Rating: 
Summary: unrealistic
Review: The main draw of this movie is the rare appearance of Dianna Rigg outside Shakespearian theatre after her Avengers run. She is much more sexual in appearance and speech than her role in The Avengers including a low cut outfit and what seems a heavily padded bra.For the plot to work the hospital is organized in a totally different, suboptimal, way than real hospitals. For instance, in real emergency rooms people are treated first and then at checkout asked for their insurance. Also for the plot to work totally illogical things have to happen. Not to spoil the movie for you I cannot tell details, but ask yourself on the second viewing how a certain person could gain the knowledge that motivated his conduct.
Rating:
Summary: DVD version is flawed!
Review: The movie is 5 stars and one of my all time favorites. However, this DVD has severe framing problems. Within the first 15 minutes, there are three scenes where half of GC Scott's head is chopped off. Luckily, I have the laser disc version and was able to compare them side by side. It's a disgrace how misframed this DVD is. Sometimes it's the bottom of the picture that is severely cropped. The bottom line is that MGM did a sloppy job and everyone that loves this movie should send them a message demanding that a corrected version be reissued.
Rating:
Summary: DVD version is flawed!
Review: The movie is 5 stars and one of my all time favorites. However, this DVD has severe framing problems. Within the first 15 minutes, there are three scenes where half of GC Scott's head is chopped off. Luckily, I have the laser disc version and was able to compare them side by side. It's a disgrace how misframed this DVD is. Sometimes it's the bottom of the picture that is severely cropped. The bottom line is that MGM did a sloppy job and everyone that loves this movie should send them a message demanding that a corrected version be reissued.
Rating: 
Summary: George C. Scott + Paddy Chayefsky = 1st Rate Black Comedy
Review: There is a point in "The Hospital" where Dr. Herbert Bock, played by George C. Scott in another Oscar nominated performance, looks out the window and yells: "We've established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived...and people are sicker than ever. We cure nothing! We heal nothing!" The scene and the words of Paddy Chayefsky are both etched into my memory. Before "E.R.," even before "St. Elsewhere," this film gave an audience some idea of what it was really like in a big city hospital. Patients are suddenly dying in the strangest ways in "The Hospital." Because of the wreck and ruin of his professional and personal life, Dr. Bock is attempting suicide, only to be interrupted by Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg), who wants to return her comatose father Edmund (Barnard Hughes) to their beloved Indian reservation. It is then that Bock launches into one of the most glorious rants in cinema history. Scott never gave a better performance on film. The growing absurdity of the murders and the insane rationale of the culprit, who declares himself to be "The Paraclete of Caborga, The Angel of the Bottomless Pit," provides a marvelous and surprising resolution to the film. "The Hospital," the last literate explosion of cynicism from the fabled typewriter of Paddy Chayefsky, is far and away my favorite Black Comedy with performances the equal of the writing from the above as well as Richard Dysart, Nancy Marchand, Robert Blossoms and Stockard Channing. But be warned: You do not want to see this movie if you are going to a real hospital any time soon.
Rating:
Summary: George C. Scott + Paddy Chayefsky = 1st Rate Black Comedy
Review: There is a point in "The Hospital" where Dr. Herbert Bock, played by George C. Scott in another Oscar nominated performance, looks out the window and yells: "We've established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived...and people are sicker than ever. We cure nothing! We heal nothing!" The scene and the words of Paddy Chayefsky are both etched into my memory. Before "E.R.," even before "St. Elsewhere," this film gave an audience some idea of what it was really like in a big city hospital. Patients are suddenly dying in the strangest ways in "The Hospital." Because of the wreck and ruin of his professional and personal life, Dr. Bock is attempting suicide, only to be interrupted by Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg), who wants to return her comatose father Edmund (Barnard Hughes) to their beloved Indian reservation. It is then that Bock launches into one of the most glorious rants in cinema history. Scott never gave a better performance on film. The growing absurdity of the murders and the insane rationale of the culprit, who declares himself to be "The Paraclete of Caborga, The Angel of the Bottomless Pit," provides a marvelous and surprising resolution to the film. "The Hospital," the last literate explosion of cynicism from the fabled typewriter of Paddy Chayefsky, is far and away my favorite Black Comedy with performances the equal of the writing from the above as well as Richard Dysart, Nancy Marchand, Robert Blossoms and Stockard Channing. But be warned: You do not want to see this movie if you are going to a real hospital any time soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Important Film -- bad DVD
Review: This is a must-see for 1970s film buffs in particular. Consider it a kind of companion piece to "Network," another Paddy Chayefsky-scripted masterwork that deals with similar themes.
