On the Eve of War

---

---

On the eve of any armed conflict, there is that almost surreal will–they–or–won't–they kind of period when the people whose lives (most of them, anyway) will be shattered by decisions they do not make and actions they do not take are cast into limbo. And they wait to see if, well, they will or they won't.

Then the inevitable happens, and they must adapt to the new situation. Sometimes it requires them to shift their attitudes and their beliefs.

"One Minute to Zero," which made its debut on this day in 1952, was about such a time in the early days of the Korean War.

Ann Blyth, who was 23 at the time, played an idealistic United Nations worker in Korea just before the outbreak of the war — a pacifist who rejected all the evidence around her that a war was imminent. Like all of us, her character was shaped by its experiences, and she had lost her husband in World War II. Like many others she believed the U.N. was the legacy of the Allies' victory in World War II and that its mission was to prevent violent conflict around the world. She mistakenly believed it would do so in Korea.

I don't recall if her character's age was mentioned in the movie, but it is likely that Blyth was playing a character at least a few years older. Blyth was about 16 when World War II ended.

---

---

Robert Mitchum played a career military man who had risen to the rank of colonel. Experience had made him more pragmatic about the situation, and Blyth's character ultimately acquiesced.

Not to take a position in this, but it seemed to me that Blyth's character was eager to switch sides, perhaps a bit too eager. But that was in keeping with the rest of the movie, I thought. And it was in keeping with the times and the perceived woman's role in relationships, I suppose.

While I can think of several movies that managed to combine a good war story with a good love story in which characters didn't have to sacrifice principle, "One Minute to Zero" seemed to do little more than string together cliches from the better movies of its type — and the relationship between Blyth's character and Mitchum's character was a little too formulaic for my taste.

By and large, the females in the movies of that time yielded to the men in their lives on most things. I'm not suggesting that female leads in movies should arbitrarily take positions that are opposite of their significant others' simply to establish their independence. But neither should they go so far to the other extreme.

Perhaps that is something that was learned in that era — but is not always practiced today.

Early in the movie Blyth's character clearly had principles, but it didn't take much for her to shift to Mitchum's more pragmatic position that one had to fight fire with fire.

---

---

I learned long ago that you really can't reach a conclusion based strictly on Academy Award nominations — and the class of 1952 is a good example of that — but they can provide some insight into the quality of a movie.

And "One Minute to Zero" received no Oscar nominations.

Take from that what you will.

A Midsummer Night at M*A*S*H 4077th

---

---

"As of last Tuesday, our C.P.A. is a certified public enemy — having been incarcerated on five counts of fraud, two counts of embezzlement and countless counts concerning accounts for which he cannot ... account."

Charles (David Ogden Stiers)

---

I don't think it is necessary to have seen very many episodes of M*A*S*H before it occurs to you that the South Korea of the M*A*S*H universe was always either bitterly cold or brutally hot.

That is probably a bit of an exaggeration — but only a bit. The Korean weather was frequently the subject of jokes on the series, occasionally running for entire episodes, like the one that first aired on this night in 1981, "No Sweat."

Now, I have never been to Asia, but I understand that winters can be quite cold and summers can be hot and humid so that part is accurate. I also gather that the spring and fall months can have their pleasant moments, just as they do in this part of the world.

In other words, South Korea has its extreme moments weatherwise — but, really, doesn't every place? South Korea may have more of those moments than many places, but, come on. I live in Texas. As Gen. Phil Sheridan reportedly said, "If I owned Texas and hell, I would rent Texas and live in hell." We know all about heat here.

And folks in Canada know all about the cold and snow. I guess there are a couple of thousand miles between Texas and Canada, but we do have our bitterly cold snaps here during the winter, and Canadians have their brutally hot snaps in the summer. No place is immune, but few places go careening from one extreme to the other all year long.

In this particular episode, the folks at M*A*S*H were experiencing a severe heat wave, the kind that keeps you awake at night. Now, I'm the kind of person who can't sleep when I am hot and sweaty, anyway, so I could sympathize with the M*A*S*H folks, who were perspiring a lot in this heat wave — especially Margaret (Loretta Swit), who had developed a bad case of prickly heat on her derriere. She needed a certain kind of lotion to ease her suffering, but there had been so many cases of prickly heat that the camp was out of the lotion.

Everyone was affected by the heat, though, and the whole camp was up in the wee hours of the morning, looking for ways to fill the time. I have had my issues with insomnia from time to time as well, and I know how it feels to be up because it is so hot. As I said, I find it difficult to sleep when I am hot and sweaty, and it wasn't hard for me to project myself into their situation. I sure have been there. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again — but, as I say, I live in Texas. It is inevitable that I will be overwhelmed by the heat at some point.

