Part of: Mystery March Challenge
Film recommended by: Adam Roubitchek

This isn't a hospital! It's an insane asylum, and it's your fault!
-Hotlips O'Houlihan

Ring Lardner Jr., who was just coming off being blacklisted as part of the Hollywood Ten, wrote a screenplay adaptation of the novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. 15 directors would pass on it before Robert Altman got his hands on it and, much to Lardner's chagrin, made it his own. Using the script as an outline, Altman freely changed scenes and encouraged his actors to ad-lib the dialogue but still gave sole credit to Lardner for the script.

MASH, taking place during the Korean War, is actually thinly veiled commentary on the Vietnam…

Whether it's the film or the tv series everyone has their favourite M*A*S*H* character. Hawkeye,Trapper,Duke,Hot lips,or even crazy Frank Burns,one will always appeal to your personality. For me Robert Altman's film is head and shoulders above the tv series and for me it doesn't come any better than Donald Sutherland's Hawkeye and Elliott Gould's Trapper.
Sutherland's Hawkeye is a sarcastic and truly original character full of confidence with an eye for the ladies. Gould's often monosyllabic Trapper just oozes cool and is the renowned chest surgeon of the camp. Another joker and drinker he has his heart in the right place.Forever challenging authority,the two lead an almost hedonistic life of women and Martinis with the odd bout of surgery thrown…

Impossible not to think about all the years I have watched the TV show, now that I have finally sat down to this film. It must be a little like people watching the Kristy Swanson Buffy after having seen most or all of the TV series.

Still, what I can say about this film is that it's irreverent, silly, and even a little touching. It's not all that funny, except in an abstract sense. The lines and situations are the kind that make you chuckle when you recall them later or tell them to someone, though I didn't laugh much during the movie.

Trapper, Hawkeye, and Duke are great doctors and loyal friends. But they won't stand for bullshit, rules…

Mystery March Challenge
Week 1 „Medicos joking“

Well… It was absolutely out of the blue and appeared to be something completely different from what I expected. All I knew about this film was that it's cult anti-war comedy. So I prepared to giggle with satisfaction as I do every time I re-watch a grotesque Strangelove for instance.

Instead I did not once smiled during the whole movie. I watched it with my eyes wide open and absolutely frustrated. By the end, I felt a deep emotional aversion to all and sundry character in the film, despite the fact that their behavior is fair enough, in the context of the general absurdity of what was happening on the screen. So in…

Too episodic for my tastes and not everthing in it works, but the parts that do, are quite brilliant. It's smarter and edgier than the tv-series it spawned (Altman never approved of it) and thankfully, unlike the series, it's completely free of canned laughter. The theme song goes straight to my heart everytime I hear it, an instant hit that I immediately loved the first time i heard it, it never gets old. Altman's son was 14 years old when he wrote the lyrics, kind of heavy (and mature) stuff for an almost child to put down on paper:

Through early morning fog I see
visions of the things to be
the pains that are withheld for me
I realize…