M*A*S*H Original Movie Script

by Ring Lardner Jr.

Collector's edition of the movie scrip with reproduction of movie poster and color stills from the movie.

146 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner, Jr. (August 19, 1915 – October 31, 2000) was a screenwriter who was blacklisted after the Second World War as one of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters who were incarcerated for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions posed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

He won two Academy Awards for his screenplays—one before his imprisonment and blacklisting (for Woman of the Year in 1942), and one after (for M*A*S*H in 1970).[7] His book, The Lardners, My Family Remembered (ISBN 0-06-012517-9), is a source of information on his father.

Son of author Ring Lardner

Reviews

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

It came as a total surprise to me that the script for the movie MASH had been penned by Ring Lardner. Lardner had only been known to me as a writer of light humor doing for the mid-west something like Damon Runyon had done better for his version of Broadway in New York and both continuing the tradition of Mark Twain. My copy of Mash the Original Movie Script was a used, priced as such and therefore that much easier to convince me to buy. The movie was a bitter, and expressly bloody satire intended to remind the viewer of the costs in lives paid by warriors and as a direct anti Vietnam statement. That Lardner was literary clinical in his bitterness was no doubt driven in part to his sincere objection to America’s involvement in Vet Nam but also his personal costs as a formerly Hollywood black listed accused communist. The MASH movie script recommend itself to me as a fan of Ring Lardner and is also a must have for the fans of this iconic movie.

In truth, I was not a major fan of the movie. I watched and more than once, but beyond youthful pleasure at the anti-establishment antics of the main characters, much of the political message was lost on me. What I remember most of the movie and comes through clearest in the script, was that the bad boys, Hawkeye , Duke and most of the denizens of the swamp, was not so much anti-war or anti-establishment. The idea I got was that the best and most successful members of a wartime medical team, here the surgical center of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital are best left alone. Army uniforms and saluting and rigmarole may be useful, or not, but it makes no sense to demand it of people whose job is to be surgeons.

To this day, I tend to believe that by being best in particular job, one can earn excusal from a lot of the bureaucratic stuff the rest of us must include as part of our routines.

Reading scripts can require more imagination. My preference is for theater scripts where word play is more important than the physical action. In this script we get some sense of “Radar” as the magical person of the cast, and there is more than a little sarcasm. The dialogue does not create a movie of deep thoughts or cleaver by speaking. The speaking roles are sharply divided between people we are to agree with and those we are to dislike. Scenes are short and the pathos and humor may best be in the acting and in the visuals. The culminating football game makes for exciting reading but much of the rest can be flat.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an entertaining read.