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M*A*S*H (1970)
In director Robert Altman's subversive and irreverent
anti-war comedy set in Korea in 1951, with the dark humor of bloody
wartime surgeries and other pranks and shenanigans in the 4077th
Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH):
- "Suicide is Painless" - the anti-war film's
theme song playing on the soundtrack during the opening credits
sequence, including scenes of blood-spurting surgery with casual
dialogue carried on by the iconoclastic doctors (Captain Hawkeye
Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Captain "Trapper" John
McIntyre (Elliott Gould)), and their golf-playing on the helicopter
landing pad
- the scene of Hawkeye and Trapper saving the life of
a Korean infant in Tokyo
- the celebrated scenes of the pranks played by the
members of a free-wheeling camp, including listening in to uptight
chief nurse Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan's (Sally
Kellerman) love-making tryst with hypocritical tee-totaler Maj. Frank
Burns (Robert Duvall), while a microphone was hidden under their
cot picking up their voices: (Frank asserted: "God meant us
to find each other,"
she enthusiastically opened her blouse: "His will be done,"
and then invited him: "Oh, Frank, my lips are hot. Kiss my hot
lips"), and wisecracking surgeon Trapper John McIntyre's decision
to broadcast everything on loudspeakers over the camp's PA system:
("We have got to share this with the rest of the camp")
- the practical joke of pulling up pulling away the
front tent wall flaps of her shower stall and exposing her to an
audience of jeering spectators while 'Hot Lips' was taking a shower
with everyone lined up as spectators - to determine if she was
a natural blonde or not (a $20 bet), and her hysterical complaint
to commanding officer Lt. Col. Henry Blake (Roger Bowen) (who was
in bed with one of the nurses), including 'Hot Lips' threat to
resign: ("This isn't a hospital! lt's an insane asylum! And
it's your fault because you don't do anything to discourage them!...Put
them under arrest! See what a court-martial thinks of their drunken
hooliganism! First, they called me Hot Lips, and you let them get
away with it! And then you let them get away with everything! And
if you don't turn them over to the MP this minute, l-l'm gonna
resign my commission!")
- the scene of surgeon Hawkeye asking questions of Major
Burns ("Does that big ass of hers move around a lot, Frank,
or does it sort of lie there flaccid? What would you say about that?...Would
you say that she was a moaner, Frank?...Seriously, Frank. I mean,
does she go ooohhh or does she just sort of lie there quiet and not
do anything at all?...) - causing him to go "nuts"; Burns
was placed in a strait-jacket, and forcibly removed from the unit
by a military police Jeep -- (a recording of a Japanese lady singing
a 'Sayonara' song was broadcast throughout the camp:
"The time has come for us to say Sayonara, My heart will always
be yours for eternity l knew sometime we'd have to say Sayonara...l'll
remember our romance until the day that l die, l'll see your face ln
the moon and stars in the sky")
- the company dentist Walter "Painless Pole" Waldowski's
(John Schuck) mock 'Last Supper' scene and phony funeral during his
assisted suicide (with a full guitar-accompanied rendition of the
film's theme song: "Through early morning fog l see visions
of the things to be, the pains that are withheld for me, l realize
and l can see. That suicide is painless, it brings on many changes,
and l can take or leave it if l please. The game of life is hard
to play, l'm going to lose it anyway. The losing card l'll someday
lay, so this is all l have to say, that suicide is painless..."),
as a cure for his temporary erectile dysfunction, by taking a black "suicide" capsule
for "certain death": ("Now then, you've all come here
to say your final farewell to ol' Walt here... Dear ol' Walt. You
know, l got an idea that maybe it's not such a final farewell after
all. l think maybe ol' Walt's goin' on into the unknown to do a little
recon work for us all. Huh?")
- the climactic slapstick inter-M*A*S*H football game
against a rival unit, in which "Hot Lips" cheered with
pom-poms and gasped: "Oh my God, they've shot him" when
the end-of-quarter gun went off, and the unique closing credits of
the cast, read by the loudspeaker announcer - and ending with "Goddamn
army" - and "That is all"
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Bloody M*A*S*H Surgeries
Major Houlihan:
"Kiss my hot lips"
Hawkeye's Questioning of Major Burns
Last Supper Scene: "Suicide is Painless"
Football Game: "Oh my God, they've shot him!"
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