Customer Reviews

The Hospital

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The movie is 5 stars and one of my all time favorites. However, this DVD has severe framing problems. Within the first 15 minutes, there are three scenes where half of GC Scott's head is chopped off. Luckily, I have the laser disc version and was able to compare them side by side. It's a disgrace how misframed this DVD is. Sometimes it's the bottom of the picture that is severely cropped. The bottom line is that MGM did a sloppy job and everyone that loves this movie should send them a message demanding that a corrected version be reissued.

This is the 2nd of the three great movies Paddy Chayefsky wrote in the 60's and 70's, starting with The Americanization of Emily and ending with Network, that examined, among other things, personal responsibility and the dilemma of the individual within the demands and lunacy of institutions. They are all very funny films, and very complex, and deal with much more, of course.

Here Chayefsky takes on the bureaucratization and depersonalization of American medical care (pre the HMO era) and as always his insights and anger are pungent and on-target. Like Network, the satire and exaggeration was uncomfortably closer to the truth than any of us knew. Unfortunately, much of what Chayefsky saw and raved against, in both cases, has come to pass.

The film deals with much more: activism, the nature of love, commitment (to a profession and work as much as to an individual), urbanization and the desire to escape it all...just to name a few.

Centering the film is a simply brilliant performance by George C. Scott as a burned-out Chief of Medicine in an urban hospital: depressed, suicidal, facing the ruins of a marriage, estrangement from his family, and the loss of faith in his professional calling. He's an exhausted, defeated, angry man when we first meet him, who's life will be changed by unlikely events and people.

Scott is riveting and unforgettable. He nails this man, and knows his guilt and rage that has risen from the ruins of what must have once been love and idealism and dedication. As other reviewers have noted, his suicidal rant to Diana Rigg in the middle of the picture is not to be missed, and that alone is worth the price of the video.

The movie is savagely funny and Chayefsky's language, as always, is complex and beautiful. His respect for the competence and courage of professionals battling every sort of odds is evident. No one mined this territory like Chayefski, and this is a terrific script. The production and direction are competent. The supporting cast is fine. But it is Chayefsky's writing and Scott's performance that make it a must see.

Hope for a DVD edition soon.

There is a point in "The Hospital" where Dr. Herbert Bock, played by George C. Scott in another Oscar nominated performance, looks out the window and yells: "We've established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived...and people are sicker than ever. We cure nothing! We heal nothing!" The scene and the words of Paddy Chayefsky are both etched into my memory. Before "E.R.," even before "St. Elsewhere," this film gave an audience some idea of what it was really like in a big city hospital.

Patients are suddenly dying in the strangest ways in "The Hospital." Because of the wreck and ruin of his professional and personal life, Dr. Bock is attempting suicide, only to be interrupted by Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg), who wants to return her comatose father Edmund (Barnard Hughes) to their beloved Indian reservation. It is then that Bock launches into one of the most glorious rants in cinema history. Scott never gave a better performance on film. The growing absurdity of the murders and the insane rationale of the culprit, who declares himself to be "The Paraclete of Caborga, The Angel of the Bottomless Pit," provides a marvelous and surprising resolution to the film. "The Hospital," the last literate explosion of cynicism from the fabled typewriter of Paddy Chayefsky, is far and away my favorite Black Comedy with performances the equal of the writing from the above as well as Richard Dysart, Nancy Marchand, Robert Blossoms and Stockard Channing. But be warned: You do not want to see this movie if you are going to a real hospital any time soon.

We need to bring Paddy Chayefsky back to life, but it'll never happen if he ends up in this place. The novelist, playwright, and screenwriter penned some of the best and most acidic scripts in Hollywood history, including "Marty," "The Bachelor Party," "Network," and even the underrated "Altered States." Few if any, however, were better than "The Hospital," a dark comedy about a Manhattan hospital being terrorized by a mad killer. George C. Scott absolutely devours the screen as Dr. Herb Bock, the suicidal chief surgeon who has lost his wife, his kids, and his desire to serve mankind, until that desire gets rekindled-along with other desires-by Diana Rigg, whose visions tell her to get her father out of Scott's hospital before the machinery of medicine does away with him. It's refreshing to revisit highbrow satires such as this, from an age when scriptwriters were allowed to assume intelligence in the viewer and the ideas don't seem watered down for consumption by the lowest common denominator. The mysterious murderer is a bit of a throwaway, but the inhumanity of modern healing was never so bleakly funny. Or, considering that it's only gotten worse in the last 35 years, so scary.

