Wordiezett So much average

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Mark Turner Long before there was a healthcare crisis that needed addressed by Obamacare there was...a health care crisis that was never fully addressed. Nearly 40 years before the government took action writer Paddy Chayefsky used it for a satirical film called THE HOSPITAL.George C. Scott stars as Dr. Herbert Bock, a suicidal chief doctor at a busy hospital in New York City. His life a mess, his marriage on the rocks and his desire to tackle the problems of the hospital dwindling leave him a shattered man.When the film opens he's faced with one problem on top of another. The most pressing at the moment is the fact that an intern of the hospital has been found dead in an unoccupied bed in one of the rooms. Herein lies the issue with hospitals at the time, an inability to cope with the influx of patients and to keep up with paperwork.The intern in question was having sex with another staff member in a bed vacated when the patient there passed away. Falling asleep in the bed the night staff had no idea the previous patient had left and gave the sleeping intern the IV that patient was supposed to get killing him. But this is not the only case where this happens. Later on another doctor is found dead in the ER unit, dead from being ignored once his medical issue was diagnosed and he was moved.Bock rages against the way things are being done, both at nurses and at hospital higher ups. In addition to the deaths of two doctors and later a nurse, he must contend with a fellow surgeon whose botched efforts have caused him grief in the past. Dr. Welbeck (Richard Dysart) is more interested in how to make money off of his patients than he is in curing or taking care of them. That's led to numerous screwed up surgeries that Bock and his team have had to cover for.In the middle of all of this Bock meets the daughter of an ex-medical man in a coma in the hospital. Drummond (Barnard Hughes) left medicine behind and went off to study Native Americans in a small Mexican town. His daughter Barbara (Diana Rigg) followed, leaving behind her problematic past life. Now she wants to take him back to that small village rather than leave him there for testing.As Barbara and Bock discuss the situation both open up to one another in his office. She tells him her life story and he in return discusses his lack of interest in what's going on around him, his loss of faith in humanity that has left him battered and bruised emotionally. In the end they sleep together and talk of him running away with her comes up.But there is something afoot in the hospital. In addition to the protests going on outside on the sidewalk as the hospital expands and evicts tenants from the properties they live in, the mix ups in the various departments, the inability to get answers to simple questions like do you have Blue Cross and more, it turns out the mysterious deaths of the staff are anything but natural. A serial killer has apparently found his/her way into the system. Is there any hope for this hospital?While this may not sound like a comedy there are comedic moments in the film. Chayefsky was a master of dialogue and this film puts that front and center. It may not be his best example (for that see NETWORK) but it does show that in the right hands a screenwriter is just as important as the director in some cases. His work here makes the chaotic land of the modern big city hospital as a place of danger as well as of healing seem as real as it can be.Director Arthur Hiller also shows a definite skill here. Known for movies like LOVE STORY, THE OUT OF TOWNERS, THE IN LAWS and SILVER STREAK, this film shows a more acid tongued approach to comedy than some of his other films. In most cases it works but when the film is over you're left thinking that the chances of change are limited at best and unexpected at worst.Scott is always a joy to watch in any film but I honestly felt he was not as keen here as in other films. His character seems to rage too often but when he's reflecting on his life he provides a dynamite performance. Rigg here is underused and shows little of the talent she's displayed in other films and on TV. Dysart is truly slimy here and does the job incredibly well. But it is Chayefsky who shines more than the rest with his writing.Twilight Time is releasing this film on blu-ray and once more has done a great job with the presentation picture wise. Extras are limited to an isolated score and effects track and the original theatrical trailer. They are once more limiting this to just 3,000 copies so if interested make sure you get one right away.

vincentlynch-moonoi Yes, I guess you had to be there...in the '70s...and I was. But I enjoyed this film much more then, than I did now, 43 years later.I'm somewhat of a fan of George C. Scott, but I am not overly impressed with him here. Not saying he does a bad job, and perhaps it's the character I don't like, but I thought at times there were traces of over-acting (such as his rage scene). Diana Rigg's acting here is downright pathetic. I particularly dislike the segment when she finds out that her father is a murderer -- she just seemed so damn apathetic about it.Barnard Hughes was the standout here! Always a terrific character actor, and here he is just wonderful as the slightly crazy religious fanatical father. In fact, without his brilliant performance, I'd drop my rating all the way down to a "4" for the overall film.Robert Walden was around as a young doctor; he was once a fairly prominent television actor, and I guess he's still around, but to me he kinda disappeared. Richard A. Dysart ("L.A. Law") is here as a sleazy doctor...and plays his part well.I guess where I have the problem is with the script, which is ironic because it was such an award winner at the time. It just seems so over the top in regards to a hospital, that it makes in unbelievable. It really could have been a very nice mystery, trying to discover who the murderer of the hospital personnel was, and why they were doing it. Instead, they just tell you, all at once. Rave about Paddy Chayefsky if you wish, but I won't.So what was the point of this film? In my view, the point was the anger of the early 1970s, and not much more. I remembered it more fondly, and now I doubt I'd ever want to watch it again.