(I have been so desperate to find a way to fill the time when I have been up with insomnia that once I mopped the floors in the kitchen and bathroom at about 2 or 3 in the morning. I guess I was hoping it would make me tired enough to fall asleep. Didn't work. I worked up a good sweat, but never fell asleep.)

Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) was up tinkering with the camp's P.A. system. He aspired to be a TV repairman when he went home, and he was getting in some electronics repair practice. Col. Potter (Harry Morgan) came into the office to fetch a sleeping pill. He was sure it would work because it always put him under, but he didn't want to grow dependent on them, which is why he kept them in his office, not his quarters.

Across the camp Major Charles Emerson Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) was trying to sort through his family's financial affairs. The family accountant had been convicted of fraud, embezzlement and, as Winchester put it, "countless counts concerning accounts for which he cannot ... account." Thus, his family had sent all its financial paperwork to him to sort through. He was in the mess tent, using the tables to spread out all that paperwork. Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) found him there and offered to make some lemonade.

More than the weather had B.J. (Mike Farrell) stewing. He was stressing out over a letter from his wife. Their house's gutters were clogged, and she was going to have to resolve the issue. His imagination was running wild. He had himself believing that these clogged gutters inevitably would drive his wife into the arms of a muscular handyman in their neighborhood.

---

---

A wounded soldier was brought in, and that took precedence over everything else. A helicopter was needed to take the soldier to a hospital after the surgery was done, but only Col. Potter could authorize that so Klinger was dispatched to rouse the colonel and have him order the helicopter. The pill had, as Potter predicted, really put his lights out. When Klinger finally got him to the office, he prodded the colonel to place the order for the morning. The colonel began placing an order as if he were staying in a hotel and ordering room service — asking for poached eggs and prunes.

"Order a helicopter," Klinger whispered.

"No, thanks," the out–of–it colonel replied. "I'm not that hungry."

Well, Klinger got Potter to place the order and took him back to bed.

But that was just the beginning. It seemed everyone in camp suddenly needed Potter for some purpose, and every time he was summoned, he had managed to catch up to the previous interruption of his sleep. I guess it was one of those situations where real–world interruptions simply weave their way into a person's dreams.

Winchester was the first to call upon Potter after Klinger got him back to his quarters. Winchester needed carbon paper for his financial paperwork, and the carbon paper was kept in a safe. Only Potter knew the combination.

In Potter's condition, I always wondered how he managed to provide the right safe combination, but somehow he did, and Winchester got him back to his quarters.

Then Hot Lips, upon learning of the helicopter, decided to order it to bring the lotion that would ease her painful itching. Once again, that was a job for Colonel Potter, whose overburdened mind had to balance the two previous visits to his tent and Hot Lips' account of her need for the lotion.

"Medicine? Who's sick?" Potter inquired.

Hot Lips replied that no one was sick, but she had a severe inflammation on her buttocks. In his condition, Potter began reminiscing about a time when he got what he called "rump rots" during World War I when he was pinned down all night in a wet foxhole. Comparing his experience to Hot Lips, he observed, "That cute little caboose of yours must be red as a beet."

---

---

As it turned out Klinger had just finished putting the P.A. system together again, and the conversation had been broadcast all over camp.

Now everyone knew Hot Lips' little secret — except Potter, who would have no recall of that interruption — or any other interruption — of his pill–induced slumber the next day.

'M*A*S*H' Laid Foundation for TV Series

---

---

"This isn't a hospital, it's an insane asylum!"

Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Sally Kellerman)

---

Forty–five years ago, it was fashionable to ridicule the armed services. Mostly in the movies. TV still had a certain reverence for the establishment in those days, but it was mostly in movies.

To be fair, the military was an easy target. The mismanaged Vietnam War had already forced a president to voluntarily withdraw from a campaign for re–election four years after winning the presidency by an historic margin. Things were going so badly for the United States in Southeast Asia that Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, "Uncle Walter" to millions, made a rare editorial comment during one of his newscasts that the war effort was a lost cause. I knew many people who were skeptical of their government and the media, but they trusted Cronkite. I couldn't tell you how many times I heard, when I was a child, someone say, "If Cronkite says it, you can take it to the bank."

At times, it was true that the military leadership resembled the Keystone Kops.

