MASH is a 1970 American satirical dark comedy film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner, Jr., based on the novel A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker. It is the only feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise. It became one of the biggest hit films of the early 1970s for Twentieth Century Fox, and especially during the time of the Vietnam era. The film is set during the Korean War, but mirrors the confusion of Vietnam.
The film depicts a unit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War; however, the subtext is really about the Vietnam War. It stars Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt and Elliott Gould, with Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen, Gary Burghoff, Michael Murphy, Rene Auberjonois, David Arkin and Fred Williamson. The film went on to inspire the television series M*A*S*H, which featured a cast includingAlan Alda, Wayne Rogers, Loretta Swit, and Jamie Farr and ran from 1972 to 1983.
The film's title is often rendered as M*A*S*H. However, while asterisks were included in the original poster art and in the subsequent TV series, the title that appears onscreen in the film omits them.
MASH juxtaposes gory operating-room procedures with anti-establishment humor. Occasionally, these two elements coexist within the same shot. For example, while Hawkeye is amputating a patient's leg, he asks a nurse to scratch his nose, when all the while the sound of the saw cutting the bone is audible.
The film, the plot of which is episodic, is marked by Altman's trademark editing style, in which many scenes contain several simultaneous or overlapping conversations, as well as his frequent use of zoom.
In the Autumn of 1951, the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is in need of replacements, and is assigned two: Captain "Hawkeye" Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Captain "Duke" Forrest (Tom Skerritt). On their arrival, it becomes clear that they are rebellious, womanizing, mischievous rule-breakers (they arrive having "borrowed" a Jeep, and immediately begin flirting with the nursing staff), but they soon prove beyond argument that they are also good at their jobs. They immediately clash with their new tent mate Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), who is both a religious man and an inferior surgeon. Hawkeye and Duke put pressure on Lt. Colonel Henry Blake (Roger Bowen), the unit's CO, to have Burns removed from "their" tent. At the same time, they ask him to apply to have a specialist thoracic surgeon assigned to the 4077th.
The new chest-cutter
The mysterious new thoracic surgeon arrives, and gives away little about who he is or where he's from. Hawkeye, though, is convinced he has seen the new man somewhere before. It is only after an impromptu football game that Hawkeye recalls a college football game he played in which he scored the only touchdown by intercepting a pass from the opposing team's (Dartmouth) quarterback, the new thoracic surgeon, Captain "Trapper" John McIntyre (Elliott Gould).