M*A*S*H

MAS*H

1970 Directed by Robert Altman

MASH Gives A DAMN.

One of the world's most acclaimed comedies, MASH focuses on three Korean War Army surgeons brilliantly brought to life by Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould. Though highly skilled and deeply dedicated, they adopt a hilarious, lunatic lifestyle as an antidote to the tragedies of their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and in the process infuriate Army bureaucrats. Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff and Sally Kellerman co-star as a sanctimonious Major, an other-worldly Corporal, and a self-righteous yet lusty nurse.

Donald Sutherland Elliott Gould Tom Skerritt Sally Kellerman Robert Duvall Roger Bowen Rene Auberjonois David Arkin Jo Ann Pflug Gary Burghoff Fred Williamson Michael Murphy Indus Arthur Ken Prymus Bobby Troup Kim Atwood Timothy Brown John Schuck Dawne Damon Carl Gottlieb Tamara Wilcox-Smith G. Wood Bud Cort Danny Goldman Corey Fischer

116 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Tasha Robinson ★ 54

Groundbreaking, era-defining, and culturally significant in its time. Also hateful, sexist, racist, and endlessly pleased with the protagonists for their bad-boy behavior of bullying the entire military (and especially, endlessly, women) and getting away with it. I hated the whole experience of watching this, in spite of the incredible cast, the haunting opening song, and the chance to see Robert Altman developing his voice. Roger Ebert's 1970 review said the film is "true to the unadmitted sadist in all of us… it is the flat-out, poker-faced hatred in MASH that makes it work. Most comedies want us to laugh at things that aren't really funny; in this one we laugh precisely because they're not funny." I just can't find the…
Review by Aaron ★★★★★ 14

“I wonder how a degenerated person like that could have reached a position of responsibility in the Army Medical Corps!” “He was drafted.”

To show it is to sell it. That’s the thrust of the oft-quoted notion, attributed to François Truffaut, that it’s nearly impossible to make an anti-war film. The depiction cannot help but ennoble and romanticize, even if the intent is to do anything but. The solution? Don’t show the war at all.

Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, which contains nary a battle scene, is as effectively unromantic a film as one could produce on the subject of war. The inhabitants of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital are raucous and witty, but they’re so very angry. They seethe at…
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★½ 2

50/100

[original, un-"neutered" one-sheet]

Wrote a Scenic Routes column about my conflicted response, though it leans more heavily on a charitable reading of the characters' repugnant behavior than said response really warrants, because I want to give Altman the benefit of the doubt (and also because I didn't feel like wading through dozens of comments calling me a SJW, though I still got a few.) While I like MASH a bit more than I did when I first saw it (which would've been ca. 1989–91), its ugliness still often seems intrinsic rather than strategic. In particular, the film clearly despises Hot Lips, and not merely because she's a humorless authority figure; compare her literally shrieking confrontation with Col. Blake to…
Review by sydney ★★★★★ 1

i told myself i'd watch objectively this time, but...i just can't. for a many-month period of my life i watched MASH every night, on a 10" tv/vcr combo that i kept right next to my bed. i'm not sure if it was the color palette that soothed me, or if i just wanted Hawkeye & Trapper to escort me to my dreams, but this film has always been like a warm hug for my eyes. maybe it's creepy to find such a morbid and emotional comedy so comforting, but there's something about that special Altman ambling charm that lulls me into a smiling hypnosis. lots of the jokes are laugh-out-loud, but mostly they just make me feel good inside. every introduction…
Review by Mr. DuLac ★★★★½ 5

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…
Review by Jonathan White ★★★★ 11

I’ve probably seen MASH more than any other Altman film ( well, maybe I’ve watch Popeye more, … don’t judge ). I never particularly loved it, but I always found it insightful and funny. I’d watch the series occasionally, but not with any regularity. Within the last while, my friend Steve re-watched it, and thinking back on it, suddenly something struck me. The way Hotlips was treated in the shower scene.