But I guess the military has frequently been an easy target. Forty–five years ago today, the movie "M*A*S*H," which was adapted from a best–selling novel by Richard Hooker, directed by Robert Altman and later inspired a long–running TV series, made its debut. Its target was the Korean War.

If all you know of "M*A*S*H" is the episodes of the TV series that you've seen, you may want to adjust your thinking a bit before watching the movie. You'll recognize the characters — Hawkeye, Hot Lips, Radar — but the actors who played them (except for Radar) were nowhere to be seen on the TV screen.

In that sense, I suppose, it will be like a new experience. And, in truth, I guess it is a new experience. A different one, anyway. The TV series was great in part because it didn't try to do the work of a movie in 30 minutes. And the movie was great in part because it didn't try to be like a TV episode.

That seems so simple, but if you try to pack too much into a half–hour sitcom or too little into a 90–minute movie, you're setting yourself up for failure.

---

---

Even so, film critic Roger Ebert wrote that "M*A*S*H" the movie worked because "it's so desperate. ... The surgeons work rapidly and with a gory detachment, sawing off legs and tying up arteries, and making their work possible by pretending they don't care. And when they are at last out of the operating tent, they devote their lives to remaining sane."

I never really thought of it that way, but I guess there is a lot of truth in that. There was more of a sense of desperation in the movie than there was in the TV series. The surgeons still had a flippant attitude, Hot Lips and Frank still embodied the military establishment, but both seemed more extreme in the movie than the TV series. Perhaps that was because the movie, having received an R rating, was shown to an audience that was assumed to be mature enough to handle the material. On TV, anyone of any age could be watching.

So things were toned down on TV. I suppose that was kind of problematic for the Frank–and–Hot–Lips affair.

As far as Hot Lips and Frank were concerned, their movie characters were similar to yet different from their TV characters. They were gung–ho in the TV series, but that really was mild compared to the movie. And their sexual relationship really had to be muted for the small screen — implied far more than it was actually shown.

They really were fighting a different war in the movie. And their holier–than–thou attitudes came through loud and clear.

"I wonder how such a degenerated person ever reached a position of authority in the Army Medical Corps," Hot Lips (Sally Kellerman) remarked at one point about Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland).

"He was drafted," replied Father Mulcahy (René Auberjonois).

For his part, Frank's religious zealotry was only hinted at in the TV series compared to his extremely overt religious behavior in the movie. The first time he was seen, Frank was teaching one of the mess hall boys how to read — using his Bible.

The next time he was seen, he was kneeling in front of his cot, reciting the Lord's Prayer, which he amended to include requests for God's blessing on the fighting men, the commanders in the field and the commander–in–chief.

"Frank, were you on this religious kick at home," Hawkeye asked, "or did you you crack up over here?"

I guess the TV series proceeded as if the movie never existed — or as if it was intended to function independently of the big–screen story. Otherwise, someone would have noticed that Frank Burns (Robert Duvall in the movie, Larry Linville in the TV series) was taken away in a straitjacket after punching Hawkeye in the movie, never to be seen again — until he showed up in the TV series. No one, not even Hot Lips, ever asked him about his time in custody.

You know, I guess Ebert wasn't far off the mark when he wrote of the frantic pace of the movie. In 1970, the makers of the movie most likely had no idea their movie would inspire a long–running TV series so the movie tried to tell viewers everything about those characters in a couple of hours — or, at least, everything that the original book told readers about them.

---

---

The makers of the hugely successful TV series expected that the bulk of their audience would know the inside jokes about everyone, even though the TV cast was almost entirely made up of people who did not appear in the movie.

A few of the characters in the TV series — notably Corporal Klinger — were nowhere to be found in the movie. He was created for the TV audience.

Ring Lardner, Jr. won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

One Shot

---

---

In the late 1970s, America's involvement in Vietnam had been over for only a few years, but Americans already were coming to terms with the experience the way they always seem to — by way of the cinema.

Vietnam movies were plentiful in the late '70s, and they were frequently well done, but each was different. The movie that was released 35 years ago today, "The Deer Hunter," had its own, unique angle. In this case, it explored the effect of the war on a bunch of working–class buddies from western Pennsylvania — guys who believed .

It was presented, essentially, in three acts — and would have been a great theatrical production if not for the fact that it would require some really extensive sets.

In the first act, the buddies were home, participating in two coming–of–age rituals — marriage and military service. After the wedding of one and before the start of military service for some, the buddies went deer hunting. Robert De Niro's character had a philosophy — a deer had to be taken down with one shot — and that "one shot" theme was at the heart of the story.

