Humprey Bogart is a doctor with the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, MASH Unit #8666, in a non comedy preview of the more notable TV Series of the early 1970's. The early going in the film really left me disoriented when the unit's encampment undergoes strafing fire, while more than once and clearly visible, a warplane bearing USAF markings is shown flying by. Seems to me like someone should have caught that.
Besides some interesting scenes portraying the daily life and death struggles of a Korean War medical team, the story follows Major Jed Webbe's (Bogey) romancing of a newly assigned nurse, Lt. Ruth McGara (June Allyson). However there's nothing subtle about Webbe's approach, and it's surprising that McGara allows this affair to blossom considering how much of a chauvinist the Major turns out to be. In fact, he's a genuine creep when you get right down to it.
Keenan Wynn is fairly effective as Sgt. Orvil Statt, competently running the basic mechanics of the unit, with impressive views of breaking down and setting up camp. Robert Keith is the no nonsense Lt. Col. Walters, who takes Webbe down a peg for getting drunk on his own time, and later offers him a drink after a particularly hairy operation. War is hell.
You'll have to really pay attention to the only attempt at comic relief here, since it's a visual - the sign underneath the camp cook's serving table states "This Mess Recommended by Romanoff".
Humphrey Bogart made a number of war films, but much like the Westerns in which he appeared, this just doesn't appear to be his element. He was much better suited for the gangster and noir dramas that made him famous, and "Casablanca" didn't hurt either. Here, with his age showing through, he seemed entirely mismatched with the younger June Allyson, whose clout as a leading lady here is much subdued.
With only one tense scene involving a Korean prisoner (Philip Ahn) threatening to blow up a grenade in an operating room, the film offers no defining moments and very little battle action. In fact, the movie doesn't really even have an ending. As the MASH Unit detours it's way around an active battle zone, all you have left is Bogey and Allyson walking off into the sunset as it were, perhaps wondering what might have happened if the grenade went off.
Besides some interesting scenes portraying the daily life and death struggles of a Korean War medical team, the story follows Major Jed Webbe's (Bogey) romancing of a newly assigned nurse, Lt. Ruth McGara (June Allyson). However there's nothing subtle about Webbe's approach, and it's surprising that McGara allows this affair to blossom considering how much of a chauvinist the Major turns out to be. In fact, he's a genuine creep when you get right down to it.
Keenan Wynn is fairly effective as Sgt. Orvil Statt, competently running the basic mechanics of the unit, with impressive views of breaking down and setting up camp. Robert Keith is the no nonsense Lt. Col. Walters, who takes Webbe down a peg for getting drunk on his own time, and later offers him a drink after a particularly hairy operation. War is hell.
You'll have to really pay attention to the only attempt at comic relief here, since it's a visual - the sign underneath the camp cook's serving table states "This Mess Recommended by Romanoff".
Humphrey Bogart made a number of war films, but much like the Westerns in which he appeared, this just doesn't appear to be his element. He was much better suited for the gangster and noir dramas that made him famous, and "Casablanca" didn't hurt either. Here, with his age showing through, he seemed entirely mismatched with the younger June Allyson, whose clout as a leading lady here is much subdued.
With only one tense scene involving a Korean prisoner (Philip Ahn) threatening to blow up a grenade in an operating room, the film offers no defining moments and very little battle action. In fact, the movie doesn't really even have an ending. As the MASH Unit detours it's way around an active battle zone, all you have left is Bogey and Allyson walking off into the sunset as it were, perhaps wondering what might have happened if the grenade went off.