George Scott gave the performance of a lifetime in Paddy Chayefsky's THE HOSPITAL, a very dark drama about an aging big city hospital and a middle-aged physician on the verge of suicide. Along comes Diana Rigg as a free spirit determined to save him from himself. Their dialog crackles, and it is clear they are made for each other from the outset. But will she save him? Their one sex scene is both graphic and memorable for its passion and fury. Meanwhile, the hospital is under siege by a group of agitators who don't want it to turn a condemned building into a cancer center. And a serial killer is loose in the hospital, specializing in doctors and nurses. A good part of the movie, though, is squarely focused on Scott. As it should be. What a difference a few years made back when this movie was made. 1962 had given us THE INTERNS, a hokey, old-fashioned reworking of DR. KILDARE with terrible acting and a cardboard script. Along came 1971 and THE HOSPITAL. Less than 10 years later. Hollywood did something right for a change. Watching THE HOSPITAL today is a reminder of how much medical shows like ST. ELSEWHERE and SCRUBS owe to this enduring classic. And if THE HOSPITAL reminds you of NETWORK, it should. Same scripter.
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xredgarnetx14 July 2007
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rupie5 May 2004I had never paid much attention to this flick until I learned that Paddy Chayefsky - author of the brilliant "Network" - was the scriptwriter. His work there had instructed me as to his genius, so when 'Hospital' appeared on TMC, I was anxious to see it. I was not disappointed. Looking at both this film and "Network" it would seem that his big theme is the absurdity, inanity, and sheer viciousness of large human enterprises (e.g., hospitals, networks) against the sanctity of individual experience and the human spirit, and all of it delivered with a knife-edge sense of utterly black humor. "Hospital" is as black of a comedy as "Network" is, and the excellent cast, led by the incomparable Scott, does his work full justice. This is a keeper; definitely not to miss.
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secondtake1 December 2011Hospital (1971)
George C. Scott is amazing, just terrific as a struggling, aging, world-weary doctor. A couple of the speeches he gives (from the sharply written screenplay) are first rate quotable stuff. See this movie for him alone.
Overall, this is certainly a New Hollywood movie, straight out of the late 1960s politics and sexual revolution. It's also a bit of a middle-aged male fantasy (the director and writer and main actor being of course all middle aged males). I mean, a key line in the movie is when young and slightly batty Barbara, played by Diana Rigg (Emma Peel in the television series "The Avengers"), says to the very middle aged George C. Scott, "I have a thing for middle aged men." Or something to that effect--and you know what happens next.
But that's the weakest part of the movie. The best part is the hospital scene itself, the chaotic and scary lack of medical professionalism at an under-funded big city medical center. Scott plays the chief of medicine, Dr. Bock, and he gradually sniffs out a truly murderous element to the place, a kind of whodunnit built into this otherwise growing drama of doctors inside and protesters outside (usually) and a general sense that the old order isn't able to keep order against the rising restlessness of young people and their demands.
In a way, the flakiness of Barbara and the rock-steady but yet suicidal authority of Bock are symbolic of the two sides, the two generations, that signified so much back then. Barbara suggests dropping out and turning on, and the doctor grows to the idea. I mean, who wouldn't in his shoes, having Diana Rigg begging you to leave your miserable job and life and moving to the mountains of Mexico to make babies. That's no exaggeration--that's the carrot, and the doctor sees it the way many people saw it then, the escape as a reasonable alternative to a crumbling world.
And yet, the hospital has needs, like dying people, and a group of people displaced from their apartment building next door, and of course this murderer on the loose.
In a way, it's a sloppy, terribly constructed movie. But it has an element of abandonment and realism from the era that really works. If you just go along with the superficial parts of the plot, which are fun, you might just get sucked into the tawdry medical world in 1971 Manhattan.
The writer, by the way, is Paddy Chayefsky, and he won his second Oscar for this screenplay. It was considered that timely and sharp at the time, and there is some terrific writing, some really good dialog to keep it humming. (He did a ton of television, but also next wrote the screenplay for "Network," winning his third Oscar for that.)