De Niro was probably the most bankable star in the movie at that time. Audiences had seen him in, among other movies, "The Godfather Part II" and "Taxi Driver." Other folks in the cast — chiefly, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep — went on to greater things, but they were largely unknown in 1978, especially Streep.

But De Niro was the name.

---

---

Anyway, in the second "act," the scene shifted to Vietnam, and movie audiences were introduced to "the game," in which North Vietnamese soldiers forced prisoners to play Russian roulette and gambled on the results among themselves. De Niro, Walken and John Savage were among those forced to play the game; De Niro and Walken even had to play each other.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that the characters were emotionally scarred by the experience. They managed to turn their guns on their captors and escape, but their physical survival was only part of the story.

It may have been the most intense scene I have ever witnessed in a movie theater, the no–longer–naive Americans forced to play a deadly game for the amusement of their sadistic captors.

Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, who won awards for his coverage of the Vietnam War, insisted that the Russian roulette angle was not true. Most likely, it was not representative of the experiences of most American POWs, but, in the minds of many Americans who lived through both Korea and Vietnam and had been hearing stories of Asian wartime atrocities all their lives (if they were old enough to remember World War II) — and found Vietnam to be the more confusing and the more bizarre conflict by far — it probably seemed entirely plausible.

In fact, until I saw "Saving Private Ryan," "The Deer Hunter" was my gold standard for gritty depiction of war. Even more than "Apocalypse Now," which came out the following year.

I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. "The Deer Hunter" didn't re–create horrific battle scenes as "Saving Private Ryan" did. It depicted a lawless state of mind that seems to permeate nearly all wars.

---

---

The third and final act saw the Americans back home and dealing with their issues. De Niro's character found Savage veterans hospital and learned that someone in Saigon had been sending him large amounts of money.

De Niro returned to Vietnam and tried to bring Walken back to the United States, but Walken's mind had snapped and he had no memory of his previous life. He only existed to play the game in the gambling dens of Saigon.

Again, this was probably a little extreme, but, given the conditions that many vets were in when they returned to the United States, perhaps it wasn't as extreme as it may have seemed 35 years ago.

De Niro's character, in an act that I thought of when I watched Tommy Lee Jones dragging Robert Duvall's corpse back to Texas in the final installment of "Lonesome Dove" more than a decade later, brought Walken's character's body back to the United States for burial after he actually did kill himself playing the game. That, too, was an intense scene, symbolic of the waste of Vietnam and the wreckage it made of the lives of those who lived to tell the tale — even if it wasn't true.

And, in the final scene of the movie, Walken's survivors sang "God Bless America" and raised a glass in his memory.

---

---

Director Michael Cimino won an Oscar for his work on "The Deer Hunter," and Walken won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

"The Deer Hunter" also won Oscars for Best Picture, film editing and sound.

De Niro and Streep were both nominated but lost — De Niro to Jon Voight, star of another Vietnam movie, "Coming Home."

It Takes One to Know One

---

---

There have been several characters in television series who were known to be either crazy or putting on a really good show at being crazy.

But none were ever any better at it than Jamie Farr, who spent 11 years portraying Corporal Klinger, a draftee in the Korean War who tried for a long time to persuade enough people that he was crazy to be discharged under the infamous "Section Eight" — also known as a psycho.

Corporal Klinger wasn't really crazy, but the episode of M*A*S*H that first aired on this night in 1978 ("Major Topper") was a pretty effective argument that, well, it takes one to know one.

Klinger had studied crazy people for awhile. That much was clear from all the earlier episodes, and he was still bucking for a discharge in 1978. It wasn't until later, I guess, that Gary Burghoff left the show, and Farr's character took over as company clerk, a position in which he tried to be more military in his appearance — but, on this day in 1978, he was still openly trying to be Nutsy Fagan.

In this episode, Klinger was put in charge of another corporal, Boots Miller (Hamilton Camp), who gave names to and spoke to his socks and shoes and treated ladles as if they were microphones, among other things. Most of his antics were relatively harmless, but one was not — his tendency to fire not–so–make–believe guns (armed with definitely not make–believe bullets) at imaginary enemy gliders.

When Boots tried to shoot down some gliders in Col. Potter's presence, it was enough to persuade Potter to fill out the paperwork to have Boots discharged.

Klinger, understandably, felt a bit miffed. After all, he had been bucking for a Section Eight all along but hadn't received one. Boots, meanwhile, sashayed into camp, took a few shots at imaginary gliders and got a ticket home.

