History Film / Mash

In the midst of the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar, the 4077th [[FunWithAcronyms Mobile Army Surgical Hospital]], commanded by Lt. Col. Henry Blake (Roger Bowen), is tasked with patching up the wounded. A pair of fresh draftee surgeons, "Hawkeye" Pierce (Creator/DonaldSutherland) and "Duke" Forrest (Creator/TomSkerritt), arrive on the scene; defying all conventions, and soon accompanied by fellow surgeon "Trapper John" [=McIntyre=] (Creator/ElliottGould), they proceed to "fix up" the mood in the hospital with their brand of wild black humor.

* {{Cameo}}: Musician and actor Bobby Troup as Staff Sergeant Gorman, Hawkeye and Trapper's ill-tempered jeep driver in Tokyo. ("Goddamn Army!")

* DevastatingRemark: O' Houlihan tries to give Col. Blake an ultimatum, either have the [=MPs=] arrest the crew of The Swamp or she'll resign her commission. Blake, fed up with her, responds, "Goddamnit, Hot Lips, resign your goddamn commission!" O' Houlihan leaves, in shock, wailing about her commission.

* LOL69: During the football game, a player from the 4077th with the jersey #69 says something which causes an opposing player to attack him and chase him down the field[[note]]the player in question had made an insulting racial slur towards #69 during the previous play; he retaliated by making a salacious comment about the player's sister[[/note]]. Seeing this as an opportunity to boost the team's morale, Major Houlihan leads the other cheerleaders in chanting "Sixty-Nine is divine!", apparently oblivious to the DoubleEntendre.

In the midst of the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar, the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, commanded by Lt. Col. Henry Blake (Roger Bowen), is tasked with patching up the wounded. A pair of fresh draftee surgeons, "Hawkeye" Pierce (Creator/DonaldSutherland) and "Duke" Forrest (Creator/TomSkerritt), arrive on the scene; defying all conventions, and soon accompanied by fellow surgeon "Trapper John" [=McIntyre=] (Creator/ElliottGould), they proceed to "fix up" the mood in the hospital with their brand of wild black humor.

The film's plot -- such as it is -- consists of various episodes dealing with the surgeons' on- and off-duty escapades, including their personality clashes with their erstwhile tentmate, Maj. Frank Burns (Creator/RobertDuvall), and with the newly-appointed head nurse, Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Creator/SallyKellerman); Hawkeye's romantic pursuit of nurse Lt. "Dish" Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug); the depression and "assisted suicide" of dental surgeon "Painless Pole" Waldowski (John Schuck); the drafting of the surgeons' South Korean houseboy, Ho-jon (Kim Atwood); Hawkeye and Trapper's trip to Tokyo to operate on a Congressman's son -- and play some golf; and a football game against a team from the 325th Evacuation Hospital.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* AttendingYourOwnFuneral: The unit dentist, "Painless Pole", wanted to commit suicide, so they set up a mock funeral for him so he could take cyanide and die in a casket. The cyanide pills were fake, and the only dying he did was [[GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex in the Shakespearean sense]].

[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mash_1970.jpeg]]

A 1970 comedy film [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] [[{{Literature/Mash}} Richard Hooker's novel]], ''M*A*S*H'' was the first major hit for its director, Creator/RobertAltman, and the inspiration for the popular and long-running [[{{Series/Mash}} television series]] a few years later.

Winner of the UsefulNotes/PalmeDOr at Cannes, and nominated for five UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s (winning for Best Adapted Screenplay). Also notable as one of several different Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox films alleged to have been the first pre-recorded videocassette to roll off the assembly line at Creator/MagneticVideo in the fall of 1977.

* AngryBlackMan: The motor pool sergeant in the opening scene.

The film's plot -- such as it is -- consists of various episodes dealing with the surgeons' on- and off-duty escapades, including their personality clashes with their erstwhile tentmate, Maj. Frank Burns (Creator/RobertDuvall), and with the newly-appointed head nurse, Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Creator/SallyKellerman); Hawkeye's romantic pursuit of nurse Lt. "Dish" Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug); the depression and "assisted suicide" of dental surgeon "Painless Pole" Waldowski (John Schuck); the drafting of the surgeons' South Korean houseboy, Ho-jon (Kim Atwood); Hawkeye and Trapper's trip to Tokyo to operate on a Congressman's son (and play some golf); and a football game against a team from the 325th Evacuation Hospital.

* AdaptationDistillation: The film took the novel's main themes, stripped out most of the [[ValuesDissonance uglier parts]], and came up with this.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: Ho-jon, who is killed off in the novel. As noted above Ho-jon was originally supposed to be the soldier who receives Col. Blake's blood, as well as the corpse being hauled away at the end. Instead the Korean soldier was changed to a North Korean soldier (although certain shots show that it plainly ''is'' the same actor, Kim Atwood) and a POW and the corpse is a random background event.

