Max’s Drive-In Movie – M*A*S*H

I pulled out this 1970 movie the other day and ended up enjoying it even more than I did years ago. When I first saw it back in the ’80s, I’d been expecting something different because of the television show. At first, I was confused, but the longer I watched, the more it thrilled me. If you only know MASH from television reruns with Alan Alda smirking through battlefield banter, the 1970 film that started it all might feel like a grenade lobbed into your expectations. 

Robert Altman’s MASH isn’t a gentle sitcom. It’s raw, irreverent, chaotic, and somehow all the better for it. This is the war movie for people who hate war movies. It doesn’t glorify anything. It just throws you into the blood, the absurdity, and the humor of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, but let’s be real, this is Vietnam by another name. They just couldn’t say it at the time. 

What strikes you about the movie is that it looks real. You don’t see a nice clean Army camp; you see authentic rubble, which captures the hopelessness of it all. Altman shot this film like a jazz improvised session. Overlapping dialogue, handheld cameras, and actors wandering through the frame like no one gave them a blocking direction. It feels messy because it is messy. War is messy. And MASH knows that the only way to survive it might be to laugh, so you forget where you are.

The plot? Loosely structured at best. You follow a pair of too-smart-for-their-own-good surgeons, “Hawkeye” Pierce and “Trapper” John McIntyre, as they drink, prank, operate, and generally wreak havoc behind the front lines. And when I say wreak havoc, I mean mocking authority, goading a desk jockey into a breakdown, and broadcasting a fake-suicide funeral for a lovesick dentist. 

The cast, Donald Sutherland (Hawkeye), Elliott Gould (Trapper John), Tom Skerritt (Duke), and Sally Kellerman (Hot Lips Houlihan), weren’t exactly marquee names in 1970. Allegedly, Sutherland and Gould, suspicious of Altman’s loose approach, actually tried to get him fired during production. They failed. Years later, they admitted Altman was right all along.

Altman’s rebellious methods created friction with the studio, too. He refused to follow the traditional film shooting formula. He shot scenes with actors talking over one another, dismissed explanations, and downplayed narrative story arcs. Altman called it “anti-movie making,” and it became his signature style.

And that theme song? “Suicide Is Painless.” Written by Altman’s 14-year-old son, no less. A haunting lullaby for the down-and-out, it creeps under your skin and stays there long after the credits roll. The movie was based on a novel written by former military surgeon Richard Hooker. 

  • Hotlips O’Houlihan: [referring to Hawkeye] I wonder how a degenerated person like that could have reached a position of responsibility in the Army Medical Corps!
  • Father Mulcahy: He was drafted.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

42 thoughts on “Max’s Drive-In Movie – M*A*S*H”

  1. So irreverent yet respectful of the profession of doctors, the military and time and place. Quite brilliant. I do love both the movie and the series, as you point out, a lot of differences.

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    1. They really were in both. The act of war is what they disagreed with. I liked the TV show…especially with Trapper and Henry Blake…those first 3 seasons they tried to stay in the spirit of the movie.

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  4. and proof that there was only one Gary Burghoff that could play radar…..and yeah the movie and tv show were too often connected by those that didn’t understand the movie, or the book even…I was way too young I think to have seen the movie until it arrived on VHS, and I knew going in it was different….it definitely a movie of it’s time, the arc of Sutherland and Elliot’s career after was interesting to watch as well…

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    1. Burghoff will always be Radar. This movie was so different…I can’t imagine it at the time. I love the confusion and people talking over other people. It grounds it in reality because that happens constantly.

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      1. weird morning for me today….my dad passed away yesterday evening. he didn’t play, but my mom and a lot of their family and friends did, and there’d be these jam sessions in our basement everyso so often…so right now am remembering every Leadbelly, Hank Williams and Johnny song they played…….memories

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      2. Warren I’m really sorry for your loss…my dad went in 2005 too early. My dad or family didn’t play either but my dad made guitars…but could not play a lick. Anyway…sorry again man.

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  5. I have the DVD of this and have watched it probably 2 or 3 times, but as you say, there’s so much going on, that it’s not a movie that I know like the back of my hand. Would have to watch again to refresh my memory. It is a great film, though.

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    1. I think from this movie…people remember lines or scenes more because it’s not as neatly organized as other movies.

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    1. Thats probably a good thing but the first three seasons they tried to keep this spirit… the way Altman made it…just made it more real. Talking over each other…that is real life.

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      1. Like most movies you’ll get to sides of the like coin. I’m on the upside for so many reasons starting with Altman getting the right people together and saying action! How long and how much great work has Duvall given us?