But Klinger had the last laugh. Some time later, after Boots had returned to the States, he sent a letter to the 4077th explaining that he had been a success in the children's toys business but needed the help of his former colleagues on a new toy idea — Enemy Glider — but he had no photos of the gliders he shot down while in Korea or their pilots, and he wanted to know if the folks in the camp could help him with photos — or whatever else they might have.

Camp appeared on another episode of M*A*S*H as an entirely different (although every bit as unbalanced) character — but his performance as Boots Miller was the better one. Even Klinger had to admit that Boots was Looney Tunes — "and th–th–th–that's all, folks."

M*A*S*H Almost Didn't Make the Cut

---

---

Hawkeye (Alan Alda): Henry, you have no idea what it's like to share a tent with a guy who thinks he's all 12 disciples.

---

In the history of television, I don't think there has ever been another series like M*A*S*H.

When M*A*S*H went off the air in 1983, it was one of the top three shows in the United States.

But most people forget that it languished at #46 in the TV ratings in its first season, which began on this day in 1972, and almost didn't make the cut.

Other shows have survived — some have even thrived — after sluggish starts, but M*A*S*H did so while writing its own rules and virtually ignoring conventional wisdom.

It often seemed to be searching for itself in that first season — not entirely content to play things for laughs, even though it was mostly billed as a sitcom.

And that apparent ambiguity almost led to its cancellation after that first season. No one really knew what it was, but the series was saved thanks to an impassioned plea from the wife of a CBS executive who liked the show — whatever it was.

M*A*S*H was always more than a comedy. It just didn't know how to achieve its mission.

Its first three seasons leaned toward slapstick, but, at the end of that third season, when Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) left the series — permanently — when his character's airplane was shot down over the Sea of Japan, M*A*S*H truly began to blend comedy with drama and pathos to create some of the most imaginative half–hour episodes ever filmed.

Before Stevenson's departure, there were flashes of what was in store, even in the pilot episode, which largely introduced the cast to the audience.

That was when viewers first learned of Radar's strange ability to know what people were going to say before they said it.

They learned of Frank and Hot Lips and their torrid affair.

And they learned that Hawkeye and Trapper John were skirt–chasing, gin–swilling doctors, gifted in matters of medicine.

By the way, if you're a M*A*S*H fan, you probably think of actor William Christopher when you think of the character of Father Mulcahy, the unit's priest. And that is certainly as it should be. Christopher appeared in more than 80% of the series' episodes — only one appearance shy of matching Jamie Farr for third place in frequency of appearances.

And Christopher probably should have had that extra appearance — but someone else played Father Mulcahy in the pilot episode that aired 40 years ago tonight.

It really is a shame that Christopher wasn't in that pilot episode — since Father Mulcahy figured rather prominently in the story's conclusion.

You see, Hawkeye was trying to organize a raffle to raise money so his Korean houseboy, Ho–Jon, could go to the U.S. and enroll at Hawkeye's alma mater. The winner of the raffle would receive a weekend in Tokyo accompanied by a beautiful nurse, whose name (Lt. Dish) was mildly reminiscent of Pussy Galore from the James Bond series.

M*A*S*H could be irreverent and decidedly incorrect politically in those days before Saturday Night Live challenged so many television taboos.

For example, in the initial episodes of the series, Hawkeye and Trapper John (Wayne Rogers) and the smarmy Frank Burns (Larry Linville) had a black bunkmate, a doctor named Spearchucker Jones.

He disappeared a few months after the show's premiere — with no explanation given.

The natural assumption might have been that CBS received some complaints from viewers who were offended by the racist connotations of the name, but apparently, the character was a casualty of story accuracy.

The writers learned that there were no black doctors during the Korean War so the character was quietly removed.

Well, anyway ...

When the big moment for the raffle drawing arrived, Hawkeye had it all worked out for someone to win who would be sure to turn it down — Father Mulcahy.

A brigadier general, who had been summoned by a phone call from Hot Lips, arrived at precisely the moment that Mulcahy was revealed to be the raffle winner and bellowed, "Do I understand that the priest of this outfit has just won a weekend with a nurse in Tokyo?"

"It's a prayer come true," Hawkeye replied.

At that point, Hot Lips entered the tent, pulling Frank behind her. He had been wrapped in gauze and sedated to keep him from interfering with the raffle.

And Hot Lips delivered perhaps the finest line I have heard in a pilot episode.

"Those two," the exasperated Hot Lips sputtered, pointing at Hawkeye and Trapper, "they're ruining this war, for all of us!"

Fortunately for TV viewers in the 1970s, M*A*S*H kept "ruining" war for the next 11 years.