Black satire with a vengeance, if ultimately a little wearing, taking a savage bite at American television and the ratings that rule the people who work in it. Peter Finch, winning an Oscar in his last film, is the ranting newscaster who flips his lid and announces that he is going to commit suicide on the air - which boosts the ratings to such an extent that he finds his salary doubled for prophesying gloom and doom. Faye Dunaway's strident performance, though it threatens to overbalance the film, was also rewarded with an Oscar, as was Beatrice Straight's magnificent one-scene tour de force as William Holden's neglected wife. Sidney Lumet's direction is at times devastating, especially in a magnetic scene where people come to the windows of their block of flats in a thunderstorm.