I really don't have much more to say about Sidney Lumet that John Farr doesn't say here…and say better than I could.
I do remember sitting in the Writers Guild Theater for the screening of Network. It was several weeks before its official premiere and going in, none of us knew much more about it than that it was Paddy Chayefsky and his "take" on television. I really like going to a movie on those terms, not having already read reviews and seen half of the film in talk show clips and commercials.
The film just blew us all away…all of us. By luck, I was seated next to Ray Bradbury. At the end of the film, there was a collective exhale from the audience and a long, sustaining burst of appreciative applause. Then Mr. Bradbury turned to me and said, "There isn't a person in this building who wouldn't kill his grandmother to have his name on a screenplay that good. Including me."
That was Chayefsky, not Lumet we were all envying. But obviously, no one would have felt that way if Lumet hadn't done his job about as well as it could be done. He was beaten out for the Oscar that year by John Avildsen for Rocky. I thought Network was not only a better film but a better-directed film. And Dog Day Afternoon, which is the film Lumet made just before Network, was better in every way than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which he was beaten out by Milos Forman. In fact, Lumet was nominated as Best Director four times and he probably deserved to win at least two of those times instead of zero of those times. He was darned good at what he did.