RResende I've been having a growing interest in George Scott. He is something of a unique kind within film actors. He never embraced the Method revolution as deeply as so many of the American actors of his generation, but also he is not old-fashioned. His acting, even when he is closer to go over the top is always fluid, and his films, if dated on any respect, always work still today, because of him (at least). He is theatrical in that words, and not anything else, command his performance. His phrasing bends the text and delivers us all the nuances he requires for it. He carries a film. Here we have his talents summed up to a clever script, and a wonderful use of space, in a cinematic way. What we have is a goofy detective story, mapped into the troubled life of an undesignated detective, mapped into one single well explored set. On top of everything, we have native American mysticism, thrown under the disguise of an interesting screen woman. So this is an accidental police story. Some murders happen, few clues are given. We follow these murders from a clueless point of view which, nevertheless, does not coincide with the point of view of the tormented doctor, who will partially act as a detective, to the point of bending the outcome of the story. So the curious narrative trick here is how the narrators eye is anchored on the space of the hospital, even though the story has to do with how the doctor deals with the facts. We watch the doctor's version of the world from an point of view external to him, this is interesting. **spoilers** Than a woman gets into the story, a sexy mystic beast, who deviates us from the back story, only to the point in which we learn she has (unaware) the key to the enigma. And than we have the story of the burnt out doctor, suicidal, hopeless. This 3 threads start as separate lines that we follow, bound together by the action of the doctor. The beauty of the script i show in the end these threads have one single conclusion: the murder is the woman's father, and the woman is the healer for the doctors depression. So he protects the insane murder and intents to run away with the woman. Oh, but we have the hospital. Now we know that was the ultimate character, all the time. The doctor understands this, so he can't leave it. His existence as a character depends on the existence of that hospital, as a space. It's that space that bends everything that happens inside, as the character of an horror film which you never see even of you know he's there.Notice how this is underlined by the protesters. All the time they are outside, wanting to get in, and as the film ends and the story unfolds, it's their invasion of the hospital that makes us aware of how much we are into that character now. It's the hospital, all the way.My opinion: 4/5

Siamois The Hospital is somewhat of a cult classic for reasons that are obvious but shows unfortunate signs of age and ends up being a mixed bag. The story centers on Dr. Bock (George C. Scott) as well as the rest of the staff and the patients of a Manhattan hospital marred by bureaucratic nightmares while mysterious deaths occur. STORY:Penned by Paddy Chayefsky, this is a rather dark comedy that tackles a lot of issues which, almost 40 years later, are still very relevant. Throughout the story, the apparent flawless nature of science clashes with the failings of the nature of men. The main character Dr. Bock most brilliantly depicts this conflict. Bock is a man with intense desires and a drive to achieve yet is a broken soul. His vocation is to heal and save lives but he suffers himself from illnesses and contemplates suicide. The main character is amazing but the peripheral characters in The Hospital rarely cut it and most seem like caricatures, lessening the global impact and social commentary of the film. Furthermore, the most interesting parts of the film deal entirely with the bureaucratic aspects and the staff. The mysterious deaths take more and more importance as the story progresses and actually detract from this movie. The last half hour makes the whole almost seem pointless.CAST:On one hand, George C. Scott delivers another performance that demonstrates why he can still be considered one of the greatest actors who ever lived. His character, Dr. Bock, is complex and Scott uses all his range. This is magnificent acting. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is so-so, due to bad casting choices, weak acting and also uninspiring characters.CINEMATOGRAPHY:Rather bland and unremarkable but still serviceable. We do get a sense of the hospital building but very few shots really grabbed me.Overall, this is a fine script by Paddy Chayefsky and George C. Scott is amazing, but some of the dialog is badly dated and a better director would have crafted a better overall film. Director Arthur Hiller is mostly renowned for getting great performances out of lead actors but a Kubrick he isn't when it comes to crafting a cinematic masterpiece.