The director, Arthur Hiller, moved from 1960s television to movie directing and made a lot of middling fare, though a few became well known such as "Love Story" (1970) and "Man of La Mancha" (1972). The cinematographer Victor J. Kemper is straight out of New Hollywood and his style feels beautifully unpolished and complex (he went on to do a lot of solid movies, some really terrific like "Dog Day Afternoon"), and this helps hold the disparate plot elements together. -
Tirelli8 March 2000A profoundly disturbing character study more than anything, this film, masterfully written by Paddy Chayefsky, manages to convey such bitterness and disgust in it's point of view, it can not even be topped by the also Chayefsky stamped 'Network'. Thinly disguised as a black comedy, this is the tale of Herbert Bock, whose family problems and working issues - the huge Manhattan hospital in which he works in is as civilized as a concentration camp - lead him to contemplate suicide. Then, beautiful Diana Rigg - thee who knows Dame Diana solely as a Bond Girl, does not know her AT ALL - steps into the dreary settings, - Barbara, the character she perfectly portrays, is there to take her mentally ill father, which just happens to be a serial, gospel-bound, murderer, out of the madness of the hospital - , and into George C. Scott's seemingly frozen heart... Events do not lead to a happy ending. Events do not lead to an ending at all... however, it exposes the never ending cycle life is reduced to. Joy, bliss... several feelings revolving one's own being, no matter what surrounds him... and all these several feelings leading you right back where you've started. It's like Chayefsky was trying to say how meaningless and plodding existing is... If you can't understand anything I just said, you will, as soon as you hear the last line... "It's like p***ing in the wind... right, Herb?"...
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itamarscomix30 September 2011The Hospital's one big flaw is lack of decision. It tries to hit too much and fails at most. At its best, The Hospital is a fantastic character study; George C. Scott is fantastic, giving one of the best performances of his celebrated career, and he creates a complex, flawed, believable character over the course of the film. The supporting cast is fine too - Barnard Hughes is hammy but terrific, and the others do well too. The film has some fantastic character establishing dialogs that are the heart of the story.
The problem is that it isn't satisfied with being a character driven drama. The Hospital also dips into black comedy, social satire, murder mystery and romance, and when it goes anywhere near any of those, it becomes disappointingly bland and predictable. Unfortunately, those scenes take up over half of the film.
On a side note, I do recommend The Hospital to anyone with an obsession for medical dramas - It's more realistic and better researched than most such movies made before ER. -
gbeauch33923 July 2004Anyone who has spent time working in a hospital or medical facility has got to appreciate this film. The plot is absolutely wild but entertaining from start to finish. The acting is superb. George C. Scott is the brilliant doctor but class A failure as husband, father. Diana Riggs, a sex symbol of the 1960s and 1970s (of The Avengers), saves him from himself. The surrounding cast is superb and the dialogue quite entertaining. I think I enjoyed the film more on viewing it the 4th., 5th. or 6th. time because I caught that much more of the richness of the dialogue and the interplay of the characters. Well worth seeing again and again. You just won't want to check in to a hospital in the near future.
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kenjha30 December 2011A hospital chief deals with a crisis while battling his own demons. This satire exaggerates situations to drive home its points, but it's a worthwhile black comedy. As with most of his films, Cheyefsky seems more interested in hitting his targets and pontificating than in telling a good story. The Scott character is similar to the William Holden character in "Network," a man with a failing marriage and suffering from menopause who has a chance to rekindle his manhood with a younger woman. Scott is quite good in conveying the middle-aged weariness and bitterness. Rigg is also fine as a hippie, but their instant love affair is not believable.
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cer113 February 2004Certainly the highlight of this film is it's cast.
Diana Rigg, George C. Scott, Bernard Hughes to mention a few.
I have accumulated more time in hospitals and with doctors over the years than I care to think about.
This comedy attacks the pomp and pretension in all aspects of our society, through the setting of one of it's "Most Haughty" institutions... the Medical profession.
The idea that such goings on could be possible, might be a shock to some, but is a delight to anyone with the perspective of experience.
Dr Brock (Scott) undergoes a mid-life crisis of monumental proportions before our eyes as we, and he, become enamored with the prospect of his involvement with Miss Drummond (Rigg).
The thread of the absurd is woven into this wonderful mix in the form of the irony that the Hospital appears to be killing it's own workers as they mismanage their affairs in it.
