''The Hospital'' is a 1971 American

satirical film Satire is a television and film genre in the fictional or pseudo-fictional category that employs satirical techniques, be it of a political, religious, or social variety. Works using satire are often seen as controversial or taboo in nature, with ...

directed by

Arthur Hiller Arthur Hiller, (November 22, 1923 – August 17, 2016) was a Canadian-American television and film director with over 33 films to his credit during a 50-year career. He began his career directing television in Canada and later in the U.S. By t ...

and starring

George C. Scott George Campbell Scott (October 18, 1927 – September 22, 1999) was an American actor, director, and producer who had a celebrated career on both stage and screen. With a gruff demeanor and commanding presence, Scott became known for his port ...

as Dr. Herbert Bock. It was written by

Paddy Chayefsky Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky (January 29, 1923 – August 1, 1981) was an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both adapted and original screenplays. He was ...

, who was awarded the

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Awards, Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Be ...

. Chayefsky also narrates the film and was one of the producers; he had complete control over the casting and content of the film.

Plot

At a Manhattan teaching hospital, the life of Dr. Bock, the Chief of Medicine, is in disarray: he has left his wife, his children don't talk to him, and his once-beloved teaching hospital is falling apart. The hospital is dealing with the sudden deaths of two doctors and a nurse. These are attributed to coincidental or unavoidable failures to provide accurate treatment. At the same time, administrators must deal with a protest against the hospital's annexation of an adjacent and decrepit apartment building. The annexation is to be used for a drug rehabilitation center; the building's current occupants demand that the hospital find them replacement housing before the building is demolished despite the building being condemned sometime before. Dr. Bock admits to impotence and has thoughts of suicide, but falls in love with Barbara Drummond, a patient's daughter who came with her father from Mexico for his treatment. This temporarily gives Dr. Bock something to live for, after Barbara challenges and engages with him. The deaths are discovered to have been caused by Barbara's father as retribution for the "inhumanity" of modern medical treatment. Drummond takes no personal responsibility, claiming his victims would have been saved if they had received prompt, appropriate treatment, but they did not. Dr. Bock and Barbara use a final, accidental death of a doctor at the hospital to cover Drummond's misdeeds. Barbara makes plans to fly with her father back to Mexico. Dr. Bock at first intends to go with them, but at the last minute, driven by his sense of obligation, he insists on staying behind at the hospital so that it will not descend into total chaos.

Cast

as Dr. Herbert "Herb" Bock *

Diana Rigg Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg (20 July 193810 September 2020) was an English actress of stage and screen. Her roles include Emma Peel in the TV series '' The Avengers'' (1965–1968); Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, wife of James Bond, in '' On H ...

as Miss Barbara Drummond *

Robert Walden Robert Walden (born Robert Wolkowitz; September 25, 1943) is an American television and motion picture actor. He is best known for his role as Joe Rossi on ''Lou Grant'', which earned him three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting ...

as Dr. Brubaker *

Barnard Hughes Bernard Aloysius Kiernan Hughes (July 16, 1915 – July 11, 2006), known professionally as Barnard Hughes, was an American actor of television, theater and film. Hughes became famous for a variety of roles; his most notable roles came after mi ...

as Edward Drummond (credited) and Dr. Mallory (uncredited) *

Richard A. Dysart Richard Allen Dysart (March 30, 1929 – April 5, 2015) was an American actor. He is best known for his role as Leland McKenzie in the television series ''L.A. Law'' (1986–1994), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award from four consecutive no ...

as Dr. Welbeck *

Stephen Elliott Stephen Elliott may refer to: Entertainment *Stephen Elliott (actor), (1918–2005), American actor * Stephen Elliott (author) (born 1971), American author and activist Sport *Steve Elliott (footballer, born 1958), English footballer *Steve Ellio ...

as Dr. John Sundstrom * Andrew Duncan as William "Willie" Mead *

Donald Harron Donald Hugh Harron, (September 19, 1924 – January 17, 2015) was a Canadian comedian, actor, director, journalist, author, playwright, and composer. Harron is best remembered by American audiences as a member of the cast of the long-running co ...

as Milton Mead *

Nancy Marchand Nancy Lou Marchand (June 19, 1928 – June 18, 2000) was an American actress. She began her career in theatre in 1951. She was most famous for her television portrayals of Margaret Pynchon on ''Lou Grant'' and Livia Soprano on ''The Sopranos''. ...

as Mrs. Christie, Head of Nurses *

Jordan Charney Jordan Charney (born April 1, 1937) is an American character actor. Many of his earliest roles were on daytime television, with appearances in numerous soaps. Jordan created the role of creepy Julian Dark in the early to mid-1960s on the CBS so ...

as Hitchcock, Hospital Administration *

Roberts Blossom Roberts Scott Blossom (March 25, 1924July 8, 2011) was an American poet and character actor of theatre, film, and television. He is best known for his roles as Old Man Marley in ''Home Alone'' (1990) and as Ezra Cobb in the horror film '' Derange ...

