The Hospital [DVD]

I just happened to catch this movie late one evening on a local commercial broadcasting network 'movie' channel, not necessarily a great venue for viewing better films of the highest quality. Although quite dated in terms of its time of production (early 1970s), the commentary 'The Hospital' offers is timeless in several contexts.Ostensibly a story about a dedicated but increasingly cynical physician who heads the clinical services of a major metropolitan teaching hospital, it offers thoughtful reflection on at least three different levels most insightful men can relate to. George C. Scott, a widowed physician named Dr. Bock who is (in the film) in his late 50s or early 60s, has not yet reached what I like to call 'male menopause' (a term modified from the title of UC Santa Cruz professor Page Stegner's 1977 book titled 'Sports Car Menopause') and is still subject to the allure of beautiful young women. He has also grown increasingly frustrated and burned out by the 'modern' high-pressure culture of the American 70s, wherein his teaching hospital has come under substantial demands by 'minority' groups to provide quality health care and concern for their self-perceived 'rights'. Having lost his wife and child in an accident, Dr. Bock has grown increasingly morose and at times near-suicidal. As a dedicated and idealistic physician, he finds his allegience to the medical center increasingly conflicts with his awareness that modern medicine has become corrupted by a culture that places inordinate value on status, money, and personal reward for the medical elite over the higher professional ethics. As a result, he withdraws inwardly, growingly more and more angry over his inability to change the system and/or cope with the burden he has been charged with, turning to alcohol as a paliative source for both his personal and professional frustrations.Into this setting a new patient is admitted, a former doctor himself (Dr. Drummond), suffering from an apparent coma. The patient has a dynamic, convoluted (and beautiful) young daughter (played by all-time English hottie and stage actress Diana Rigg) who immediately attracts Scott's attention with her smoldering inner depths and youthful sang froid. She quickly makes it clear she has a 'thing' for older, more mature men such as bock who are filled with angst and manages to bring Scott out of his increasing depression by having a passionate sexual relationship with him. Scott, understandably, falls for her nubile sensuality as evidence that he still 'has the right stuff', despite his embittered, raging despair, and regains his determination to live.As the movie develops, a short time later hospital staff start dying mysteriously, seemingly by accident (it would appear). Scott probes the puzzling deaths and only too late understands that the young woman's father is severely psychicatrically disturbed, after he manages to artfully murder several of the hospital staff (a OBGYN physician and a hemodialysis nurse) while feigning a coma, making the deaths look like accidents. Scott learns from the patient's daughter that his patient (her father) is a highly educated and brilliant former medical scientist whom, after withdrawing from modern culture to live with a tribe of indians in Mexico, has undergone a sort of semi-Luddite transformation and become an antagonist of modern, Western scientific technology, losing his remaining 'sanity' in the process.Meanwhile, the medical center is reeling under wave after wave of community protests (this was, after all, the early 70s era when protests against the establishment were in full ideological bloom) from urban minorities and Scott is simultaneously trying to cope with colleagues at the center, who are practicing dangerous medicine and getting away with egregious acts of lethal malpractice on a daily basis.When the impact of all of these chaotic developments finally settles in on Scott, the patient's daughter tries to convince Scott