The climax is unpredictable (unless you've seen it) and made even more hilarious if you happen to guess.
It's not everyone's brand of humor, to be sure, and has uproariously funny "Dark Moments" if you're open to them.
I loved every minute, and was delighted to see it out on DVD. -
evanston_dad5 October 2020"The Hospital" feels like a warm up to "Network," the classic satire that would come out five years later.
Both were written by Paddy Chayefsky and both suffer a little bit from age. But "Network" still feels prescient and sharp as a tack in its lampooning of news media, while "The Hospital" feels messy and confused in its lampooning of...what...the American medical system? America in general?
That's the problem with "The Hospital." I wasn't entirely sure what Chayefsky was criticizing. The movie is at its best, and funniest, when it's a straight up satire about the running of an urban hospital. For example, one of the most memorable scenes is one in which an unfazed nurse wanders around the emergency room obliviously asking bleeding, doubled over patients to fill out insurance forms. But there are all these other plot strands involving the mid-life crisis of the hospital's director (George C. Scott) and his romance with the hippie-dippie daughter of one of the hospital's patients; and protests against the hospital's plan to appropriate housing from poor members of the community; and a mysterious serial killer offing doctors and nurses. This last storyline is tantalizing at first, but Chayefsky wraps it up in a thuddingly literal, murder mystery way, and it turns out to be stupid.
Scott is terrific and received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance, but it's a case of a good performance being hampered by mediocre material. He brilliantly commands the first couple of scenes he's in, but he's eventually undermined by the screenplay and his performance loses impact the longer the movie goes on.
I'm clearly in the minority, though, for thinking that the screenplay is the weakest link in "The Hospital." Chayefsky won the Original Story and Screenplay Oscar in 1971 for this movie.
Grade: C+ -
bkoganbing19 June 2007Anybody who goes to the Manhattan Hospital Center is taking his life in his hands. That includes the staff of The Hospital.
I had never seen The Hospital before and I was intrigued at how similar the characters and situations of the plot were to that other Paddy Chayefsky masterpiece, Network. There are elements in George C. Scott's character that have both Al Schumacher's and Howard Beale's.
He's the administrator of The Hospital and he's mad as hell and not going to take it any more. He's completely estranged from his wife and kids. It takes a Faye Dunaway type character in the person of Diana Rigg to make him snap out of it. One roll in the hay with her and he's shocked back to reality and the fact he still can contribute in the world.
But first he's got a real problem. Someone is out killing hospital staff, four of them in a 48 hour period. And the nice part is their deaths can be attributed to in large part to the general incompetence of a medical bureaucracy. That's where the comedy comes in.
There is an actual Howard Beale type character in the person of Barnard Hughes, Diana Rigg's father. His end is not quite as dramatic as Beale's though.
Back in my working days it was part of my job to pay medical suppliers. Some of them could be as big creeps as you'll find portrayed in The Hospital. The black comedy satire had some real bite to it for me.
George C. Scott was nominated for Best Actor, but having won and refused to accept the previous year's Oscar for Patton, he wasn't about to get a second chance. He lost to Gene Hackman for The French Connection. Still his handling of the role is unforgettable.
Try viewing The Hospital back to back with Network and see how many similarities you spot. -
moonstar124 December 2006this movie is funny funny funny my favorite quote from the movie "i think i saw a half naked Indian in my room last night" response that was no hallucination it was a Indian in your room" and another is "what the hell are you talking about, just what the hell are you talking about" but if i ever be admitted to an hospital like this one i will be prepared to write my will on the spot...i would say there were in my opinion three very funny characters in this film most funny but three is the funniest to me even though their lines were few.. and don't get me started on the crack-pot patient hehehe that one i will keep secret and fast paced too.
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If you liked Paddy Chayevsky's "Network" you'll probably like this black comedy as well, as it's another brilliant Chayevsky script, a wonderful satire on big-city hospitals and a perfect vehicle for Geo. C. Scott. He plays a burned-out chief of medicine on the most chaotic day he or his hospital have ever seen. His personal crisis is coming to a head and his hospital's falling down around him, as local residents demonstrate against the hospital and patients and doctors are dying at an alarming rate, thanks to a biblically-inspired and murderous saboteur. The latter, who theatrically declares himself the "Fool for Christ," "Parakleet of Kaborka," "Wrath of the Lamb," and "Angel of the Bottomless Pit," bops doctors on the head, administers lethal injections and swaps patients' identities, causing treatments and operations to be performed on the wrong persons.