as Guernsey *

Lenny Baker Leonard Joel Baker (January 17, 1945 – April 12, 1982) was an American actor of stage, film, and television, best known for his Golden-Globe-nominated performance in the 1976 Paul Mazursky film ''Next Stop, Greenwich Village'' and his 1977 Ton ...

as Dr. Howard Schaefer * Richard Hamilton as Dr. Ronald Casey * Arthur Junaluska as Mr. Blacktree *

Kate Harrington Kate Harrington (December 8, 1902 – November 23, 1978) was an American television and movie actress. Born and raised in Boise, Idaho, Harrington studied dramatics at the Bush Conservatory in Chicago. Three years later she was given her firs ...

as Nurse Dunne *

Katherine Helmond Katherine Marie Helmond (July 5, 1929 – February 23, 2019) was an American actress. Over her five decades of television acting, she was known for her starring role as Jessica Tate on the sitcom ''Soap'' (1977–1981) and her co-starring role as ...

as Mrs. Marilyn Mead * David Hooks as Dr. Joe Einhorn *

Frances Sternhagen Frances Hussey Sternhagen (born January 13, 1930) is an American actress; she has appeared on- and off-Broadway, in movies, and on TV since the 1950s.Joy, Car"Frances Sternhagen in Talks to Join Company of Broadway Magnolias" Broadway.com, Nov ...

as Mrs. Sally Cushing *

Stockard Channing Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is an American actress. She is known for playing Betty Rizzo in the film '' Grease'' (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series ''The West Wing'' ( ...

as E.R. Nurse (uncredited) *

Dennis Dugan Dennis Barton Dugan (born September 5, 1946) is an American director, actor, writer, artist and comedian. He is known for his partnership with comedic actor Adam Sandler, for whom he directed the films ''Happy Gilmore'', '' Big Daddy'', ''The Be ...

as E.R. Doctor (uncredited)

Production

It was filmed at

Metropolitan Hospital Center Metropolitan Hospital Center (MHC, also referred to as Metropolitan Hospital) is a hospital in East Harlem, New York City. It has been affiliated with New York Medical College since it was founded in 1875, representing the oldest partnership bet ...

in New York.

Frank Thompson Frank Thompson Jr. (July 26, 1918 – July 22, 1989) was an American politician. He represented in the United States House of Representatives as a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat from 1955 to 1980, and was chairman of the United State ...

designed the costumes for the film.

Reception

Box office

The film earned $9 million in North American rentals.

Critical response

When the film was released, film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

lauded the film, writing, "''The Hospital'' is a better movie than you may have been led to believe. It has been criticized for switching tone in midstream, but maybe it's only heading for deeper, swifter waters. ..Chayevsky's 'sic''.html" ;"title="sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''">sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic''bizarre and unexpected ending suggests that men - even madmen - can still use institutions for their own private purpose." The New York Times found the film “a very serious (in fact, perhaps, a little too serious), very funny melodramatic farce....[it] is not, as you might be led to believe, the sort of pious, inside-institution literature that Arthur Hailey grinds out to satisfy the book clubs, if not the muses, nor is it really one of those malpractice horror stores that are so helpful in obtaining lecture tours for medical men....the writer’s intelligence, and his only recently exercised gift for fantasy...save ‘The Hospital’ from a couple of serious seizures that, toward the end, overtake the movie when it feels called upon to certify its serious purposes and to straighten out its peculiar plot....Mr. Hiller....obtains excellent performances from his stars ndhas perfectly cast the film down to roles that are so small they depend—I suspect—as much on natural mannerism as on acting talent.” More recently, film critic Dennis Schwartz gave the film a mildly positive review, writing, "The gallows humor was the melodramatic farce's saving grace; the film uses its razor-sharp instruments to cut into the hides of the insensitive institutionalized health care providers like

Michael Moore Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His works frequently address the topics of globalization and capitalism. Moore won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ' ...

's ''

Sicko ''Sicko'' is a 2007 American political documentary film by filmmaker Michael Moore. Investigating health care in the United States, it focuses on the country's health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the for-profit no ...

'' does in 2007 to the fat-cat

HMO In the United States, a health maintenance organization (HMO) is a medical insurance group that provides health services for a fixed annual fee. It is an organization that provides or arranges managed care for health insurance, self-funded heal ...

s. My major gripe was that it could have been better, as Chayefsky delivered his part of the bargain and so did Scott; nevertheless the pic flattens out as the director increasingly loses his way in all the bitterness and invented horror stories and leaves us dangling over how to get out of such an irredeemable world (where modern man is perceived as forgotten in death)." The film has a 100% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, with an average rating of 7.8/10, based on 12 reviews.

Awards and nominations

In 1995, ''The Hospital'' was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Notes

References

External links

* * * * ''The Hospital'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 676-67

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hospital, The 1971 films 1970s black comedy films 1971 comedy-drama films American black comedy films American comedy-drama films American satirical films Films directed by Arthur Hiller Films set in New York City Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award Films whose writer won the Best Screenplay BAFTA Award Films set in hospitals Films with screenplays by Paddy Chayefsky Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winners United Artists films United States National Film Registry films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films