Network/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.



Jensen: Good morning, Mr. Beale. They tell me you're a madman.

  • Funny Aneurysm Moment:
    • The entire film. May also be Hilarious in Hindsight or Black Comedy or any number of other things. Given Peter Finch's death a few months after the film's release, the ending is even more difficult to watch.
    • One specific example: A fourth major television network, built upon content that's trashier than its rivals and who quickly cancels any shows that don't keep up in the ratings? This may as well have been a documentary on the rise of FOX, if it hadn't been made in 1976.
    • A meta example. Peter Finch, an Australian previously Oscar-nominated for playing a homosexual man, died soon after playing the part of an anti-establishment nutcase and ended up winning a posthumous Oscar for the role. Who does that remind you of?
    • Heath Ledger is actually the only other actor to win a posthumous Oscar for Best Actor.
  • Memetic Mutation: Shown literally at the end of Beale's "mad as Hell" speech, as people all over the world take up the cry. It's such a famous scene, it's become susceptible to Memetic Mutation in Real Life as well.
  • No Ending: Or perhaps it was too abrupt... but the aftermath of Beale's planned assassination is never delved into, except that one of his killers, "the Great Ahmed Khan," escaped.
  • Not So Crazy Anymore
  • Signature Scene: Beale's "mad as Hell" rant.