M*A*S*H (1970)

Turkish title:
“At the Front Entertainment”

Directed by: Robert Altman

Written by: Ring Lardner, Jr.

Starring: Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, Tom Skeritt, Sally Kellerman
Running Time: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: The only real clip I’ve seen of this film is the shower prank scene, the one where a naked and wet Sally Kellerman runs out of the shower and screams. I have no context for the scene, but that’s the one scene that sticks out in my mind. And, being a child of the ’80s, I of course, am familiar with all the characters. It’ll be kind of weird to watch Donald Sutherland in the role of Hawkeye, but I’m sure my mind will gloss over it in time.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: The TV series was more than enough to get my Korean war-centric sitcom fix as a child.
Bit-O-Trivia: Robert Altman’s son wrote the featured song in this movie entitled Suicide is Painless, which made him a millionaire within a year, and became the theme song to the television series later on.

1 hour, 56 minutes later…: First off, I want to comment on the helicopters in the opening montage. Is that how they used to transport soldiers in need of medical attention? On the outside of the helicopters? Weren’t they afraid of gusts of wind, or slippage if the copter were to pitch too severely? I wonder how many people were lost in wars by just falling off the side of a helicopter. If you’re bored, there’s something to google at home, folks!

Okay. This is a movie review, so I guess I should review the movie. I’m going to start off by saying that it’s kinda impossible to review the movie without comparing the film with the series, since the series was a major part of my childhood, so I’m just going to do that. It was very interesting to see what elements of the film crossed over in the series:

• The whole tone of the movie centering around the hijinks of Hawkeye, Trapper John, and Duke Forrest. The juxtaposition between the humor taking place outside of the OR and the gravity of things inside is probably the thing I remember most of the series, so it was nice to see the film had that same tone.
• The relationship between Hotlips and Frank Burns. I had never known how Margaret O’Houlihan got her nickname, so it was definitely an eyeopener for me. And a great question for Dirty Trivial Pursuit! Although, I was surprised that the Frank Burns character was much more villainous in the film than in the television show. In the television show, Frank Burns was just a character to be pitied, but in the movie, you really hated him. And the coup de grâce was seeing him driven off in a straightjacket by the military police.
• The announcements made over the loud speaker. I thought the bumbling PA announcer was the perfect touch, especially the one where he had a hard time pronouncing the medical terminology. I almost experienced a “femoral puh—, uh, puh— um…” myself watching that scene.

The one thing that bugged me about the movie was Hotlips’ arc. They drove her love interest to insanity, and then they disgraced her in the shower, and yet at the end of the movie, you see her cheering on the football team? She is portrayed to be a bit of an airhead, but even then, I’d think she’d ask for a transfer or something. But Sally Kellerman’s performance was pretty good. She played enraged humiliation perfectly, and totally deserved the Oscar nomination.

Side note: when Tom Skeritt first appeared on screen my initial reaction was, “Jack Nicholson was in M*A*S*H?” And then once the camera could get a close-up, I was like, “Oh. Right. The dude from Picket Fences.”

Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed watching this movie, just to see how they developed the television program from it. Even though it was like watching the alternate universe version of the show, the almost two-and-a-half-hour runtime flew by. 5 out of 6 slices of pizza.