MASH (film)

MASH is a 1970 satirical American dark comedy film directed by Robert Altman, based extremely loosely on the novel written by Richard Hooker. Nominally about an outfit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, the film stars Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould. Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Tom Skerritt, Roger Bowen, Gary Burghoff, Bud Cort and Fred Williamson are also featured. MASH went on to inspire the television series M*A*S*H.

Trivia

• In the director's commentary on the DVD release of this film, Altman claims that this was the first movie to dare use the word "fuck" (spoken during the football game near the end of the film). This is perhaps untrue, however, as the movies I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname and Ulysses (both released in 1967) each claim to be the first to utter the famous profanity.
• MASH features the song "Suicide is Painless", with music by Johnny Mandel and lyrics by Mike Altman, the director's son. The television show used an instrumental version as its theme tune.
• MASH was the original title of the 1953 film Battle Circus starring Humphrey Bogart, a film also about life in a MASH unit.
• During principal photography, Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould spent a third of their time trying to get Robert Altman fired.
• In a few shots of the "speaker" at night, the moon is visible in the background. On the same night when these scenes were shot, American astronauts landed on the moon.