MASH (film)

MASH

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Altman
Fred Williamson (football scenes)[1]
Produced by Ingo Preminger
Screenplay by Ring Lardner, Jr.
Based on MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors 
by Richard Hooker
Starring Donald Sutherland
Elliott Gould
Tom Skerritt
Sally Kellerman
Robert Duvall
Roger Bowen
René Auberjonois
Music by Johnny Mandel
Cinematography Harold E. Stine
Edited by Danford B. Greene
Production
company
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • January 25, 1970 (1970-01-25)
Running time
 116 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $3.025 million[2]
Box office $81.6 million[3]

MASH (stylized as M*A*S*H on the poster art) is a 1970 American satirical black comedy war film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner, Jr., based on Richard Hooker's novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The picture is the only feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise and became one of the biggest films of the early 1970s for 20th Century Fox.

The film depicts a unit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War; the subtext is about the Vietnam War.[4] It stars Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould, with Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, René Auberjonois, Gary Burghoff, Roger Bowen, Michael Murphy and, in his film debut, professional football player Fred Williamson. The film inspired the popular and critically acclaimed television series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 to 1983.

The film went on to receive five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. MASH was awarded the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

Set in 1951 in South Korea, the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is assigned two replacements: Captains "Hawkeye" Pierce and "Duke" Forrest, who arrive in a stolen Jeep. They are insubordinate, womanizing, mischievous rule-breakers but they soon prove to be excellent combat surgeons.

Major Margaret Houlihan, the newly assigned chief nurse of the camp, arrives and has a tour of the camp. In the post-op ward, Trapper sees Burns unjustly blame Private Boone, a dim-witted teenage orderly, for a patient's death. Trapper then confronts Burns and punches him in front of Henry and Houlihan who happened to be walking by. Henry planned to make Trapper chief surgeon, but as a result of what happened, Henry advises him to postpone it for one week because if Trapper is named chief surgeon immediately after what Houlihan witnessed, "you'll hear her yelling in Washington [D.C.] Seoul." Later, Houlihan has a brief discussion about Army protocol with Hawkeye while claiming that Burns is a "good" technical and military surgeon, and reprimanding Hawkeye's nickname, calling it inconsistent with military protocol. Hawkeye develops an immediate dislike for Houlihan as a result, despite being attracted to her, calling her "what we call a regular army clown." Houlihan and Burns then make plans to bring discipline to the M.A.S.H. unit, which they consider to be out of control.

While Henry is away visiting General Hammond at the 325th Evac Hospital, Trapper, now named chief surgeon against Houlihan's wishes, leads the camp in a general abandonment of regulations, and wild partying ensues. Burns and Houlihan are appalled and write a report to the General. They also give in to their repressed passions and the two have sex in Houlihan's tent. Hawkeye, Duke and Trapper quickly discover the tryst and have Cpl. "Radar" O'Reilly place a microphone under their cot and broadcast it over the public address system; everyone hears Houlihan telling Burns to "Kiss my hot lips!", earning her the nickname "Hot Lips". Houlihan and Burns, initially unaware of the mic placed underneath the cot, hear their own voices echo over the PA system when the system starts to draw feedback, abruptly ending the sexual encounter. The following day, Houlihan and Burns are repeatedly mocked by the entire camp; when Hawkeye decides to orchestrate a plot to drive Burns crazy, an angered Burns attacks him. As a result, Burns is sedated, restrained and shipped stateside for psychiatric evaluation.

Father Mulcahy, the camp's chaplain, tells Hawkeye that Walt "Painless" Waldowski, the unit's dentist who is 'well-endowed' to the point of attracting an audience when he showers, has consulted him about a problem. Mulcahy feels unable to divulge any details because Walt confided in him during confession. Waldowski tells Hawkeye that he suffered a "lack of performance" with a visiting nurse and now believes he has latent homosexual tendencies. He wants to commit suicide, and asks advice on a reliable method. Hawkeye, Trapper and Duke suggest that he use the "black capsule", a fictitious fast-acting poison. At a farewell banquet that satirizes The Last Supper, Walt takes the capsule (actually a sleeping pill) and falls asleep in a coffin. Hawkeye persuades Lt. Maria Schneider to spend the night with Walt and cure him of his "problem."

Duke announces that he is partial to blondes, prompting Hawkeye to declare that Duke is attracted to Hot Lips. Duke suggests she isn't a natural blonde; Hawkeye bets $20 that she is, but they have no way to find the truth. They develop an elaborate plan in which Hot Lips is isolated in the showers, and counterweights are used to raise the wall of the shower tent, exposing a nude Hot Lips to the entire camp. The plan works, money is exchanged, and Hot Lips is further ridiculed. Infuriated beyond reason over what happened, Houlihan labels the unit "an insane asylum!" and demands that Blake do something to discipline his surgeons, threatening to resign her commission if he doesn't turn Duke and Hawkeye over to the MP's. Blake, who is in bed with his mistress during this time, refuses to have Hawkeye and Duke arrested and callously dismisses Houlihan's complaint. She then leaves his tent, yelling "My commission!", while sobbing in embarrassment and defeat.

