The Hospital

1971's THE HOSPITAL announces its trenchant self from the opening moments, complete with screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's narration of how an elderly man is misdiagnosed twice within a few hours at a NYC Hospital.  The patient died soon after.  But so did one of the doctors who misdiagnosed him, after he used the patient's now vacant bed to have a romp with one of the lab tech girls.  Later, another doctor dies in the ER when he is forgotten in a corner after some cardiac issues.  The incompetence is rampant.  Is this in part because the Chief of Medicine is distracted my a multitude or crises in his life? Or concern about the growing crowd of protesters, some of whom work for the hospital?

Arthur Hiller directed the movie, but Chayefsky, who co-produced and had casting say, owns it.  It's his creation from the word go, and God bless the fact that a writer had this much control.  The early '70s were truly a golden age in Hollywood.  His film is a seething indictment of the medical profession, with issues that are still all too common for physicians and their staffs.  And their patients, of course.   I was surprised at how little has changed in the twenty first century.  And Chayefsky really did his homework.  The medical discussions are seemingly accurate, as are the back and forths about insurance, and accordingly the administrators who are (often legitimately) demonized.  Frances Sternhagen plays such a woman and her fruitless efforts to get anyone to do their damn paperwork in the emergency room is a small masterpiece.

The film is filled with small masterpieces.  Chayefsky's speeches and soliloquies are at times quite astonishing.  Delivering several of them are George C. Scott as Dr. Bock, who vainly tries to guide his staff and residents amidst chaos.  I'm thinking of his soul baring to the hospital shrink, where we learn about his fractured family life.  And later, his drunken, suicidal rant to a beautiful young woman named Barbara (Diana Rigg) whose father is a patient.  Hearing the words is a reminder of how integral great writing was to old Hollywood.  Here, Chayefsky approaches the mastery he achieved some years later with NETWORK.

THE HOSPITAL is that rare bird to weave pathos and humor seamlessly, and the cast really brings it.  Especially Mr. Scott,  in what may arguably be his finest hour.