Robert Altman’s MASH won the Palme d’Or, and an Academy Award for Best Screen play in 1970; however, New York Times critic, Roger Greenspun, condemned Altman’s black comedy, because it “… openly ridicule[d] belief in G-d”.

Other critics followed suit annoyed by characters they called anarchic, rebellious, irreverent, sadistic, and mean-spirited. And they were: Duke, Hawkeye, and Trapper John (Tom Skeritt, Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould)— three surgeons stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit during the Korean War — gorily hack and saw away at limbs as if they are casually scoring lumber. To keep sane, they play hateful jokes on senior officers like hiding a microphone and publicly broadcasting a hook-up between Major “Hotlips” Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), who is obsessed with protocol, and Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), a military disciplinarian and religious fanatic. They defy camp rules by hosting football gambling events; they fly to Japan so that they can play golf.

At the time, America was deeply enmeshed in the Vietnam War; these were not the do-right, feel-good war heroes that many wanted to see in a war story. Yet, perhaps Altman’s anti-war heroes represented something Americans had to face: war’s irrational, dark, desperate, and corrosive effects on humanity. Although Altman’s guerilla style shooting and directing in MASH placed him among the Hollywood directing elite, he once said: “This film wasn’t released—It escaped.” 

He had had a contentious relationship with FOX studio execs; the movie nearly got slapped with an X-rating for being the first movie where an actor said “f-ck” on film. In addition, the main actors (Gould and Sutherland) tried to get Altman dumped because they thought he wasn’t putting them in enough scenes; Altman had hired many unknown actors and had them improvise much of the script. Despite these setbacks, MASH became one of the highest- grossing movies of the 1970s. It inspired MASH the TV series, which enjoyed an 11-year run.

(Picture: MASH, Director Robert Altman, Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland on the set, 1970)