This film makes you uncomfortable, as deadly mistakes like these do happen (hopefully not so many, not so often and not in one place) and at the same time makes you laugh at the priceless character portraits. One is Richard Dysart ("L.A. Law") as Dr. Wellbeck, a sort of celebrity surgeon who spends far more time worrying about his investments and publicly-traded stock than about his patients, who suffer lethally from his vast indifference and neglect. There's Diana Rigg as free-spirited, hippie-ish Barbara Drummond, who seduces the beleaguered chief of medicine (Scott) and tries to get him to run away with her. Then there's the deluded murderer, who happens to be Barbara's father and who "functions well enough" back at the Indian reservation where he lives with his daughter and even runs a clinic, but who's pushed to madness merely by being placed back in civilization. The strongest portrait by far is Scott's Dr. Bock, who bares his soul as former boy genius, failed father and husband, brilliant doctor and responsible administrator, who constantly dreams of suicide but must bear up under the demands of his job. Scott is exceptional in this demanding role.
Until the final scenes one doesn't know if Bock will leave the hospital behind for Barbara's Indian reservation and a quieter, simpler life, whether her murderous father will be caught or whether the protesting, rioting locals will take over and bring the hospital to its knees. Watching the crazed killer at work, one suspects Chayevsky is telling us our lunatic society makes him do these things, as we're told he's a different person away from cities and people.
As my own father was the chief administrator of a number of large hospitals over the years, I had some idea of the demands of his job and the huge responsibility he shouldered. This story makes that responsibility the linchpin on which Scott's crisis turns. This is both a funny and scary film, with the actors up to the considerable demands of Chayevsky's script. It's also a film I get more out of each time I watch it. -
smatysia28 March 2011This film has George C. Scott doing some fine, fine acting. Diana Rigg, while beautiful, not so much. But then her character is written as sort of "out there" so maybe it's me, not her. Scott's sometimes ranting, sometimes musing, sometimes defeated, sometimes angst-ridden, sometimes power-boss role allows his vast range to shine. The script may be a gem, or it may be a problem. There seems to be some disagreement about that in previous comments, and I can see both sides. The direction was unobtrusive, and the cinematography was a bit claustrophobic, but almost certainly deliberately so. The ending makes the film seem pointless, but I think that was exactly the point. Check it out.
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An okay film that is mostly served as a podium for a phenomenal performance to be delivered to the masses. Paddy Chayefsky's script is loaded with hilarity and some strong monologues for the actors to devour (which they gladly do), but there's a lot going on and director Arthur Hiller doesn't quite know what to do with the tone, but George C. Scott's performance is one for the ages. He plays a suicidal doctor in the world's worst hospital, which is surrounded by lawsuits, protesters and utter incompetence. There's tons of stuff happening and it doesn't all come together fluidly, but it mixes in plenty of hilarious moments without ever straining too far into broad comedy territory.
Scott is definitely the primary thing going for it though, a towering force of expert comedy and drama that does what I wish the entire film had done. He's a great straight man for all of the madcap disasters happening throughout the hospital, and his suicidal rampages walk that fine line of being comedic and darkly intimidating at the same time. There's a scene between him and Diana Rigg where she tries to seduce him and he ends up going into a very dark reservoir of his mind that is haunting and terrifying. He devours everything around him, a wrecking ball of frustration with the world and he shines strong when delivering the impressive Chayefsky dialogue. The film itself doesn't quite hit the mark it's going for, but it's certainly still a worthwhile experience, elevated by the superb performance from Scott and Chayefsky's writing. -
Doylenf22 November 2002This satire on the theater of the absurd is downright scary--possibly because so much of it accurately depicts the havoc that goes on in any given day at any metropolitan hospital. There are truths revealed in much of the dialogue--and the expert cast makes the most of the wonderful lines Paddy Chayefsky gives them. But the standout performance is delivered by George C. Scott in surely what must be one of his most amazing turns as an actor. His suicide monologue scene with Diana Rigg is played brilliantly--he gets to the heart of his character with such savage passion that it blows you away!