that he needs to escape the hassles and pressures of his present life and come away with her (and her father) to Mexico, back to that idyllic tribal setting she and her father formerly experienced. Scott vacillates, torn severely between escaping to that paradise of simple, uncomplicated rural existence and staying behind at the medical center to continue trying to resolve the catastrophic problems and difficulties the teaching hospital is being torn apart by.At the last minute, Scott shoulders the noble burden of responsibility and does the proper thing, as he sees it: he helps the young woman and her father escape the authorities and fly off to Mexico, while remaining behind to cope with the extreme difficulties that have threatened to shut down the medical center entirely.This film had, as mentioned earlier, several attractions for me, a former medical practitioner who cut his medical teeth in that same 70s era, when our society was seething with frustrated idealism characterised by youthful battle against the wrongs of established culture. As a person who worked in a similar metropolitan medical teaching facility and one who had also witnessed the same sort of intense cultural shear forces of that radical era at work, I found the plot of the film quite engrossing and easy to relate to from my perspective of a youthful, idealistic medical professional in the classic Ivan Illych mold (Ivan Illych was, as you may recall, a brilliant socialistic medical economist of the era--GOOGLE the name if you are unfamiliar with his many astute insights into cultural and economic ideology).Today, at the age of 63, I now find Scott's character immensely believeable and interesting, since I too have not yet reached the point where hot young, idealitic women no longer stir my primal juices, despite my progessive cynicism and cultural pessimisms (the invariable result of age on reflectively intelligent males). I also understand all too well the narrowed choices that older men face, when confronted with the ineluctible truth of the loss of their former dreams and hopes, at the end of their lives and as far from the former firey passions of youth as one may get.On all these levels, 'The Hospital' succeeds beautifully and it is clearly helped in that achievement by the talented acting of both George C. Scott as Dr. Bock and beautiful, sensually hormonal brunette Diana Rigg (as Barbara). Rigg's 'father' (Bernard Hughes, playing a character named Drummond) is also very good as the brilliant but crazed genius who has finally lost faith (and his mind) over the world's tragic excesses.Crafted by equally brilliant author & screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, this cinematic tour de force achieves almost everything it sets out to do and remains as compelling a drama today as it was back in 1971, when it initially premiered. Chayefsky was awarded an Oscar for 'Best Screenplay' and Scott only narrowly missed getting a personal Oscar as 'Best Actor' for his role in this film in 1971.[One last note: If you are a fan of timelessly sexy Diana Rigg, with her dark good looks and sensationally earthy beauty (more well known for her appearances on the English stage and as 'Emma Peel' on the UK TV series 'The Avengers'), you won't want to miss this excellent movie. Before you try to find a VHS copy of it on Amazon for your personal viewing, however, I suggest you do a quick GOOGLE research on Ivan Illych, one of the inspirational sources of medical economic philosophy who partly provided Paddy Chayefsky with the raw material for this scathingly dark satire on the excesses of modern Western medicine. Also recommended is trying to locate a copy of UC Santa Cruz Professor Page Stegner's delightfully amusing and entertaining book 'Sports Car Menopause', since it deliciously explores the challenge of being an aging male who still feels like a teenager underneath all those wrinkles, and burdened by the failed promise of flown youth and failed love.]