I was kind of dreading that scene on this re-watch. Although MASH was Altman, writer Richard Hooker and screenwriter Ring Lardner’s screenplay, it’s widely known that most of it was improvisational, meaning that Altman was ultimately responsible for what was brought to screen. Famously, Altman said that he had…

Recent reviews

Review by Wukasz ½

sexistischer scheiß. Die Ärzte sind die schlimmsten Macker ständig die blödesten Witze auf Kosten von Frauen. Einmal nötigt sogar einer der Chirurgen eine Schwester mit einem anderen zu schlafen um ihn zu "heilen" (Er hat keinen hochgekriegt und denkt nun er sei schwul und beschließt zu sterben). Am schlimmsten ist, das der Klamauk in den Operationszenen unterbrochen wird und sie ernst ihre Arbeit machen. Der Tenor ist sie dürfen sexistische Arschlöcher sein, denn sie retten Leben.
Review by Sam Williams ★★★½

The M.A.S.H. theme song has lyrics!
Review by dale ⚓ ★★★★

"Goddamn Army..."

[edit]

I just realized this counts as a Scavenger Hunt 30 film. Still going to watch Three the Hard Way, but I'm replacing it with this one, so I'll stand a chance of completing this thing.

Scavenger Hunt 30 - September 2017
Task 20: A film starring a sports star, past or present

(I realize we are stretching the definition of "starring"; just let me have this one.)
Review by John_Doe11 ★★★★★

Robert Altman doesn't make a conventional war film glorifying the military. How dare anyone even entertain that idea.

No. Robert Altman, in this film, pisses all over the military, against hypocritical authority and the horrors of war itself and what they do to the participants all while making things darkly hilarious.

I don't think people realise what a game change this was when it came out in 1970.
Review by Jon Waldman ★★

Mostly about some guys being assholes. Amusing at times. You kinda have to say, "oh it's from 47 years ago, society had a different idea of comedy then." But it's really hard to defend most of the movie, cause some of the scenarios are just mean spirited and kinda fucked up.
Review by Ben ★★★★

I get why M*A*S*H is a classic but I honestly think they pushed it a bit too far in terms of the outright unlikability of some of the characters. Made worse by the fact that there's nothing really redeeming them, they just do really awful, humiliating things to people and then everyone laughs and they get off scot free by the end. The blatant sexism didn't really help either.

Altman's direction is superb of course, and also seeing Bud Cort's face in anything automatically lightens up my day.
Review by Chance F. ★★★★★

A virtually plotless film that is somehow kept together by Robert Altman's insane writing and uncanny ability to capture reality, primarily through overlapping dialogue. My favorite element however, was the complete lack of theatricality or climatism. It's presented quite well through the eyes of our main character, Hawkeye, who just doesn't really care about anything, so the film doesn't either.
Review by sleepingjamie ★★★½

As a comedy I didn't particularly find this very funny but I lio d it all the same. It has a mischecious anarchic streak which you don't really see anymore. Loved the style and episodic nature of the movie.
Review by Onurcan Şar ★★★★★

M.A.S.H., tüm aşırı ajitasyon içeren değer yargılarından uzak sade ve insani duygulara odaklanmış bir askeri film. 1970 yapımı olsa da kendi döneminin ötesinde özellikleri var. Vietnam'da Kore'de olanlar oldu. 2000lerde de Irak'ta oldu ve bugün benzerleri Suriye'de oluyor. Savaş, cephe çarpışmasından çıkıp pazar çarpışmasına döndü. Vietnam'da ve Kore'de 2 milyona yakın ABD askeri görev aldı. 1950-1970 arası bu askerler zor koşullarda yaşamak zorunda kaldılar. Tüm savaşlarda olduğu gibi acıyı da sevinci de anlık yaşayabildiler. Anlık da olsa hayatları boyunca o duyguları birçoğu unutmadılar.