the hospital

The work of Paddy Chayefsky speaks for itself...yet somehow manages to give you plenty to talk about. And while Marty and Network figure most prominently in his Hollywood oeuvre, almost all of his work is designed to push your buttons. With 1971's The Hospital, a razor-sharp condemnation of institutionalized medicine, the writer jumps frenetically between scathing satire and middle-age emotional angst, challenging the audience to keep up with his unpredictable shifts in tone and disarmingly insightful dialogue. The Hospital's rule-breaking Rube Goldberg script structure earned itself an Oscar and still feels as if it's pulling off something cinematically illegal...or at the very least entertainingly subversive.

Dr. Herbert Bock (George C. Scott) is Chief of Medicine at one of the top hospitals in Manhattan, a facility that's bitten off more than it can chew, with patients herded like cattle through the administrative process while the board of directors plot an expansion of their already overloaded medical system. The professional pressure, combined with his disastrous personal life, has left Bock in a near suicidal state with only an overdeveloped sense of responsibility to keep him going.

But the botched - and unnecessary - procedure performed on a Mexican missionary introduces him to the patient's daughter, Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg), a free spirit who feels the hospital is doing her father more harm than good. And Bock is forced to agree when several doctors and nurses wind up dying under mysterious circumstances within his own walls. As the body count rises, one crisis after another corners Bock to an emotional meltdown, one that will either push him over the edge for good...or save him from himself.

Sold as a M.A.S.H.-style satire, Chayefsky's script is much more far-reaching than that. And although some witty observations rise to the top, The Hospital is closer to reality (even now) than most medical professionals would care to admit; only the fear of a malpractice lawsuit seems to keep the machinery in motion. But at the heart of it all is George C. Scott's performance as Herbert Bock, a man whose only reason for living is his job, who long ago traded true love for responsibility and has been paying the price ever since. This self-loathing middle-class dichotomy is the real cancer lurking among us all, Chayefsky seems to say; the rest of our social problems are merely symptomatic.

The Hospital is the kind of movie that exists almost in spite of itself. Chayefsky's dialogue is intoxicating - even when it comes close to swirling down a drain of self-aggrandizement - and the cast tees up each word with delicious relish. Director Arthur Hiller, who oddly enough would take on the educational establishment in much the same way with 1984's Teachers, does his best to keep up but has trouble working the murder-mystery into Chayefsky's rushed narrative. That The Hospital tries to do too much is certainly one of its flaws, but it's one that most movie fans would be willing to praise rather than punish.

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray presents the film in fine hi-def form, with that unmistakable sheen of '70s film-stock grain throughout and some light speckling as well. Extras are limited to an isolated music & effects track (composer Morris Surdin is asked to do very little in his sole feature film) plus theatrical trailer and liner notes.