Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 26 June

M*A*S*H (Altman, 1970)

Yesterday, having a beer with reader MC of Mt Victoria, we were discussing which film I should cite in tribute to the late Donald Sutherland (who passed away late last week).

I spoke about him with Emile Donovan on RNZ last Friday and recommended performances in Ordinary People, Fellini’s Casanova and The Eagle Has Landed, but I thought I should watch something I hadn’t seen before.

My plan was to watch the recently re-released Blu-ray edition of The Day of the Locust (Schlesinger, 1975) but I was warned off as it is a pretty dark satire of Hollywood – described as a non-horror Horror film – and the Wikipedia plot summary suggests that I could profitably leave that experience for another day.

So, we cast around for a film that was both representative and available and settled on Sutherland’s star-making performance in Robert Altman’s adaptation of Richard Hooker’s satirical anti-war novel, MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors.

(The film is best known as M*A*S*H but the title card presents it as MASH, as does IMDb.)

It’s the height of the Korean War and we are treated to the hijinks of the various characters connected to the 4077th Mobile Army Surgiv=cal Hospital, less than three clicks from the front line.

Sutherland plays “Hawkeye” Pierce, Elliott Gould is “Trapper John” McIntyre and Tom Skerritt is “Duke” Forrest, the three doctors of the novel’s title. The character of Forrest didn’t make it into the television adaptation, but disgraced Major Frank Burns (played here by Robert Duvall) did.

I must say, it hasn’t aged well. Its sexual politics were probably dubious even then, and the relentless bullying behaviour by the surgeons now just seems like powerful men exercising their own entitlement rather than the anti-establishment attitudes we thought we were seeing. Golf!

Where the film succeeds is the brutal combination of the lunacy of the situation and the real horrors that surround everyone. The opening credits – featuring the famous “Suicide Is Painless” song with lyrics by Altman’s 14-year-old son – resemble the TV version but with infinitely bloodier and more damaged wounded soldiers on the helicopters. The long-running television series, for all its virtues, sanitised that aspect of things as well as removing Mike Altman’s disturbing lyrics.

Special mention needs to go to two supporting actors. Gary Burghoff’s “Radar” O’Reilly arrives fully formed in his first screen performance and also JoAnn Pflug as nurse “Dish” Schneider. Her character isn’t nearly as cruelly treated as Sally Kellerman’s “Hot Lips” O’Houlihan, but she’s still just a plaything for the boys.

Incidentally, this week marks the 74th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.

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Where to watch M*A*S*H