Just a note to wholeheartedly agree with Archmaker "GEO" and ask Mr. Lyons from Reno what film he watched. As an emergency physician for the last twenty years, The Hospital is, of course, one of my favorite films, and as a part-time screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky is perhaps my favorite scribe. This film nails not only the lunatic, out-of-control atmosphere one can experience in a large hospital, but the dialouge is precious and its medical veracity reaches levels rarely heard in Hollywood. The off handed remarks about " a sedated body lying around in radiology for five hours wouldn't be unusual" or patients being "forgotten to death" or the "victim of the great American plague, vestigial identity" are more true than even Mr. Cheyevsky could know. This film is not a video pin-up of Ms. Rigg, although her comfortable-with-my-nuttiness demeanor plays the perfect foil to Scott's cantankerous Dr. Bock. And let's change the Chayefsky triple crown to a grand slam with the edition of Marty, his other Oscar winner. I love this film, which is as relevant today as it was 35 years ago.

When you talk about the one motion picture that fully encapsulated all the angst and nihilism of the `70's generation you're talking about Paddy Chayefsky's brilliantly written black comedy, `The Hospital' (`70). A contemporary, dysfunctional, urban hospital serves as the microcosm of America's failure to deal with not only the physical maladies of the twentieth century, but the mental and emotional illnesses as well. George C. Scott stars in the role of Dr. Herbert Bock, hospital administrator. Dr. Bock is already tittering on the edge of insanity. His wife has left him, he's estranged from his children and he's in the grips of a mid-life crisis causing him to call everything he once held dear into question. When a bizarre series of unexplained deaths begin to occur within the ranks of the hospital staff Dr. Bock is left to ponder the nature of sanity and whether he can continue to function in a world gone mad.

With great performances by George C. Scott and the lovely Brit Diana Rigg, `The Hospital' is a thought-provoking film that will elicit discussion and debate. Watch it with a friend.

Oh how I miss the brilliant words of Paddy Chayefsky, the man who also gave us "Network." This film, like his later satire, skewers American culture without regard for any sensitivities: literally everyone is on the chopping block. While on its face a devastating attack on the bureaucratic, dehumanized medical establishment, it also manages to include in its hit list a wide range of deserving targets: the self-indulgent young, self-serving (and hypocritical) minority group "activists", loveless sex, insecurity, the perils of age, fears of death.....it has it all. Standing at the center, however, is Mr. Scott, giving what can only be called a masterful performance. While he never fails to capture the inner depth of a middle-aged man near the end of his rope (both in terms of his personal and professional life), the highlight remains a speech he gives to Diana Rigg near the middle of the film. Interrupted by Rigg while attempting suicide, he begins his savage monologue by indicting not only her ridiculous hippy posturing, but also roars against his failed marriage, his worthless children, the emptiness of his job, and the end of his overall passion for life. The speech builds in intensity until it reaches a fever pitch, giving Scott an opportunity to give the finest display of rage ever captured on screen. A modern classic and a MUST for DVD.

This is a must-see for 1970s film buffs in particular. Consider it a kind of companion piece to "Network," another Paddy Chayefsky-scripted masterwork that deals with similar themes.

In both, a madman claiming to be on a mission from God takes it upon himself to "cleanse" a corrupted society. Meanwhile, our hero -- a cynical middle-aged man (here played by the amazing George C. Scott) -- struggles to find a purpose in the world as the relationships and institutions he's spent a lifetime building crumble around him.

"The Hospital" works best when it's in black comedy mode. A series of horrible and hilarious hospital mishaps form the backbone of the plot, and rise, by the end of the film, to a crazy crescendo.

For a long spot in the middle, though, Chayefsky and director Arthur Hiller focus on the Scott character's cynical rage, mostly in the form of several long monologues. Brilliant, eloquent writing, yes, but at some point it gets repetitive and, to my mind, indulgent.

Even those spots are worth viewing for Scott's mesmerizing performance though. And as he did with "Network," Chayefsky has created, here, a visionary piece of social commentary. Despite all mankind's medical breakthroughs, Scott screams at one point, "We're sicker than ever!" Given the current health care crisis, "The Hospital" is nothing short of prophetic.

That said, I have to agree with the reviewer, above, that this important film could have been better presented on DVD. The framing is indeed awful -- in one early scene, the characters' heads disappear entirely offscreen. Squeezing the film into wide-screen format also results in the actors appearing "stretched" and elongated. C'mon, MGM. You can do better than this.

A product of its time, the 60's becoming the 70's. George Scott is the massively depressed Dr Brock. A serial killer is running amuck in the hospital but the hospital is doing a pretty good job of killing patients on it's own. Late one night, Dr. Brock, about to off himself, encounters Diana Rigg, a hippie, whose father is a patient being slowly killed by misdiagnoses. After some lengthy dialouge, Dr. Brock rapes her, thereby taking care of one of his problems: impotence. After more endless blather they determine they are now in love. There is a lot more going on here but I just waited to do a short review. George Scott was in the best phase of his career, winning the A.A. for Patton while this was at the theaters & then being nominated again for this one. For that resaon it's worth a look. A powerful performance.

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.