The Hospital
by Arthur Hiller
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Barnard Hughes, Diana Rigg, George C. Scott, Richard Dysart, Stephen ElliottDirector: Arthur Hiller
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Cinematographer: Victor J. Kemper
Editor: Eric Albertson
Producer: Howard Gottfried
Producer: Jack Grossberg
Writer: Paddy Chayefsky
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-16
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Hospital
Movie Review: "I am the Paraclete of Kavorka, The Angel of the Bottomless Pit."
Summary: 5 Stars
I have a weakness for black comedies from the late 60's and early 70's. Perverse humor, such as that found in early Mel Brooks (The Producers, The Twelve Chairs), Carl Reiner (Where's Papa?), and Harold Prince's delicious but obscure Something For Everyone, abound in the films I turn to over and over when I need a good laugh. Even better than black comedies, intellectual screenplays, with intricately nuanced language and delicious wit - Simon Gray's Butley and James Goldman's The Lion in Winter spring to mind - are the type of films I enjoy most when I need a lift. And on top of the list, well, certainly near the top of the list, is the delightfully bizarre satire, The Hospital, written by Paddy Chayefsky, a name that is almost synonymous with satire in screen history. The Hospital combines the best elements of black comedy and brilliant comic writing, i.e. intellectual wit, humor wrought from seemingly tragic or tasteless situations and sharp, biting satire. I am even fonder of The Hospital than I am of Paddy Chayefsky's more celebrated late 70's masterpiece, Network, although the two have certain elements in common.
George C. Scott is Dr. Bock, the Chief of Staff at a Metropolitan Hospital. Rather appropriately, The Hospital was filmed on location at NYC's sprawling Metropolitan Hospital. Dr. Bock is suicidal, angry, overworked, underpaid and sexually impotent. Just as his life is about to implode, along with the crumbling institution he works for, into his despair falls the lovely Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg), a registered nurse who is accompanying her insane father through a medical crisis, one that, as the plot would have it, is entirely instigated by the staff at The Hospital. Barbara wants to take her father home, against the advice of several staff physicians. "Let him go," muses Scott to one his associates, "let him go before we kill him".
The fact that the film was actually shot at one of the largest medical facilities in Manhattan lends an air of gritty realism to the proceedings. This is not the sanitary, scrubbed clinical venue of a TV soap opera, but the painful, dreary and depressing atmosphere one would expect to find in a big city hospital circa 1970. It helps that the humor, while definitely twisted and rather surreal, is nonetheless totally spot-on; The Hospital resembles just the sort of urban obstacle course that the indigent were offered as places to be healed in big cities like New York forty years ago. I should know; both my parents died in Queens General, a NYC hospital not unlike the one depicted in this film, around the same time that the action takes place. But it is not a personal recollection that draws me to the melancholy proceedings; rather it is the quick wit, the pungent truth and the stark, realistic irony that ultimately satisfies the viewer most. "I rang for my nurse...in order to insure myself at least one hour of uninterrupted privacy." This is what it really felt like, even if the events are patently absurd.
The ensemble cast is universally hilarious, and deadpan lines fly fast and furious. Chief among the standouts are Barnard Hughes, as the delightfully deranged Drummond ("I am the Paraclete of Kavorka, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit...I am the Fool for Christ"), who also tackles a duel role as an inept surgeon ("I'm not gonna take the rap for this one; I've already got two malpractice suits hanging over my head"); Richard Dysart as Dr. Welbeck, a self-incorporated medical profit monger, years before doctors incorporating themselves became the norm;, Andrew Duncan as a terrified patient, brother to one of the staff doctors, and the always hilarious Katherine Helmond. Half the fun is just spotting some of the comic actors who went on to greater glory. Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky himself provides the very funny opening voiceover. Highly recommended.
Summary of The Hospital
George C. Scott delivers an Oscar?(r)-nominated* performance as a brilliant doctor in a hospital beset by murders, madness and mayhem in this "ferocious, powerful movie of resounding proportions" (Cue). Directed by Arthur Hiller (Love Story) from an Oscar?(r)-winnning** script by Paddy Chayefsky (Network), this intensely provocative drama will forever change the way you look at modern medicine. Dr. Bock's (Scott) life is in shambles. His wife has left him, his children don't talk to him and his once beloved teaching hospital is falling apart. As he teeters on the brink of a nervous breakdown, Brock falls for a patient's seductively charming daughter (Diana Rigg) who not only gives him something to live for but might even change his life forever. *1971: Actor **1971: Original ScreenplayPaddy Chayefsky (Marty) wrote the script for this 1971 film that mixes--in Chayefsky tradition--absurdist satire with a touching, almost wistful love story. George C. Scott plays a cynical doctor battling bureaucratic superstructures on the one hand and hippie-dippy flakiness among some patients on the other. When he falls for an eccentric young woman (Diana Rigg) with an alternative view on everything, the road to liberation from burdensome responsibilities seems to open before him. Director Arthur Hiller (Love Story) doesn't do much more than bring the screenplay to life, though he does create a persuasive sense of urban chaos in the setting. Scott gives a good, thoughtful performance. --Tom Keogh
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