The Hospital

For the private members club in London, see The Hospital (UK).

For the TV series in Taiwan, see The Hospital (TV series).

For hospitals in general see hospital.

The Hospital is an Academy Award winning 1971 black comedy film directed by Arthur Hiller and starring George C. Scott as Dr. Herbert Bock. The script was written by Paddy Chayefsky, which was awarded the 1972 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (at that time qualified as " Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced").

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The film should not be confused with a 1970 documentary called Hospital, the 2006 Taiwanese television drama The Hospital (The Hospital (TV series), or with a 1985 short film of the same name.

Plot summary

The film tells the story of approximately twenty-four hours in the life of Dr. Bock, the Chief of Medicine at a large Manhattan teaching hospital. Bock is suffering from a mid-life crisis which has him on the brink of suicide, but is diverted from trying to solve the conundrum of how to make it look accidental (for insurance purposes) by a series of bizarre deaths among the doctors and staff of the hospital.

Awards

It won the Oscar, the Golden Globe, the WGA and the BAFTA for Best Screen-play for Chayefsky's script. Scott, not withstanding his rejection of the Oscar he was voted the previous year for Patton, was nominated for Best Actor, but the gold statuette went to Gene Hackman for The French Connection.

In 1995, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Cast

• George C. Scott as Dr. Herbert 'Herb' Bock
• Diana Rigg as Miss Barbara Drummond
• Robert Walden as Dr. Brubaker
• Barnard Hughes as Edmund Drummond [Also played Dr. Mallory (uncredited)]
• Richard A. Dysart as Dr. Welbeck
• Stephen Elliott as Dr. John Sundstrom
• Andrew Duncan as William 'Willie' Mead
• Donald Harron as Dr. Milton Mead
• Nancy Marchand as Mrs. Christie, Head of Nurses
• Jordan Charney as Hitchcock, Hospital Adm.
• Roberts Blossom as Guernsey
• Lenny Baker as Dr. Howard Schaefer
• Richard Hamilton as Dr. Ronald Casey
• Arthur Junaluska as Mr. Blacktree
• Kate Harrington as Nurse Dunne
• Katherine Helmond as Mrs. Marilyn Mead
• David Hooks as Dr. Joe Einhorn
• Frances Sternhagen as Mrs. Sally Cushing
• Stockard Channing as E.R. Nurse (uncredited)