The Hospital

The Hospital is a 1971 American absurdist satirical black comedy film directed by Arthur Hiller[2] and starring George C. Scott as Dr. Herbert Bock. It was written by Paddy Chayefsky, who was awarded the 1972 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.[3] Chayefsky also narrates the film and was one of the producers; he had complete control over the casting and content of the film.

For other uses, see Hospital (disambiguation).
The Hospital
Artwork
Directed byArthur Hiller
Written byPaddy Chayefsky
Produced by
StarringGeorge C. Scott
Diana Rigg
Barnard Hughes
Richard A. Dysart
Stephen Elliott
Andrew Duncan
Donald Harron
Nancy Marchand
Narrated byPaddy Chayefsky
CinematographyVictor J. Kemper
Edited byEric Albertson
Music byMorris Surdin
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • December 14, 1971 (1971-12-14) (United States)
Running time
103 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$14,142,409[1]
$9,042,000 (rentals)

In 1995, The Hospital was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4]

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

Production

It was filmed at Metropolitan Hospital Center in New York. Frank Thompson designed the costumes for the film.[5]

Reception

Box office

The film earned $9 million in North American rentals.[6]

Critical response

When the film was released, film critic Roger Ebert 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] bizarre and unexpected ending suggests that men—even madmen—can still use institutions for their own private purpose."[7]

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 [and] has perfectly cast the film down to roles that are so small they depend—I suspect—as much on natural mannerism as on acting talent.”[8]

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's Sicko does in 2007 to the fat-cat HMOs. 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)."[9] The film has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.8/10, based on 12 reviews.[10]

Awards and nominations
Award Category Nominee(s) Result
Academy Awards Best Actor George C. Scott Nominated
Best Original Screenplay Paddy Chayefsky Won
Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Arthur Hiller Nominated
Grand Jury Prize Won
Extraordinary Jury Prize Won
British Academy Film Awards Best Actor in a Leading Role George C. Scott (also for They Might Be Giants) Nominated
Best Screenplay Paddy Chayefsky Won[lower-alpha 1]
Golden Globe Awards Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama George C. Scott Nominated
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Diana Rigg Nominated
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture Paddy Chayefsky Won
National Film Preservation Board National Film Registry Inducted
Writers Guild of America Awards Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen Paddy Chayefsky Won

See also

Notes
  1. Tied with Larry McMurtry and Peter Bogdanovich for The Last Picture Show.

References
  1. "The Hospital, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
  2. Note that the film's opening credits explicitly give authorship of the film, not just the screenplay, to Chayefsky, who had complete control over the film's casting and content
  3. The Hospital at IMDb
  4. "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
  5. Peter Kihiss (June 7, 1977). "Frank Thompson, Top Designer Of Costumes for Stage and Ballet". The New York Times.
  6. "All-time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976 p 44
  7. Ebert, Roger Chicago Sun-Times, film review, February 7, 1972. Last accessed: February 23, 2011.
  8. Canby, Vincent. “Screen: ‘The Hospital’.” New York Times, 15 December 1971.
  9. Schwartz, Dennis. Ozus' World Movie Reviews, film review, July 13, 2007. Last accessed: February 23, 2011.
  10. "The Hospital (1971)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
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