During a summer of TV reruns with all of the good streaming series already binged, the DrsC have been rewatching some old films - some we’ve seen before, others we missed when new. A couple of nights ago we rewatched MASH, the film, not the TV series.
Fun fact: Gary Burghoff (aka Radar O’Reilly) was the only cast member carryover to TV. Released in 1970, MASH in many ways broke new ground with off color references and behavior, insubordination, silliness as a way to tolerate the intolerable, and plot non-linearity.
We saw this when we were courting and my dear lady didn’t like it much then. Rewatching it 55+ years later she enjoyed it. I liked it both times.
Fun fact: Per Wikipedia, Robert Altman, who directed MASH, “despised the TV series.” It is certainly true the TV series cleaned up a lot of the off-color stuff. On TV the commanding officer didn’t cohabit with a nurse, as the film C.O. does.
Some old films, as we say, “hold up” many years later, others are so much “of their era” that they are no longer fun to watch. MASH still works as comedy and entertainment. It is crazy fun, and its hospital sexual hijinks are echoed in today’s Grey’s Anatomy.
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Later: Did you know MASH was not the first film about Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals? In 1953 there was a B&W MGM film called Battle Circus starring Humphrey Bogart and June Allyson. It was of a MASH unit in Korea, with Bogart as a surgeon and Allison as a nurse who falls for him.
Not a bad film, particularly interesting how they could pitch and strike the tents when the unit has to move to a new location. It is much less racy than the 1970 version, but has more shooting and the same choppers and muddy tents.
