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Patty Chayevsky was years ahead of most successful screenplay and drama writers in tackling sticky subjects. In this 1971 film he followed Sinclair Lewis and A. J. Cronin (in respectively ARROWSMITH and THE CITADEL) in looking critically at the world of medicine, although his target is centered on a special stage: a modern hospital in Manhattan. Chayevsky's point of view is quite direct: are hospital's places for people to go to to get well, or are they money making organizations where people frequently die due to incompetence.
As a person who has recently been to a hospital too many times (and will shortly have to return again) I find THE HOSPITAL a very timely and rewarding satire. George C. Scott is Dr. Block, one of the heads of the Manhattan Surgical Center, a major teaching hospital. He has just started his day when he is told that one of the second year residents has died during the night in an apparent mix-up. It seems he was sedated and drugged while sleeping on a bed (he'd been having a tryst with a nurse), and someone tampered with an i.v. that should have contained water with glucose in it (later it turns out he got an overdose of insulin in the i.v.). Soon Scott finds that whenever he turns around some other member of the staff dies of a heart attack or of a botched operation. The key to all this appears to be one patient who came to the hospital ten days before for a regular check-up, and has since lost one kidney, nearly lost his other kidney, and is now in a comatose state (Barnard Hughes).
Hughes' daughter (Diana Rigg) wants to bring the comatose dad back to his home on an Apache Indian Reservation in Mexico. Scott is not totally opposed to the idea - after all, hospital errors almost killed Hughes. Also, Scott is suffering a mid-life crisis with the collapse of his marriage and family, and his growing doubts about what his chosen profession really accomplishes. It is not only looking at a case like Hughes'. The hospital is in a constant state of chaos wherein the regular staff (Scott, Stephen Elliot, Nancy Marchand, Stockard Channing) is overworked and overtaxed, and is at war with the business staff (typified by Frances Steenhagen in a really chilly performance). The local community is hostile because of the expansion plans of the hospital - but when they meet to "discuss" matters with Elliot they prove to be as divisive among themselves (militant Black Panthers versus local clergy versus birth control seeking women and pro-abortion clinic types). Rigg (who falls in love with Scott in the course of the film) becomes more and more certain that leaving the insanity of the city makes sense, and Scott also toys with the idea.
Scott was at his acting height in this film, what with ANATOMY OF A MURDER, THE HUSTLER, DR. STRANGELOVE, and PATTON under his belt before THE HOSPITAL was made. His angst registered when he and Rigg get to know each other (she prevents him from killing himself due to his despair). He can't tell if anything done in the hospital is worthwhile, and screams out the window the words in the "Summary Line". Though he does later relax a little about how good his teaching has been for doctors studying with him, Scott really never fully is sure about it all - he does, however, fully accept his own sense of responsibility that others just dump. Rigg too was at the height of her international fame (if not her acting abilities) - her stint as Mrs. Peel on THE AVENGERS was a few years old, but she was recognized as a leading stage talent in Britain at the time, as well as one of the sexiest women performers of that period.
The supporting actors are good too. Besides the chilling Steenhagen (demanding Medicare/Medicaid/insurance information from comatose patients in the E.R.), there is Hughes as a religious maniac who wins, and Elliot as the fed up head of the hospital. There is also my favorite caricature: Richard Dysart as Dr. Elwell. Elwell is a butcher who has found a real home for himself on the Big Board of the Stock Exchange, having incorporated himself for tax incentives. Anyone recalling his performances as ethical types such as the head of the law firm in L.A.LAW or as the friend and physician to Melvin Douglas in BEING THERE, upon seeing his greedy Dr. Elwell see another facet to this underrated actor's talents.


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