In both, a madman claiming to be on a mission from God takes it upon himself to "cleanse" a corrupted society. Meanwhile, our hero -- a cynical middle-aged man (here played by the amazing George C. Scott) -- struggles to find a purpose in the world as the relationships and institutions he's spent a lifetime building crumble around him.
"The Hospital" works best when it's in black comedy mode. A series of horrible and hilarious hospital mishaps form the backbone of the plot, and rise, by the end of the film, to a crazy crescendo.
For a long spot in the middle, though, Chayefsky and director Arthur Hiller focus on the Scott character's cynical rage, mostly in the form of several long monologues. Brilliant, eloquent writing, yes, but at some point it gets repetitive and, to my mind, indulgent.
Even those spots are worth viewing for Scott's mesmerizing performance though. And as he did with "Network," Chayefsky has created, here, a visionary piece of social commentary. Despite all mankind's medical breakthroughs, Scott screams at one point, "We're sicker than ever!" Given the current health care crisis, "The Hospital" is nothing short of prophetic.
That said, I have to agree with the reviewer, above, that this important film could have been better presented on DVD. The framing is indeed awful -- in one early scene, the characters' heads disappear entirely offscreen. Squeezing the film into wide-screen format also results in the actors appearing "stretched" and elongated. C'mon, MGM. You can do better than this.
Rating:
Summary: Number Two of Paddy Chayefsky's Triple Crown.
Review: This is the 2nd of the three great movies Paddy Chayefsky wrote in the 60's and 70's, starting with The Americanization of Emily and ending with Network, that examined, among other things, personal responsibility and the dilemma of the individual within the demands and lunacy of institutions. They are all very funny films, and very complex, and deal with much more, of course. Here Chayefsky takes on the bureaucratization and depersonalization of American medical care (pre the HMO era) and as always his insights and anger are pungent and on-target. Like Network, the satire and exaggeration was uncomfortably closer to the truth than any of us knew. Unfortunately, much of what Chayefsky saw and raved against, in both cases, has come to pass. The film deals with much more: activism, the nature of love, commitment (to a profession and work as much as to an individual), urbanization and the desire to escape it all...just to name a few. Centering the film is a simply brilliant performance by George C. Scott as a burned-out Chief of Medicine in an urban hospital: depressed, suicidal, facing the ruins of a marriage, estrangement from his family, and the loss of faith in his professional calling. He's an exhausted, defeated, angry man when we first meet him, who's life will be changed by unlikely events and people. Scott is riveting and unforgettable. He nails this man, and knows his guilt and rage that has risen from the ruins of what must have once been love and idealism and dedication. As other reviewers have noted, his suicidal rant to Diana Rigg in the middle of the picture is not to be missed, and that alone is worth the price of the video. The movie is savagely funny and Chayefsky's language, as always, is complex and beautiful. His respect for the competence and courage of professionals battling every sort of odds is evident. No one mined this territory like Chayefski, and this is a terrific script. The production and direction are competent. The supporting cast is fine. But it is Chayefsky's writing and Scott's performance that make it a must see. Hope for a DVD edition soon.
Rating:
Summary: Forgotten essential movie
Review: This movie has been basicly forgotten and ignored by the current generation. I first saw it when I was a junior in medical school, and almost fell out of my chair laughing. It was true when it came out, and is even more true now. We are all lost in a Kafkaese maze of numbers and names. It came out in the same year as MASH, and deserves equal standing. MASH must be on TV every other month or so, but I've never seen Hospital at all. The only other black comedy that stands with it is Dr Strangelove, probably the greatest movie of its type ever made.
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