MASH (1970)

The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and high jinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war.

Director:

Robert Altman

Writers:

Richard Hooker (from the novel by), Ring Lardner Jr. (screenplay)

Stars:

Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt

Won 1 Oscar. Another 13 wins & 23 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Donald Sutherland	...	Hawkeye Pierce
Elliott Gould	...	Trapper John McIntyre
Tom Skerritt	...	Duke Forrest
Sally Kellerman	...	Maj. Margaret 'Hot Lips' O'Houlihan
Robert Duvall	...	Maj. Frank Burns
Roger Bowen	...	Lt. Col. Henry Blake
Rene Auberjonois	...	Father John Mulcahy
David Arkin	...	Sgt. Major Vollmer
Jo Ann Pflug	...	Lt. 'Dish'
Gary Burghoff	...	Cpl. 'Radar' O'Reilly
Fred Williamson	...	Dr. Oliver 'Spearchucker' Jones
Michael Murphy	...	'Me Lai' Marston
Indus Arthur	...	Lt. Leslie
Ken Prymus	...	PFC. Seidman
Bobby Troup	...	Sgt. Gorman

Storyline

The personnel at the 4077 MASH unit deal with the horrors of the Korean War and the stresses faced in surgery by whatever means. The tone at the MASH is established by recent arrivals, surgeons Captains 'Hawkeye' Pierce, 'Duke' Forrest, and 'Trapper' John McIntyre - the latter who Hawkeye knows he's met somewhere, but Trapper who won't divulge where - whose antics can be best described as non-regulation, and in the negative words of one of their fellow MASH-ers: unmilitary. The unit's commanding officer, Colonel Henry Blake, doesn't care about this behavior as long as it doesn't affect him, and as long as they do their job and do it well, which they do. Their behavior does extremely bother fellow surgeon, Major Frank Burns, and recently arrived head nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan, who obtains the nickname 'Hot Lips' based on information they glean about her through underhanded means. Beyond their battles with Frank and Hot Lips, Hawkeye, Duke and/or Trapper help unit dentist Painless ...

---

Plot Keywords:

surgeon | mobile army surgical hospital | korean war | nurse | military | 

---

Taglines:

You're not a real M*A*S*H fan until you've seen the original. (1982 re-release)

---

Genres:

Comedy | Drama | War

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexual content

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Japanese Korean

Release Date:

March 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

M*A*S*H

Filming Locations:

Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,500,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$81,600,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Aspen Productions (I), Ingo Preminger Productions, Twentieth Century Fox

Technical Specs

Runtime:

116 min 112 min (PG)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

For "Hot Lips" shower scene, Robert Altman had to deploy a few distractions. Sally Kellerman had never appeared nude on-screen before, and in early takes of the scene, she was dropping to the ground before the point of the moment was even made clear. So Robert Altman had to think of distractions to get her to pause before falling to the ground. These included Gary Burghoff standing naked in front of her, and Tamara Wilcox-Smith standing out topless. Kellerman attributes her Oscar nomination to them.

---

Goofs

When stealing the jeep in the opening scene, Hawkeye and Duke, freshly arrived in Korea, would have no idea how to get to the 4077th, yet the overhead shots imply that they know just which direction and roads to take.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Lt. Col. Henry Braymore Blake: Radar.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly: Yes, sir. I'll get ahold of Major Burns...
Lt. Col. Henry Braymore Blake: I want you to get a hold of Major Burns...
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly: ...Tell him to hold a couple day surgeons over into the night shift.
Lt. Col. Henry Braymore Blake: Tell him we're going to have hold a couple of surgeons over from the day shift out of the night shift.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly: I'll put in a call to General Hammond in Seoul...
Lt. Col. Henry Braymore Blake: Get General Hammond down there in Seoul, tell him to send us those new surgeons right away.
Cpl. Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly: ...I hope he sends us those two new surgeons. We're sure gonna need'em.
[Leaves]
[...]

---

Crazy Credits

The end cast credits are read over the PA system, without onscreen titles. First listing all the character nicknames, omitting characters that had no nicknames, then listing all the actors' names. The actors list begins with the more "known" actors, read one at a time over a video clip of each of them from a scene in the movie, then the reader speeds up the list for the less-known or unknown actors, running all the names fast together in a verbal blur, but again over a quick video shot of each of them.

---

Alternate Versions

This movie was one of the first releases on early 80's RCA Selectavision CED discs system. The disc contains what is today considered to be the R rated version of the film even though the packaging shows a PG rating. Also, instead of letterboxing or squeezing (as was customary at the time)the title frame is simply shows cropped off at the sides so that the all you could see of the M*A*S*H title was "A*S*"

---

Connections

Featured in The 50 Greatest Comedy Films (2006)

---

Soundtracks

Hail to the Chief
(1810) (uncredited)
Written by James Sanderson
Sung with revised lyrics by various characters

User Reviews

Strange film

Strange film; basically entertaining, but not exactly a masterpiece. One of the most likable things about Robert Altman is that every film of his has been in some way an experiment, and almost none of these experiments, even the very good ones, work perfectly. This is a great example. As is obvious from the many user comments here, it's difficult to talk about "MASH" without comparing it to "M*A*S*H," and in fact the most important cultural thing the film may have done is establish an aesthetic universe for the TV series to exist in (and that really is the only thing the film and the TV show have in common – as many have pointed out, the tone, style, timing, and even character personalities are quite different between the two). But taken on its own, "MASH" is not really the anti-war polemic it's been made out to be, nor is it the joke-driven movie comedy we might expect from the series' style. Instead, it's a kind of exercise in black-comic tone; it subverts the idea of war not by explicitly criticizing it, even through jokes, but rather by being exactly the opposite of what we expect a traditional war film to be. Here we don't see courage or valor or heroism or honor; we see cowardice and nastiness and vice and stupidity, even from the "good" characters. The movie subtly suggests that war makes ordinary people into silly, stupid, and vicious ones, and Hawkeye and Trapper are no more exempt from this law than Frank Burns; in fact, if anything they are more angry and mean than he is. This unusual approach to the subject matter is well-maintained throughout the film, and never becomes too harsh or ugly – and yet Altman missteps with some oddly chosen episodes (Painless's "suicide attempt," for instance, and the overlong, if symbolic, football game), and the ending of the film is abrupt, making what's come before seem even more pointless and inconsequential. Which may be exactly Altman's point, of course . . . so here we have another Altman film that manages to be simultaneously witty, jokeless, boring, entertaining, confusing, beautifully thought out, artfully constructed and artless, symbolic and realistic. It's recommended, but viewers should ideally go into it with no expectations whatsoever. 7 out of 10.