Having said all that, as entertainment the film sometimes seems too absurd for comfort. The revelation that Rigg's father is behind much of the mayhem comes as a surprise--but is made incredible when he recounts how easily he went about manipulating things so that the wrong patients got operated on, etc. It's all a bit too hard to swallow, even for the purposes of black comedy. Diana's concern for her mad father is also not easy to understand given his penchant for murderous behavior.
A film guaranteed to keep you from wanting to go anywhere near a hospital--the one depicted here is a virtual snake pit!! You have to keep reminding yourself--it's only a movie.
Along the way there are some really hilarious moments as a "by the book" nurse asks patients for their Blue Cross numbers as they lie in agony on stretchers or dutifully checks her charts with doctors whose handwriting she can't read. "How am I going to write up the charges?" she whines. Reminds me of the doctor sketch Elaine May and Mike Nichols used to perform on the old Ed Sullivan Show. -
mossgrymk16 October 2020With a non story...unless you find, as I did not, the account of a serial killer let loose in a medical facility a compelling tale...and rather dull characters (actually, except for George C Scott, largely caricatures) this movie soon devolves into Paddy Chayevsky from his pulpit (or soapbox, if you're not an acolyte of this messagey scribe) inveighing, through the bearded mouth of his main character, against both the establishment (i.e. incompetent rich surgeons, clueless hospital staff, arrogant interns etc) and the anti establishment (i.e. hippies, black power types, spiritualists). After about an hour of this I was thoroughly bored. That I stuck with it as long as I did was due to the general acting excellence of Scott who manages to do what director Arthur Hiller could not, namely surmount Paddy Speak. Five years later the Great Pontificator would meet a director made of sterner stuff in Sidney Lumet and thus write a much better film. Give it a C plus.
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JasparLamarCrabb2 December 2007Absolutely corrosive! Director Arthur Hiller and writer Paddy Chayefsky dismantle the American hospital system with this wicked comedy/drama/whodunit. The hospital depicted here is fraught with problems...from protesting neighbors to irate patients to a potential serial killer on the loose. George C. Scott is the top doctor who, on the brink of his own nervous breakdown, gets involved with free-spirited Diana Rigg and her wacky father Barnard Hughes. Alternately depressing and uproarious, THE HOSPITAL features some of the most acid-tinged dialog imaginable (note how Scott describes his love making session with Rigg). It also has a lot of great vignettes: Scott berating head nurse Nancy Marchand after one of here underlings accidentally kills a doctor; daffy administrator Frances Sternhagen trying desperately to collect insurance info from a waiting room full of sick people; Scott getting sobering advice from the hospital psychiatrist after telling him of his woeful home-life. All of the acting is first-rate. Scott and Rigg are dynamite and Hughes is a real surprise. The movie is a masterpiece with Chayefsky's script earning a well-deserved Oscar (over such stiff competition as KLUTE & Sunday, BLOODY Sunday). The opening narration is priceless.
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May I never have to go to this hospital hospice, if I want to be politically correct] [which ass coined this asinine phrase, anyway?], for anything other than directions on how to get out of town. George C. did a masterful job playing the burned out, over worked cynic who has come to the conclusion that his life has been a waste, but is helpless to change his environment or conditions even when given a golden opportunity [which probably wasn't so golden anyway]. I got several laughs out of this brutally black comedy, however at the same time was sobered and often chilled to the marrow because I fear this very atmosphere pervades most houses of healing even as I write.