Trapper is ordered to proceed to Kokura, Japan, to operate on the GI son of a U.S. Congressman. Seeing an opportunity to play golf, he takes Hawkeye to assist. The two invade the hospital and order the patient into surgery within the hour. An old friend of Hawkeye, "Me Lay" Marston, is their anaesthetist, and they quickly finish the surgery. Due to their previous antics, they are cornered by the MP's and escorted to the hospital's commander, Col. Wallace Merrill, who threatens them with a court-martial. They escape repercussions by reminding Merrill that they just saved the life of the Congressman's son. Later, while relaxing at Dr. Yamachi's New Era Hospital and Whorehouse (where Me Lay moonlights as a doctor), Hawkeye and Trapper are alerted to a Japanese-American baby with a serious medical problem. Taking advantage of their status as medical heroes, they go to the military hospital to operate, but are stopped by Merrill. They incapacitate him, anesthetize him, and then take nude blackmail photos of him with one of the prostitutes.

On a visit to the 4077th, General Hammond suggests that the two units play a "friendly" football game, with some money thrown into a pot to make bets ($5,000 or $6,000). Hawkeye comes up with a plan to win all the money. First, they get Henry to apply for a specific neurosurgeon: Dr. Oliver Harmon Jones, a former professional football player for the San Francisco 49ers. Then, they bet half their money up front and keep the ringer (Jones) out of the first half of the game. During the game, Houlihan uncharacteristically participates as a cheerleader in an effort to fit in. Once the other team has racked up some easy points and become confident enough to offer good odds to bet the rest of the money, the 4077th brings in Jones for the second half. The 325th has their own ringers, however, and the 4077th fights back with illegal injuries and by drugging the 325th's running back. The game comes down to the last play, in which the quarterback (Trapper) returns the ball to the center, SSgt. Vollmer, who hides the ball under his jersey and runs into the end zone for the winning touchdown.

Not long after the football game, Hawkeye and Duke get their discharge orders and begin their journey home - in the same stolen Jeep they arrived in.

Cast

Production

The screenplay, by Ring Lardner, Jr., is radically different from the original novel; in the DVD audio commentary, Altman describes the novel as "pretty terrible" and somewhat "racist" (the only major black character has the nickname "Spearchucker"). He claims that the screenplay was used only as a springboard. However, the screenplay itself reveals that, while there is some improvisation in the film, and although Altman moved major sequences around, most sequences are in the screenplay. The main deletion is a subplot of Ho-Jon's return to the 4077th—as a casualty. When Radar steals blood from Henry, it is for Ho-Jon's operation under Trapper and Hawkeye's scalpels. When the surgeons are playing poker after the football game, they are resolutely ignoring a dead body being driven away—Ho-Jon's. The main deviation from the script is the trimming of much of the dialogue.

According to Altman, Lardner was very upset with the liberties taken with his script. Lardner later won an Academy Award for his screenplay.

The filming process was difficult, because of tensions between the director and his cast. During principal photography, Sutherland and Gould spent a third of their time trying to get Altman fired,[5] although this has been disputed;[6] Altman, relatively new to the filmmaking establishment, at that time lacked the credentials to justify his unorthodox filmmaking process and had a history of turning down work rather than creating a poor-quality product.[7] Altman: "I had practice working for people who don't care about quality, and I learned how to sneak it in."[8] Altman later commented that if he had known about Gould and Sutherland, he would have resigned.[9] Gould later sent a letter of apology, and Altman used him in some of his later works, but he never worked with Sutherland again.

There were only a few uses of loudspeaker announcements in the original cut. When Altman realized he needed more structure to his largely episodic film, editor Danford Greene suggested using more loudspeaker announcements to frame different episodes of the story. Greene took a second-unit crew and filmed additional shots of the speakers. On the same night that these scenes were shot, American astronauts landed on the moon.[10]

During production, a caption that mentions the Korean setting was added to the beginning of the film,[11] at the request of 20th Century Fox studios.[12] The Korean War is explicitly referenced in announcements on the camp public address system[13] and during a radio announcement that plays while Hawkeye and Trapper are putting in Col. Merrill's office which also cites the film as taking place in 1951.

In his director's commentary on the DVD release, Altman says that MASH was the first major studio film to use the word "fuck" in its dialogue. The word is spoken during the football game near the end of the film by "The Painless Pole" when he says to an opposing football player, "All right, Bud, your fucking head is coming right off!" The actor, John Schuck, has said in several interviews that Altman encouraged ad-libbing, and that particular statement made it into the film without a second thought.

First telecast

MASH had its television premiere as a CBS Friday Night Movie on September 13, 1974 @ 9:00 (EDT), three days after the start of the third season of the M*A*S*H TV series; it was repeated on CBS March 5, 1976.

Music

Johnny Mandel composed incidental music used throughout the film. Also heard on the soundtrack are Japanese vocal renditions of such songs as "Tokyo Shoe Shine Boy", "My Blue Heaven","Happy Days Are Here Again", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", and "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo"; impromptu performances of "Onward, Christian Soldiers", "When the Lights Go On Again", and "Hail to the Chief" by cast members; and the instrumental "Washington Post March" during the climactic football game. Columbia Records issued a soundtrack album for the film in 1970.

