| Comedy | MPAA:R |
How many years did the TV version of this movie run? 10 .. 12 .. 14 years? And how long was the actual war? 3 .. 4 .. 5 years? And poor Hawkeye and Hotlips were there the whole time! Boy, aren't you glad this movie isn't that long? And it's funnier to boot.
We start the movie with the newly arrived Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Donald Sutherland, you know, Kiefer's dad), trying to find a way out to his next assignment, Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) #4077. The Sgt. he talks to says he'll drive him when he's good and ready, and not a bit sooner. So, while he's waiting, Hawkeye uses his capt. pin to fix one of his bags. Enter Capt. Duke Forrest (Tom Skerrit, from Picket Fences, Poison Ivy, Steel Magnolias, etc. etc.), who seeing a guy in uniform with no rank sitting in a jeep, assumes him to be his driver, and orders him to take him to his next assignment - MASH #4077. Hawkeye says yes sir, and they take off in a now stolen jeep. They arrive at camp, go into the mess tent, meet Lt. Col. Henry Blake, who wants to know who they are. Duke introduces himself, and as he's about to introduce his 'driver', Hawkeye speaks up and introduces himself as the other new doctor assigned to the hospital. They are shown to the tent were they will be living for the next who knows how long. There they meet Maj. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall, from Ramblin' Rose, you know, Shelley's dad). Frank is Regular Army (meaning he voluntarily joined the army, rather than being drafted), religious to the point of offensiveness, and is a less than wonderful doctor. Needless to say, Duke and Hawkeye hate him immediately. No sooner do they move in, then they ask Henry to move him out, and to get them a chestcutter (a thoracic surgeon). So, out moves Frank Burns, and in moves the new chestcutter. Hawkeye thinks he knows the mysterious new doctor, but it takes him a few days to figure out that he's 'Trapper' John McIntyre (Elliot Gould), a guy he played football against in college. About the same time Trapper arrives, so does a new chief nurse, Maj. Margaret Hoolihan (Sally Kellerman). She arrives on the scene just in time to see Trapper deck Frank Burns in a storage room (one of Frank's patients dies, and he blames it on one of the young enlisted men working in the ward). Maj. Hoolihan is just as Regular Army as Maj. Burns is, and when Trapper is named Chief Surgeon, the Majors decide to send a nasty-gram to headquarters about it. All that tattling gets them all worked up though, and they go to Margaret's tent, and soon they're going at each other. The rest of the gang is sitting in the radio room, listening to what's going on courtesy of a microphone that Radar O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff, you know, from MASH) has slipped into the tent. After hearing Margaret tell Frank to kiss her "Hot Lips", they decide the whole camp needs to hear it, so they hook the mic. up to the camp's PA system. The camp torments the two incessantly for the next few days, until Burns cracks, and tries to kill Hawkeye. Exit Frank, in a straitjacket. Lots of hijinks follow: a bizarre ritual to prevent the camp dentist (John Schuck) from killing himself; the rapid opening of the shower tent so they can settle a bet over whether Hot Lips is really a blonde; an attempt to keep their laundry boy from being drafted into the Korean army; and a highly entertaining trip to Tokyo for Trapper and Hawkeye. When they get back from their trip, guess who they find Duke with ... The final big hijink before the end of the film involves a football game with the nearby Evac hospital. They decide to get a neurosurgeon named Jones for their staff. Seems this Jones character was also known as Spearchucker Jones, partly as a racial slur, but mostly because he was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL before the war. He helps train them into a passable team, but when they show up for the game, they find the Evac hospital also has a ringer on their team; an all star running back. After a dismal first half, a syringe filled with a tranquilizer finds it's way onto the field, and the next thing you know, the running back finds his way off the field. The 4077th goes on to win the game, and the large sum of money that was wagered on it. As the film winds down, Hawkeye goes into the OR as Duke is operating, with the good news .. they're going home.
I just re-read this book, and found that the movie was not a disappointment (a welcome change I might add). The book wasn't a big success before the film came out -- and for good reason, it's boring. The outline was interesting, and the film follows that, but the actual text is dry as a bone. There are some differences between the two (including a bit where the 3 doctors go around staging fake crucifixions for money (after someone comments on Trapper's resemblance to Jesus), and a bit about the infamous Epileptic Whore (she'd start doing it, then go into a seizure which ... well, if I have to tell you, you're too young to know about it)). Major Burns is actually 2 characters combined, and Duke never gets involved with Hot Lips (who actually has only a very small chapter in the book) Oddly enough, if you were a really big fan of the TV show, you might not like this movie. You might be tempted to think that the movie was making fun of the TV show, which isn't the case, since the movie came first. But, if you merely enjoyed the TV show, watch the movie, it's wittier, sexier, funnier, and actually shorter than the war it's based on.