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      2. Oh yes…I didn’t mention Duvall and should have. I’ve always loved that guy. He can play almost anything.

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  8. Robert Altman is hit or miss with me. Whereas McCabe & Mrs. Miller is my favorite film of all time, I’m not a fan of Mash…or Nashville…or most of his films, really. It’s strictly just a matter of taste because I know he was a very talented, much lauded filmmaker.

    I almost didn’t comment because I don’t like coming across as a wet blanket, but I thought better of it because I like reading your film reviews–and I’d like to see you do more of them.

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    1. Any opinion here is welcomed and I appreciate it. Some of his films are an acquired taste. Nashville I like playing just to see what I remembered as a kid.

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    1. I was just finished rewatching the TV show and I was nearing the end and I heard she passed away…really sad.
      I will say…for me…the first 3 seasons were the best with Trapper and Henry…just my opinion.

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      1. Oh absolutely the first 3 seasons were the best, they were closer to the anarchic spirit of the movie. After that Alan Alda got more sway and they veered more frequently to mawkish and preachy, which made sense for character development, but it lost its comedic edge. There were still some good episodes here and there but overall they were more of the “familiar and warm” sort than Marx Brothers anarchy.

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      2. You said the exact word I was thinking…he became very “preachy”… it became a dramedy…great catch on the Marx Brothers reference…that is what it was. It became the Alan Alda show in a lot of ways.

        What do you think would have happened if Wayne Rogers and Stevenson would have stayed? I guess their characters would have had to get a little deeper.

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      3. Glad we are on the same page here 🙂 Wayne Rogers had a little more edge than wholesome Mike Farrell, so I like to think the scripts might have continued to reflect that and temper the Alda-nisation a bit as the co-star, effectively. McClean was great as Henry but i’m not sure it would have been credible to string out the character for 11 years without getting demoted to Major Doctor for lack of organisational skills, Radar notwithstanding. Harry Morgan was more realistic once it stopped being quite so much of a parody of the Army brass/bureaucracy/politics and it was clear he was on the side of the underdog in an under-stated Dragnet-fashion 🙂

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      4. I agree that Morgan was more suited…Henry would sometimes make tough decsions but not enough lol. Yea nothing against Farrell…but Rogers just fit much better to me. He was orginally told he would be equal to Alda…and he should have been.

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  10. Haven’t seen this since it came out! Loved it back then. Wonder how many people even know was a Mash movie before the tv series? Or how many people under 40 know about either for that matter?

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    1. I bet that there isn’t a lot of people at all. I liked the TV series as well but mostly the first 3 seasons with the Trapper and Henry characters. They stayed close to the irrelevant humor of the movie until around the 4th or 5th.

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  11. i missed this post somehow when you posted it. Anyway,good review. I have never seen the whole movie but did see about half an hour of it maybe 15 years back and I think ‘chaotic’ might’ve been my reaction back then. I don’t know how well it worked but I’d give Altman props for thinking outside the box and not following a typical ‘how to’ template for movie-making

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    1. I’ve always liked this movie…simple reason…I like irrelevant humor like The Marx Brothers…and this has that.
      Thanks for following up Dave…I still owe you a visit on your private one. I’ve been Jeep’d to death this week….lug nuts, Oil Change, windshield wipers, ordered new tires, got them changed, anti freeze…bla bla bla…but now it’s really road worthy and Jen is driving it tomorrow.

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  12. I’m not sure if I ever saw the movie (though it’s possible that I did), but I did see all the TV shows. The last one of those was a two-parter that really hit me very hard. It’s worth checking out – to my mind they went out on a very, very heavy note.

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    1. Well…as far as the tv show…I always liked the first three seasons…they had more of the irrelevant humor of the movie-Marx Brothers…they got heavy and turned into a dramady.

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      4. Funny you say that. My son is 25 and he has never watched an episode and I told him last week I’m picking 3 episodes out for him to watch. Captain Tuttle, Sometimes You Hear the Bullet, and Abyssinia Henry. That last one…was a game changer.

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  14. The movie had a lot more guts than the tv show. The first episode of the television show turned its ending on the Father, but not once did anybody call him Dago Red. That was his name throughout the movie. The idea of Painless Pole got whitewashed. And the song of the movie stands on its own but not a lyric in site on the tv show.

    Don’t get me wrong. I like the tv show. But the distance between the movie and the tv show was always clear to me.

    As for comedy on television, other than moments (like Pat McCormack writing jokes for Carson, or the world of Jay Ward, my taste runs to Boston Legal

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    1. Oh the movie was in a different league totally…and that is why I like the first 3 seasons of tv show because the humor was close to the movie. I love that movie… and yea it was better than the tv show.

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