This film though not noticed enough now, is one of the great films. Peter Finch put just about everything he has into Howard Biel. In fact he died of a heart attack after the film was released and he was out promoting it. Certain films have impact, and this one still does.
In a way, this is a higher budget, bigger star update of the 1950's film "A Face In The Crowd" starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. Howard Biel is very much the character Lonsome Rhodes was in that film. The difference is that while the earlier film went totally off the deep end, this one stops at just the right spot. The issue Howard Biel highlights here of Foreign Money and Big Corporations and Big Government taking over the world and screwing the little person- well let's fast forward to when it happened after the movie was made.
When Government decided it had to tax Senior Citizens Social Security benefits for starters as this requires some Senior Citizens as high as in their 90's to have to file income taxes. Then they are paying taxes on top of benefits they earned that were already taxed.
Then in the 1990's, Howard Biel would have come in handy when NAFTA passed by a corrupt Federal Government, which had started in 1986 to offshore jobs by changing the Federal Tax Code, the working man needed someone to stand up and say "We're Mad As Hell and we're not going to take this anymore!" Black people needed it when a huge Federal Program threw thousands of blacks in jail during the 1990's too. Then when the Big Banks talked a willingly corrupt government in the 1990's into deregulating them, removing restrictions FDR put in place to prevent the system from another 1929 meltdown, we needed Biel again.
Then in the 2000's, when big drug companies bribed a government into passing a drug law that made them wealthy and then allowed them to put out dangerous new drugs like "opoids" without regard with what they do to the public? Of course then 2 political parties who have disregarded any chance of term limits and have made themselves rich by sucking the taxpayers dry like kittens do their mom-ma cat?
Could a real Howard Biel have really done anything about that? Unfortunately the answer is no, because the big corporations, big money, mass media and corrupt governments appear to have won since this movie was made. Even though there are 2 great films warning us this could happen, we are at a point today where a whole lot of little people are no longer counted in a system that is rigged.
Yes, we should be "Mad as Hell" about it, but the out of touch media and those kittens living in a glass bubble still have not woken up as reality is being more hidden today than it was in 1976.
With William Holden, Faye Dunaway, and a huge cast, Sidney Lumet brings off a classic here that even has cameos from John Chancellor and Walter Cronkite. This movie portrays things as they are. Heed the warning, and educate yourselves as to what has happened since 1976. Even today's protesters need to watch this to really understand what they are doing, and why.
In a way, this is a higher budget, bigger star update of the 1950's film "A Face In The Crowd" starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. Howard Biel is very much the character Lonsome Rhodes was in that film. The difference is that while the earlier film went totally off the deep end, this one stops at just the right spot. The issue Howard Biel highlights here of Foreign Money and Big Corporations and Big Government taking over the world and screwing the little person- well let's fast forward to when it happened after the movie was made.
When Government decided it had to tax Senior Citizens Social Security benefits for starters as this requires some Senior Citizens as high as in their 90's to have to file income taxes. Then they are paying taxes on top of benefits they earned that were already taxed.
Then in the 1990's, Howard Biel would have come in handy when NAFTA passed by a corrupt Federal Government, which had started in 1986 to offshore jobs by changing the Federal Tax Code, the working man needed someone to stand up and say "We're Mad As Hell and we're not going to take this anymore!" Black people needed it when a huge Federal Program threw thousands of blacks in jail during the 1990's too. Then when the Big Banks talked a willingly corrupt government in the 1990's into deregulating them, removing restrictions FDR put in place to prevent the system from another 1929 meltdown, we needed Biel again.
Then in the 2000's, when big drug companies bribed a government into passing a drug law that made them wealthy and then allowed them to put out dangerous new drugs like "opoids" without regard with what they do to the public? Of course then 2 political parties who have disregarded any chance of term limits and have made themselves rich by sucking the taxpayers dry like kittens do their mom-ma cat?
Could a real Howard Biel have really done anything about that? Unfortunately the answer is no, because the big corporations, big money, mass media and corrupt governments appear to have won since this movie was made. Even though there are 2 great films warning us this could happen, we are at a point today where a whole lot of little people are no longer counted in a system that is rigged.
Yes, we should be "Mad as Hell" about it, but the out of touch media and those kittens living in a glass bubble still have not woken up as reality is being more hidden today than it was in 1976.
With William Holden, Faye Dunaway, and a huge cast, Sidney Lumet brings off a classic here that even has cameos from John Chancellor and Walter Cronkite. This movie portrays things as they are. Heed the warning, and educate yourselves as to what has happened since 1976. Even today's protesters need to watch this to really understand what they are doing, and why.