxic fumes, killing Pasarian and his assistant, and injuring Damien's class, who were visiting the plant. Damien alone does not suffer damage, but is taken to hospital as a precaution.A doctor named Dr. Kane (Meshach Taylor) investigates to why Damien was not affected by the chemicals. After taking a blood sample and examining it, Dr. Kane discovers that Damien's blood cell structure resembles that of a jackal. But before the baffled doctor can report this to anyone else, the unseen forces of darkness dispose of him too in another gory freak accident when he is cut in half by a falling elevator cable.Meanwhile, Bugenhagen's box has been found in the ruins and delivered to the Thorn Museum. When opened by Dr. Charles Warren, it contains the Seven Daggers of Meggido, the only weapons able to kill Damien, and the letter from Bugenhagen explaining that Damien is the Antichrist. Charles rushes to inform Richard as well as give him Bugenhagen's letter. But Richard angrily refuses to belive this and throws him out of his house. The next day, Richard confides in Anne with the letter after having read it, but she convinces him not to believe it.Mark, who overheard Richard's altercation with Charles, confronts Damien in the nearby forest, who first reluctantly and then proudly admits to being the Devil's son. Damien tries to convince Mark that he truly cares for him as his brother and asks Mark to join him, but Mark refuses. Damien kills Mark by introducing an aneurysm into his brain.Shaken by his son's death, Richard follows Charles' invitation to New York City. A half-crazy Warren takes him to Yigael's Wall, stored in a cargo carrier at a local railroad yard, on which Richard sees Damien's image. Immediately afterward, a switching locomotive hits the carrier, impaling Charles and destroying the wall, finally convincing Richard beyond doubt that Damien is the Antichrist.Upon his return to Chicago, Richard has Damien picked up from a ceremony at the academy and argues with Ann about Damien. As they find the daggers in Charles' office in the Thorn Museum, Ann uses them to kill Richard, proclaiming that she "always belonged to him". Ann is then engulfed by a fire, caused by Damien who overheard the altercation from outside. Damien, now the sole heir to Thorn Industries, exits the museum and is picked up by a driver as the fire department arrives. With all his enemies dead and under the tutulage of Satan's unholy disciples of Sgt. Neff and Paul Buher, it is clear that Damien is now on his way to becoming a world figure in controlling the world for the Devil.
    

Damien: Omen II

The Revengers


            Shelby Gilmore (William Holden), who owns a newly constructed hotel on a remote Pacific island, wants desperately to marry his secretary, Kay Kirby (Jacqueline Bisset) and proposes to her under the impression that she'll become his seventh wife. Unknown to Shelby, Kay is in love with Hank Anderson (Paul Newman), an oil rigger whose scientists are warning him that a nearby active volcano is about to erupt.Shelby's partner, Bob Spangler (James Franciscus), assures guests at the hotel that the threat of the volcano is a total exaggeration, explaining that it only erupts once every thousand years. Spangler is married to Shelby's goddaughter Nikki (Veronica Hamel), but is cheating on her with Iolani (Barbara Carrera), an executive with Shelby's hotel. Iolani is engaged to Brian (Edward Albert), the hotel's general manager. Unbeknownst to all except Spangler, who chooses not to reveal the secret, Brian is his illegitimate younger half-brother and therefore part-owner of the resort.Guests at the hotel include a bonds smuggler, Francis Fendly (Red Buttons), who is being tailed by a New York City private investigator, Tom Conti (Ernest Borgnine). Also on hand are Rene and Rose Valdez (Burgess Meredith and Valentina Cortese), who are retired circus tightrope walkers. Hank's oil-rig workers include Tiny Baker (Alex Karras), who has a wager going with cockfighting rival Sam (Pat Morita) with a prized rooster that has just been delivered to him. Sam and his wife Mona (Sheila Allen) own a local bar.Hank and Kay go for a picnic on the beach to discuss their relationship. During their time together, the volcano erupts and most of the island's population are wiped out. Tiny and all of Hank's workers are killed in town when a tidal wave crashes onto them. Sam takes Mona and two of his girls, Delores and Marsha, and escapes by car, while Hank and Kay rescue Nikki and some others at the stables by helicopter. The only survivors are those at Shelby's hotel, overlooking a disaster that will surely come straight for them, as the volcano is spewing fireballs. A fireball lands at the hotel - Conti is blinded in the explosion, to Fendly's horror. Some of the hotel guests panic and try to escape by stealing the helicopter, but it soon crashes, killing all those inside.Hank insists that everyone must evacuate the hotel and journey to a safe side of the island to await rescue. However, Spangler convinces the majority of the guests to stay, including mistress Iolani. Shelby bids a farewell to Nikki, who insists on staying with her husband. After one final attempt to persuade others to join them, Hank and Kay leave the hotel with Shelby, Brian, Rene and Rose, Fendly and Conti, Sam, Mona and the girls, plus a few more guests. At the hotel, Nikki stumbles upon her husband's affair with Iolani, but now it is too late for her to follow the others though Spangler expels her from the hotel.Trucks carrying survivors manage to travel as far as a mountainside gorge which a rockslide has blocked the road. Everyone must cross the gorge on foot. Conti is guided by Fendly, and the two become friends. From there, the party comes upon a rickety wooden bridge over a river of molten lava. Hank crosses first to see if it is safe. The others go in pairs. Two native children, whose father died crossing the gorge, are afraid and run away. Rose, who had stopped to rest with Rene because of her weak heart, dies after telling her husband to find the children.After an explosion beneath the bridge causes Sam and Marsha to fall to their deaths into the lava, Rene hoists a child onto his back and recreates his old tightrope act in getting the child safely across. Hank guides the second child to safety. The survivors take refuge in a cavern, during which time the volcano fully explodes and fireballs streak across the sky. Spangler gets his comeuppance when one huge fireball arcs directly towards the hotel; when it hits, the hotel explodes, killing him, Nikki, Iolani and all those who had unfortunately chosen to stay. The survivors (fearing they're the only ones left on the island) continue on toward a beach to wait for rescue.
    

William Holden

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