George C Scott is front and center in the Paddy Chayefsky penned, sometimes surprisingly silly, medical and social satire The Hospital (1971).George C gets to expound and yell when belittling the incompetent nursing staff one moment; the next all contemplative introspection when admitting thoughts of suicide to his shrink—or the wonderfully attractive Diana Rigg. I’d spill my guts too (in a manner of speaking 😉😁) to this 20 something, such a bright version of Miss Rigg.Barnard Hughes plays Diana Riggs father; and he is given the silly, serio-comic role the movie is striving to achieve: dark comedy with a point.There are a couple lessons to be learned and a trio of murders to be solved in The Hospital.The first scene really sets the tone for how silly This Hospital can be. The sex and, Oh, the incompetence is very soon to follow.Only Xtra is movie trailer. Picture (DVD) is widescreen. MGM Home Entertainment 2003.4.4 stars. Worth checking out. George C Scott is one of those actors who had ‘refused’ to be on a bad movie.

It's impossible for me to review this film without comparing it with producer/writer's Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" (1976). Many of the same issues and characters in "The Hospital" are prototypes for his masterpiece of five years later. But "The Hospital" deserves being judged on its own considerable merits.Begin with Chayefsky's script: it's brilliant. The protagonist, an esteemed medical chief of staff at a Manhattan hospital, is so deep into midlife crisis that he's teetering on the brink of suicide. That's no wonder: apart from his family's dissolution and the seeming emptiness of his accomplishments, the hospital over which he presides is falling apart at the seams: medical incompetence and greed inside, social unrest outside, and a mysterious murderer who is stalking both physicians and nurses within his precincts. From the unlikeliest of sources—both in real life and reel life—he rediscovers his purpose and responsibility to try bolstering the pillars before the institution to which he has dedicated his life falls apart. The movie begins as satire, unpredictably shifts into drama, reengages farce, then makes a swift left turn back into serious drama at the end. Chayefsky better sustained this complicated dissonance in "Network"—a social arena with which he was far more familiar—but it's a helluva balancing act. The story swirls like plates on the flexible poles in the old vaudeville act that Ed Sullivan used to present.The acting: terrific, from stars to supporting players. George C. Scott was deservedly nominated for an Oscar in the lead, a year after he had won for "Patton." It's a very tricky role, but Scott pulls it off with unbelievable believability. Diana Rigg, costarring in her first Hollywood movie, is also handed an extraordinarily complex character and rises to the occasion. As the film's linchpins these two actors prevent the picture from collapsing like a house of cards. The rest of the superb cast—among others, Stephen Elliott, Richard Dysart, Nancy Marchand, Bernard Hughes—also keeps the plates spinning amidst the drama and dark comedy.Chayefsky's gift was to pull away the curtain from society's sacred cows—the military ("The Americanization of Emily"), television ("Network"), and "The Hospital " (medicine)—to reveal their sublimity and absurdity. At age 58 he left us too soon. With astonishingly clarity he foresaw where things were headed. Now that we've arrived at those destinations, we need him more than ever to restore our confidence in frail human decency, to which he tenaciously clung.

A film that critiques an institution (a hospital) by following its flaws to their extreme possibilities. I put it in the same category as "Network" (network news), "And Justice for All" (the criminal justice system), and "Wag the Dog" (politics). Not surprisingly, two of the four films have scripts by Paddy Chayefsky. I give 4 stars rather than 5 because parts of the film seem dated, and the sexual encounter between George C. Scott and Diana Rigg is offensive and probably unnecessary.

A great movie. Loved every minute.

it is in Spanish with english subtitles........

very good

I had to return this DVD to Amazon.

Estupenda tragicomedia hospitalaria centrada en el caótico día a día de un gigantesco hospital neoyorquino. A los problemas habituales de su gestión hay que añadir una serie de misteriosas muertes en cadena entre el personal sanitario. ¿Asesinatos? ¿Accidentes? ¿Casualidades? Sólo al final lo descubriremos. Lo mejor de la función son el guión de Paddy Chayefsky (no en vano obtuvo el Oscar en 1972) y un George C. Scott colosal, sin olvidar a la siempre excelente Diana Rigg. Lamentablemente, aunque la película es magnífica, no así la edición, una auténtica chapuza indigna de la era digital, y motivo por el cual este DVD editado por Regia Films se merece una puntuación tan baja (cercana a una sola estrella).La calidad de la IMAGEN es infame, empezando por el recorte que ha sufrido el encuadre por los cuatro costados y que, a pesar de presentarse en la proporción 1.78:1 (no obstante la película se rodó en 1.85:1), decapita sin piedad a algunos actores o mutila sus barbillas en determinados primeros planos (dejando una buena porción de espacio vacío por encima de la cabeza). El peor parado es George C. Scott, que en varios momentos que se pone en pie, uno está deseando que vuelva a sentarse para verle la frente y el pelo... Una atrocidad.Para más inri, la calidad de la imagen es directamente costrosa, y encima padece de un mal que, como una enfermedad rara, surge muy de vez en cuando en algunos DVDs, haciendo que la imagen avance a trompicones. Este incómodo efecto retardante es visible, sobre todo, cuando la cámara o los personajes se mueven. Me he tomado la molestia de ver fotograma a fotograma unos cuantos minutos de película, y he descubierto que tal chapuza es debida a que después de cada 24 fotogramas (o frames), el cuadro número 25 es una repetición del anterior. De este modo se experimenta un frenazo que dura un veinticuatroavo de segundo cada muy poco tiempo. Lejos de ser un efecto imperceptible, produce la desagradable sensación de que la película tiene hipo; de principio a fin. Una auténtica tortura.En cuanto al AUDIO, la versión en castellano se escucha en un mono terriblemente apelmazado. Al menos no presenta distorsión y conserva el excelente doblaje original del estreno en cines. La versión original en inglés suena mucho mejor y puede compaginarse con unos correctos subtítulos opcionales en castellano (también los hay en inglés, aunque con frecuentes errores tipográficos).Lástima de edición para una película en verdad recomendable.