* CoolShades: Hawkeye wears tinted glasses (although they do appear to also be prescription lenses) along with a NiceHat. Trapper is shown wearing actual sunglasses in a couple scenes.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Including about a dozen major ones.

* PantyShot: The 4077th cheerleaders, in pleated skirts, do a cartwheel.

* BreakTheHaughty: Hawkeye, Trapper and Duke do this to Hot Lips. It's actually rather uncomfortable viewing, as they choose to sexually humiliate her by broadcasting her sex with Frank to the whole unit, and later by pulling up the shower tent while she's in it and half the camp has ComeToGawk. But by the end Hot Lips has become one of the gang, attending one of their poker games.

The film's plot -- such as it is -- consists of various episodes dealing with the surgeons' on- and off-duty escapades, including their personality clashes with their erstwhile tentmate, Maj. Frank Burns (Creator/RobertDuvall), and with the newly-appointed head nurse, Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Creator/SallyKellerman); Hawkeye's romantic pursuit of nurse Lt. "Dish" Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug); the depression and "assisted suicide" of dental surgeon "Painless Pole" Waldowski (John Schuck); the drafting of the surgeons' South Korean houseboy, Ho-Jon (Kim Atwood); Hawkeye and Trapper's trip to Tokyo to operate on a Congressman's son (and play some golf); and a football game against a team from the 325th Evacuation Hospital.

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: While the surgeons are playing poker toward the end of the film, we see a jeep rolling past the tent bearing a corpse covered in a white sheet. This was originally part of a (deleted) subplot involving Ho-Jon getting wounded in action and then dying in surgery.

* InTheStyleOf: Mike Altman has said that Music/LeonardCohen was a big influence on the lyrics of "Suicide is Painless".

The film's plot -- such as it is -- consists of various episodes dealing with the surgeons' escapades while on and off duty, such as their personality clashes with their erstwhile tentmate, Maj. Frank Burns (Creator/RobertDuvall), and with the newly-appointed head nurse, Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Creator/SallyKellerman); Hawkeye's romantic pursuit of nurse Lt. "Dish" Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug); the depression and "assisted suicide" of dental surgeon "Painless Pole" Waldowski (John Schuck); the drafting of the surgeons' South Korean houseboy, Ho-Jon (Kim Atwood); Hawkeye and Trapper's trip to Tokyo to operate on a Congressman's son (and play some golf); and a football game against a team from the 325th Evacuation Hospital.

The film's plot -- such as it is -- consists of various episodes dealing with the surgeons' escapades in the hospital, such as their personality clashes with their erstwhile tentmate, Maj. Frank Burns (Creator/RobertDuvall), and with the newly-appointed head nurse, Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Creator/SallyKellerman); Hawkeye's romantic pursuit of nurse Lt. "Dish" Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug); the depression and "assisted suicide" of dental surgeon "Painless Pole" Waldowski (John Schuck); the drafting of the surgeons' South Korean houseboy, Ho-Jon (Kim Atwood); Hawkeye and Trapper's trip to Tokyo to operate on a Congressman's son (and play some golf); and a football game against a team from the 325th Evacuation Hospital.

The film's plot consists of various episodes dealing with the surgeons' escapades in the hospital, such as their personality clashes with their erstwhile tentmate, Maj. Frank Burns (Creator/RobertDuvall), and with the newly-appointed head nurse, Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Creator/SallyKellerman); Hawkeye's romantic pursuit of married nurse Lt. "Dish" Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug); the depression and "assisted suicide" of dental surgeon "Painless Pole" Waldowski (John Schuck); the drafting of the surgeons' Korean houseboy, Ho-Jon (Kim Atwood); Hawkeye and Trapper's trip to Tokyo to operate on a Congressman's son (and play some golf); and a football game against a team from the 325th Evacuation Hospital.

The film's plot consists of various episodes dealing with the surgeons' escapades in the hospital, such as their personality clashes with their erstwhile tentmate, Maj. Frank Burns (Creator/RobertDuvall), and with the newly-appointed head nurse, Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Creator/SallyKellerman); Hawkeye's romantic pursuit of nurse Lt. "Dish" Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug); the depression and "assisted suicide" of dental surgeon "Painless Pole" Waldowski (John Schuck); the drafting of the surgeons' Korean houseboy, Ho-Jon (Kim Atwood); Hawkeye and Trapper's trip to Tokyo to operate on a Congressman's son (and play some golf); and a football game against a team from the 325th Evacuation Hospital.

[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mash_1970.jpeg]]

In the midst of the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar, the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, commanded by Lt. Col. Henry Blake (Roger Bowen), is tasked with patching up the wounded. A couple of fresh draftee surgeons, "Hawkeye" Pierce (Creator/DonaldSutherland) and "Duke" Forrest (Creator/TomSkerritt), arrive on the scene; defying all conventions, they and fellow surgeon "Trapper John" [=McIntyre=] (Creator/ElliottGould) proceed to "fix up" the mood in the hospital with their brand of black humor.

[[quoteright:314:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mash_1970.jpeg]]