Raunchy then, politically incorrect now...

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2003)

...M*A*S*H, the movie, was Robert Altman's precise and masterful adaptation of a book by H. Richard Hornberger, who wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. Hornberger earned a medical degree from Cornell University's Graduate School of Medical Sciences, specialized in surgery, and served as a doctor with the 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean conflict. After the war, he worked briefly in a veterans' hospital before opening a surgical practice in Waterville, Maine, which he maintained until his retirement in 1988. His war experiences were the basis for his novel, M*A*S*H.
The movie should not be compared to the television series. It was faithful to the book which came first. The television series came about only as a result of the success of the movie, but by necessity became a completely different entity.