Product Details

• Actors: Alan Alda, Mike Farrell, Harry Morgan, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr
• Format: NTSC
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: CBS/FOX Video
• Run Time: 121 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0001DA0B0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,552 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

In this final episode, the staff of the 4077th M*A*S*H unit find their lives no less hectic despite the fact that it appears that the war may soon be over. Until then, the staff must deal with events like Hawkeye has been temporarily institutionalized due to a nervous breakdown, Winchester has finally found people who share his taste in classical music and Father Mulcahy has been permanently deafened in a mortar attack. At last, the ceasefire is declared and the staff must come to grips with the fact that this time in their lives is over.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amen!, July 6, 2005

By 

Mark Adams (Redwood Estates, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: M*A*S*H Goodbye, Farewell and Amen (VHS Tape)

The farewell episode of MASH is a classic, capturing all the good aspects of the show's 11 seasons: the drama, the comedy, the people. "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" brings closure to many situations, e.g., Klinger doesn't go home!, drawing the viewer deeper into the drama. Though MASH occasionally grew tiresome in the latter episodes, the finale is fresh. As a movie, it probes new territory with more realism than before. The cinematography is excellent.

"Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" avoids being mushy or self-congratulating. It doesn't try to be very clever. Rather, it ends very naturally, both for the show and its audience of 11 years and the characters.

For all of MASH's shortcomings, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" is not one of them.

16 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's time to face reality, April 5, 2005

By 

Daniel Hayes "danrh" (Clermont, FL. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: M*A*S*H Goodbye, Farewell and Amen (VHS Tape)

Well this was the final episode of one of the best television shows ever done. However, it's not anything like your typical M.A.S.H episodes. I feel that Alan Alda did the same thing that The Monkees did in the movie "Head". He literally destroyed the humor in this episode, and gave it new meaning. The same way that The Monkees would try and do in "Head"; the Monkees made "Head" to not be like another Monkees episode from television. Alan Alda would make "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" where there was no humor no Hawkeye getting a good one over on Charles, or Margaret. In fact the story opens up with Hawkeye in a psychiatric ward. I feel that this is where the timeline gets uneven. I think the episode "As Time Goes By" aired before this episode. Alot of time seems to have elapsed between the two episodes, and I think that's where it was done deliberately. It was done to illustrate how time stands still in a war. Anyway back to Hawkeye; his character is facing a crisis of faith, and esteem. He spends the first half of the episode trying to deny there was anything wrong with him, and Dr. Freedman is trying to make him relive what went on. Everything was fine until on the way home on the bus, and this is where everything starts to slowly, but surely become less cloudy. Hawkeye is tending to a wounded soldier on the bus, but he wants to think it's a big party from a big day on the beach. Hawkeye's passion for medicine knows no bounds, and Dr. Freedman is trying to get him to see that. Especially when the bus stops, and there's a baby crying on the bus, but Hawkeye wishes it was a chicken that he was thinking it was. Unfortunately his conscious fails him as he begins to slowly remember a baby was crying, and he tells the mother to keep it quiet, and then he remembers the worst part of the memory as he feels that the woman smothered the chicken, but she smothered her baby because Hawkeye told her to keep the baby quiet. Hawkeye calls Freedman an S.O.B. for making him remember that, but Dr. Freedman had to as Hawkeye would go back to doing medicine in the states after the war was over, and that included tending to children. If Hawkeye didn't face this he wouldn't cope as surgeon in civilian life. There was no laugh track, or live audience to play to in here as the atmosphere was made to be hot and intense. Even the punchlines were flat. This was the main intention of everyone involved that war is not all funny. However, it seems as though the plot revolves around Hawkeye, and the question of whether he'll grow up, or not. There was some tying up of loose ends with this episode where Hawkeye breaks through artillery fire to drive a tank into a trash pot. Considering Margaret constantly berated Hawkeye for not having courage, and then there's Charles who's said that the Chinese were uncultured and barbaric, and he meets a bunch of musicians who have some potential, so he conducts them, and maybe the possibility of friendship, but war wiped out the group, and it's jeep. Father Mulcahy also faces a crisis of faith when attempting to relocate a group of P.O.W.'s artillery fire, and a bomb explodes not too far from him causing him to have tinitis. Then there's Hawkeye's question of whether he will grow up, and get married, and have a committed relationship. He's done the one night stand now for 11 and a half seasons, and the question is will he try, and stay committed? One of the final scenes has Hawkeye and Margaret sharing a 3 minute kiss, and it's left to the veiwer's mind to see if he does get serious with a woman. The biggest one would have to be at the end where Hawkeye flies overhead, and sees a bunch of trashbags spelled out with the word "Goodbye" as it was done by B.J. considering Trapper left without a goodbye to Hawkeye. Pretty much it took 3 hours to wrap it all up, and bring the story to an end. It was done in a vote, and 4 out of the 7 main characters decided it would end at this point. Potter, Mulcahy, and Klinger would revive thier characters in "AfterM.A.S.H". That show did somewhat good the first year, but then the second season after Klinger's baby is born the show would run out of gas, and was cancelled. The problem with the show was the timeframe. It started out in the year being 1952, and then in the later ones it would backtracked to 1951. This is still a good episode, but for diehard fans only. If you want the episodes to remain funny then this will not please you. It's for diehard fans only.

6 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Possible interpretation of Hawkeye's breakdown in GFA, December 8, 2005

By 

Big Joe (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: M*A*S*H Goodbye, Farewell and Amen (VHS Tape)

The bus trip, with the dead baby which caused Pierce's breakdown, could have all been an extra-bad nightmare of Hawkeye's! Look at the evidence for this interpretation. No one but Hawkeye ever mentions the bus trip (ok Sydney Freedman does when he's talking to Hawk about it but Freed was definitely not on this trip--real or dreamed). Also, if Father Mulcahy was really on the bus when the baby was murdered why didn't he too go to pieces? And ditto for BJ who has a young kid of his own? And Margaret took the baby's murder well too. I firmly feel that Alan Alda left some obscurity in the story as to whether Sydney helps Hawk realize something bad that really happened to Hawk or just an event really bad that Hawk dreamed and then had a breakdown over thinking it was real.