Product Description

George C. Scott delivers an OscarÂ(r)-nominated* performance as a brilliant doctor in a hospital beset by murders, madness and mayhem in this "ferocious, powerful movie of resounding proportions" (Cue). Directed by Arthur Hiller (Love Story) from an OscarÂ(r)-winnning** script by Paddy Chayefsky (Network), this intensely provocative drama will forever change the way you look at modern medicine. Dr. Bock's (Scott) life is in shambles. His wife has left him, his children don't talk to him and his once beloved teaching hospital is falling apart. As he teeters on the brink of a nervous breakdown, Brock falls for a patient's seductively charming daughter (Diana Rigg) who not only gives him something to live for but might even change his life forever. *1971: Actor **1971: Original Screenplay

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33514 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2003-09-16
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 103 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Paddy Chayefsky (Marty) wrote the script for this 1971 film that mixes--in Chayefsky tradition--absurdist satire with a touching, almost wistful love story. George C. Scott plays a cynical doctor battling bureaucratic superstructures on the one hand and hippie-dippy flakiness among some patients on the other. When he falls for an eccentric young woman (Diana Rigg) with an alternative view on everything, the road to liberation from burdensome responsibilities seems to open before him. Director Arthur Hiller (Love Story) doesn't do much more than bring the screenplay to life, though he does create a persuasive sense of urban chaos in the setting. Scott gives a good, thoughtful performance. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

DVD version is flawed!
The movie is 5 stars and one of my all time favorites. However, this DVD has severe framing problems. Within the first 15 minutes, there are three scenes where half of GC Scott's head is chopped off. Luckily, I have the laser disc version and was able to compare them side by side. It's a disgrace how misframed this DVD is. Sometimes it's the bottom of the picture that is severely cropped. The bottom line is that MGM did a sloppy job and everyone that loves this movie should send them a message demanding that a corrected version be reissued.

Number Two of Paddy Chayefsky's Triple Crown.
This is the 2nd of the three great movies Paddy Chayefsky wrote in the 60's and 70's, starting with The Americanization of Emily and ending with Network, that examined, among other things, personal responsibility and the dilemma of the individual within the demands and lunacy of institutions. They are all very funny films, and very complex, and deal with much more, of course.

Here Chayefsky takes on the bureaucratization and depersonalization of American medical care (pre the HMO era) and as always his insights and anger are pungent and on-target. Like Network, the satire and exaggeration was uncomfortably closer to the truth than any of us knew. Unfortunately, much of what Chayefsky saw and raved against, in both cases, has come to pass.

The film deals with much more: activism, the nature of love, commitment (to a profession and work as much as to an individual), urbanization and the desire to escape it all...just to name a few.

Centering the film is a simply brilliant performance by George C. Scott as a burned-out Chief of Medicine in an urban hospital: depressed, suicidal, facing the ruins of a marriage, estrangement from his family, and the loss of faith in his professional calling. He's an exhausted, defeated, angry man when we first meet him, who's life will be changed by unlikely events and people.

Scott is riveting and unforgettable. He nails this man, and knows his guilt and rage that has risen from the ruins of what must have once been love and idealism and dedication. As other reviewers have noted, his suicidal rant to Diana Rigg in the middle of the picture is not to be missed, and that alone is worth the price of the video.

The movie is savagely funny and Chayefsky's language, as always, is complex and beautiful. His respect for the competence and courage of professionals battling every sort of odds is evident. No one mined this territory like Chayefski, and this is a terrific script. The production and direction are competent. The supporting cast is fine. But it is Chayefsky's writing and Scott's performance that make it a must see.

Hope for a DVD edition soon.

George C. Scott + Paddy Chayefsky = 1st Rate Black Comedy
There is a point in "The Hospital" where Dr. Herbert Bock, played by George C. Scott in another Oscar nominated performance, looks out the window and yells: "We've established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived...and people are sicker than ever. We cure nothing! We heal nothing!" The scene and the words of Paddy Chayefsky are both etched into my memory. Before "E.R.," even before "St. Elsewhere," this film gave an audience some idea of what it was really like in a big city hospital.

Patients are suddenly dying in the strangest ways in "The Hospital." Because of the wreck and ruin of his professional and personal life, Dr. Bock is attempting suicide, only to be interrupted by Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg), who wants to return her comatose father Edmund (Barnard Hughes) to their beloved Indian reservation. It is then that Bock launches into one of the most glorious rants in cinema history. Scott never gave a better performance on film. The growing absurdity of the murders and the insane rationale of the culprit, who declares himself to be "The Paraclete of Caborga, The Angel of the Bottomless Pit," provides a marvelous and surprising resolution to the film. "The Hospital," the last literate explosion of cynicism from the fabled typewriter of Paddy Chayefsky, is far and away my favorite Black Comedy with performances the equal of the writing from the above as well as Richard Dysart, Nancy Marchand, Robert Blossoms and Stockard Channing. But be warned: You do not want to see this movie if you are going to a real hospital any time soon.