This splendid black comedy stars George C Scott as Dr Bock, the Chief of Medicine in a large New York hospital who is investigating a recent spate of inexplicable deaths at the hospital.
Trying to establish how one of his staff has been sedated and then killed by an overdose in place of one of the patients, Dr Bock shouts.
His matron remains calm if defensive, blaming the whole thing on an over-complicated system. “Where do you train your nurses, matron?” he bellows, finally. “Dachau?”
Bock is a suicidal, impotent alcoholic, his wife has left him, and his children aren’t speaking to him.
His son is an alienated Maoist and his daughter has had three abortions and just been arrested for drug pushing. A typical prosperous American family, he explains laconically.
In the midst of his investigations, he is romantically drawn to the much younger virility-restoring ex-nurse Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg in her US film debut), whose father is a patient.
The film takes swipes at fashionable radical premises. Buzzing like horse flies around the flanks of the already harassed organisation are a group of assorted activist objecting to the fact that the condemned buildings they live in are to become the site of a new clinic instead of new housing.
Stockard Channing appears in her feature film debut as an uncredited nurse.
The hospital seen in this movie was New York City’s vast Metropolitan Hospital Center. Filming took place on two floors of a new psychiatric centre which was under construction, and not due to start receiving patients until after the shooting had been completed.
Dr Herbert Bock
George C. Scott Barbara Drummond
Diana Rigg Drummond/Dr Mallory
Barnard Hughes Dr Welbeck
Richard Dysart Dr Sundstrom
Stephen Elliott Milton Mead
Donald Harron William Mead
Andrew Duncan Mrs Christie
Nancy Marchand Hitchcock
Jordan Charney Guernsey
Roberts Blossom Dr Schaefer
Lenny Baker Dr Ronald Casey
Richard Hamilton Mr Blacktree
Arthur Junaluska Nurse Dunne
Kate Harrington Marilyn Mead
Katherine Helmond Dr Einhorn
David Hooks Mrs Cushing
Frances Sternhagen Dr Brubaker
Robert Walden Dr Spezio
Rehn Scofield Dr Bock’s Secretary
Carolyn Krigbaum
Director
Arthur Hiller
Related Posts
Coma (1978) When Nancy Greenly (Lois Chiles) suffers irreparable brain damage after a routine operation at Boston Memorial Hospital, her close friend,…
Asylum of Satan (1972) Shot in Louisville, Kentucky on a budget of just $50,000, Asylum of Satan was director William Girdler’s first feature film,…
Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse (1978) Every opportunity for smutty innuendo is seized in this hospital comedy as Debbie Ash suffers countless indignities in the title…
Zee & Co (1972) London architect Robert Blakeley (Michael Caine) and his wife Zee (Elizabeth Taylor) are a self-absorbed pair with a love-hate marriage…
Silver Streak (1976) George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) is an overworked and exhausted publisher who boards a train from Los Angeles to Chicago. As…
Mind Of Mr Soames, The (1970) Thirty-year-old John Soames (Terence Stamp) has been in a coma all his life when he is suddenly restored to consciousness…
That Lucky Touch (1975) Roger Moore plays Michael Scott, a playboy arms dealer living in Brussels who is trying to interest NATO in some…
Born To Win (1971) Side-burned hepcat Jay Jay (George Segal) learnt his effortless charm while dressing the hair of the ladies of New York…
Trying to establish how one of his staff has been sedated and then killed by an overdose in place of one of the patients, Dr Bock shouts.
The film takes swipes at fashionable radical premises. Buzzing like horse flies around the flanks of the already harassed organisation are a group of assorted activist objecting to the fact that the condemned buildings they live in are to become the site of a new clinic instead of new housing.