MASH features the song "Suicide Is Painless", with music by Mandel and lyrics by Mike Altman, the director's then 14-year-old son. The version heard under the opening credits was sung by uncredited session vocalists John Bahler, Tom Bahler, Ron Hicklin, and Ian Freebairn-Smith (on the single release, the song is attributed to "The Mash"); the song is reprised later in the film by Pvt. Seidman (played by Ken Prymus) in a scene in which a character, a dentist called "Painless", attempts suicide. Altman has noted in interviews that his son made quite a bit more money off publishing royalties for the song than the $70,000 or so he was paid to direct the film.

Reception

Critical response

MASH received mostly positive reviews from critics. The film currently holds an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus states, "Bold, timely, subversive, and above all funny, M*A*S*H remains a high point in Robert Altman's distinguished filmography."[14] The film also holds a score of 79 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[15]

Accolades

MASH won the Palme d'Or at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.[16] It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture (lost to Patton), Best Director (lost to Patton), Best Supporting Actress for Sally Kellerman (lost to Helen Hayes for Airport), and Best Film Editing (lost to Patton), and won an Oscar for its screenplay.

The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) in 1971.

The film was the 38th film to be released to the home video market when 20th Century Fox licensed fifty motion pictures from their library to Magnetic Video.

In 1996, MASH was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

The film is #17 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and #54 on "AFI" list of the top 100 American movies of all time.

Home media

The film was re-released in North America in 1973 and earned an estimated $3.5 million in rentals. In order to attract audiences to the M*A*S*H television series which was struggling with audiences at the time the film was re-released at 112 minutes and received a PG rating. Several scenes were edited including segments of graphic operations, the f-word in the football game, and the scene where the curtain in the shower is pulled up on Hot Lips. "Suicide is Painless", the film's main theme song, was removed from this version and new title music by Ahmad Jamal was used instead according to film critic and historian Leonard Maltin in his movie and video guide. In the 1990s, Fox Video released a VHS version of MASH under their "Selections" banner which ran 116 minutes and rated PG. However, this is not the alternate PG version which was released in 1973. It runs the same amount of time like the original 1970 version and none of the aforementioned scenes were removed from this VHS release and "Suicide is Painless" was still the main theme used. The actual 1973 PG edited version, has never been released on any video formats in the United States.[17]

This film was also released on betaMAX, Philips Video Cassette system, CED Video Disc, and Laser Disc.

A "restored" version of the film was released in a two-disc set on DVD (through Fox's "Five-Star Collecton" series) in 2002, which included the feature film as well as about 2 hours of bonus features.

A single disc release would be released in 2004.

In 2006, the same single disc release would be included in the box set "The Robert Altman Collection"...includes "MASH", "A Perfect Couple", Quintet", and "A Wedding". Also in 2006, the single disc edition would be included with the complete MASH collection..called "Martinis and Medicine Collection". The single disc edition would be included in other Fox sets too.

In 2009, MASH was released on the Blu-Ray format...most of the 2 disc features did "transfer" to this format.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Blumberg, Joel (2008). "A Conversation With Fred "The Hammer" Williamson". Blair & Associates (Kit Park Films).
  2. ↑ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p. 256.
  3. ↑ "M*A*S*H, Box Office Information". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
  4. ↑ The Entertainment Weekly Guide to the Greatest Movies Ever Made. New York: Warner Books. 1996. p. 49.
  5. ↑ Film Curator, (NCMA), the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina "Gould and Sutherland had rebelled on the set, convinced that Altman's unstructured directing would destroy their fledgling careers."
  6. ↑ metro Entertainment, August 4, 2014, "Elliott Gould talks Robert Altman and says he never tried to get him fired"
  7. ↑ Film Curator, (NCMA), the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina. "Between 1957 and 1964 he worked on at least 20 tv shows... fired from most of them for his experimentation with non-linear narrative and overlapping sound."
  8. ↑ Film Curator, (NCMA), the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina, quote attributed to Robert Altman
  9. ↑ Robert Altman (director commentary) (2002-01-08). M*A*S*H (DVD). Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
  10. ↑ "Enlisted: The Story of M*A*S*H" (making-of documentary), Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2001.
  11. ↑ Robert Altman (director commentary) (January 8, 2002). M*A*S*H (DVD). Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Retrieved May 15, 2007.
  12. ↑ Film Curator, (NCMA), the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina. "There was absolutely no mention of Korea in the movie, and Fox insisted that be fixed. An introductory title and the PA announcements were used..."
  13. ↑ Film Curator, (NCMA), the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina. "An introductory title and the PA announcements were used to clarify that this was certainly -not- the current Asian war, Vietnam."
  14. ↑ "M*A*S*H (1970)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  15. ↑ "M*A*S*H (1970)". Metacritic. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  16. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: MASH". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved April 10, 2009.
  17. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1973", Variety, January 9, 1974 p. 19.

External links

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