MASH
MASH DVD cover
Directed by	Robert Altman
Produced by	Ingo Preminger
Written by	Ring Lardner Jr. based on the novel by Richard Hooker
Starring	Donald Sutherland Elliot Gould Tom Skerritt Robert Duvall Sally Kellerman Roger Bowen Gary Burghoff Rene Auberjenois Fred Williamson
Music by	Johnny Mandel
Cinematography	Harold E. Stine
Editing by	Danford B. Greene
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	1970
Running time	116 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3,500,000
IMDb profile

MASH is a 1970 satirical American dark comedy film directed by Robert Altman, based on the novel written by Richard Hooker. Centering upon an outfit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, the film stars Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould. Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Tom Skerritt, Roger Bowen, Gary Burghoff, Bud Cort and Fred Williamson are also featured. MASH went on to inspire the television series M*A*S*H.

Awards

The film won the 1970 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for five Academy Awards and won an Oscar for its screenplay. It was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected in 1996 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 1998, the film was recognized by the American Film Institute (AFI) as one of the 100 greatest American films; two years later, AFI recognized it as one of the 10 funniest American films.

This film is number 17 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies.

Unique touch

MASH famously juxtaposes gory operating room procedures with rebellious humor; occasionally these two elements co-exist within the same shot. The plot is episodic, and is marked by Altman's trademark sound editing style, in which each scene contains several simultaneous or overlapping conversations, as well as his eye-catching use of zoom.

Cast

• Donald Sutherland as Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
• Elliott Gould as Capt. John Francis Xavier "Trapper John" McIntyre
• Tom Skerritt as Capt. Augustus Bedford "Duke" Forrest
• Sally Kellerman as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" O'Houlihan
• Robert Duvall as Major Frank Burns
• Roger Bowen as Lt. Col. Henry Braymore Blake
• René Auberjonois as Father John Patrick "Dago Red" Mulcahy
• John Schuck as Capt. Walter Koskiusko "The Painless Pole" Waldowski, DDS
• David Arkin as SSgt. Vollmer/PA Announcer
• Jo Ann Pflug as Lt. Maria "Dish" Schneider
• Gary Burghoff as Cpl. Walter "Radar" O'Reilly
• Fred Williamson as Capt. Oliver Harmon "Spearchucker" Jones
• Michael Murphy as Capt. Ezekiel Bradbury "Me Lay" Marston IV

Trivia

• In the director's commentary on the DVD release, Altman says that this was the first major studio film to use the word "fuck" in its dialogue, the word being spoken during the football game near the end of the film.

• MASH features the song "Suicide is Painless", with music by Johnny Mandel and lyrics by Mike Altman, the director's son. Ten years after the film's release, the song reached number one in the UK charts. The television show used an instrumental version as its theme tune.

• MASH was the original title of the 1953 film Battle Circus starring Humphrey Bogart, a film also about life in a MASH unit.

• During principal photography, Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould spent a third of their time trying to get Robert Altman fired. Altman later commented that if he had known, he would have resigned. Gould later sent a letter apologizing. Altman has used him in some of his later works. He has not worked with Sutherland since.

• In a few shots of the "speaker" at night, the moon is visible in the background. On the same night when these scenes were shot, American astronauts landed on the moon.

• Gary Burghoff was the only member of the movie cast to become a regular on the television series. But he was not the only cast member to appear in both the film and the television series. G. Wood, who played General Hammond, also appeared on the series, if only for three episodes. Timothy Brown was in both the film and the series (for a brief time) but played different roles in each: he was Cpl. Judson in the film and "Spearchucker" in the series. And Corey Fischer played Capt. Bandini in the film and played the guitar-playing dentist Cardozo in the episode of the series entitled "5 O'Clock Charlie."

• The movie was one of the first films to be released to the home video market place when 20th Century Fox licensed fifty motion pictures from their library to Magnetic Video.

• Two of the actors in the film would make appearances in Star Trek related movies and television episodes. René Auberjonois played Odo in Deep Space Nine and also played the role of Colonel West in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. John Schuck appeared as a Klingon Ambassador in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and reprised the role in The Undiscovered Country, and he also played a Klingon Doctor in Star Trek: Enterprise.

• In the DVD's audio commentary, Altman refers to the original novel as "pretty terrible" and possibly "racist" in a section where he credits Lardner's screenplay, despite his only using that screenplay as a springboard.

See also

• List of counterculture films

External links

• M*A*S*H at the Internet Movie Database
• Elliott Gould remembers M*A*S*H, from the BBC website; the same clip is directly available here in RealMedia format