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thinker169129 November 2008Read a biography of the late George C. Scott and you'll discover why he was so enormously talented. He was asked by an interviewer what his secret was when making each character he played his own. Scott replied, he possessed inside him a burning fire which drove him. In one of his last interviewers, he sadly revealed he had lost the drive. This was not the case when he starred in the movie, "The Hospital." In this offering, he plays talented doctor Bock, medical director of one of the finest hospitals in the country. However, life has dealt him some crippling problems, such as losing his wife to a divorce, becoming alienated from both his promising children and worse of all, believing himself to be physically impotent. At this point, he is now becoming complacent, morose and frequently fantasizes various ways of committing suicide. To add to his growing list of personal obstacles, his main reason for being, his hospital has come under siege by students and neighborhood protesters, incompetent doctors like Dr. Welbeck (Richard Dysart) and a mysterious MD. who is killing both patients and doctors alike, because he believes he is "the Wrath of the Lamb." (Barnard Hughes). Few choices are left to Bock. One is promising doctor Brubaker (Robert Walden) whom he confides in by saying, "If there were an oven around here, I would put my head in it." The second is a luscious young woman, named Barbara who is attracted to Bock because he acts like a wounded bear. Paddy Chayefsky wrote the screen-play and Arthur Hiller did an extremely good job of directing this dramatically interesting, dark story, but a vehicle nonetheless, lit by the fire of George C. Scott. ****
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Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning original screenplay about a brilliant but melancholy doctor who heads up an under-staffed, over-crowded New York City hospital churning with misdiagnoses, malpractice lawsuits...and now, an apparent serial-killer who targets doctors and nurses. Chayefsky's tirades (made up of both coherent and incoherent anger and outage) are, occasionally, thick with a writer's pretensions; however, his protagonist (portrayed by a convincingly weary and raspy-voiced George C. Scott) is a three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood man the audience can easily identify with. Scott (and a rather amusingly miscast Diana Rigg as a missionary's daughter) head up a terrific cast of East Coast-based character actors, and Chayefsky and director Arthur Hiller keep them all walking and talking like madly-literate eccentrics. The picture doesn't look particularly good--and the sound is often crude--but with such biting humor and scathing targets, "The Hospital" succeeds greatly at being a pitch-black comedy of modern ills. **1/2 from ****
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sol-9 August 2005An overly dark and rather dreary satire, it is nevertheless full of interesting ideas, and George C. Scott delivers very well as a suicidal hospital administrator even if he has a few over-the-top moments. The whole script in fact feels a bit outrageous and over-the-top, in a manner that lacks realism. However the heart of the script, like with Chayefsky's other films, such as 'Marty' and 'Network', centers around anger, and this emotion is dealt with throughout the film, with some interesting thoughts on how to cope with it, but no real answers. Anyway, The Hospital is an interesting enough watch, with a murder subplot that proves to be thought-provoking later on, even if mystifying at first. Diana Rigg is great, and even if somewhat flawed, this is good stuff.
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gavin694222 September 2017An over-burdened doctor (George C. Scott) struggles to find meaning in his life while a murderer stalks the halls of his hospital.
Although the film was not quite as funny as I think it could have been, it still has its moments and successfully makes a scathing attack on the medical system. Today (2017) the attack is no less potent, so the film has really stood the test of time. The writing is superb, and there is no surprise that it took home so many awards on the script.
George C. Scott is excellent, as always, and Diana Rigg makes her American debut. Her character is unusually flaky and may not be to everyone's liking. The mystery aspect is quite fun, though it does not seem that enough clues are given for the audience to make any sort of informed guess. -
richardskranium18 November 2018This is an interesting movie,well worth watching. George C Scott plays a good part as a worn-out,tired doctor. Diana Rigg is looking great,a true beauty with real talent. She plays a good part also. The movie seems shorter than it really is,it moves along nicely. The chaos of a hospital in 1971 NYC,the social protests of the time are a backdrop but never overdone. I liked it and I would see it again. Check it out !
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This movie is very well-acted and a generally well-written movie about the pressures of hospital life. However, there is one incongruous aspect of the movie that should not play so well in the 21st century. It seems that George C. Scott's character is an emotional time bomb with a lot of pressures and responsibilities. This builds throughout the movie until he explodes and rapes his lady friend, the nurse. It was not really portrayed as a rape per se and you are meant to have some empathy for the man BUT I just couldn't get past the fact that regardless of the pressures, he committed a crime and empathy should not be directed towards him but his victim. It is interesting that when the movie was not released there wasn't more of an outcry, but times and sensibilities DO change.
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Cowardly and cynical, `The Hospital' represents the nadir of Paddy Chayefsky's special brand of celebration of the status quo disguised as satire.
Thanks to ham-handed director Arthur Hiller, this ludicrous script gets the visually ugly, poorly paced presentation it deserves.
Only a great performance by George C. Scott, in the sort of mean-spirited role he was born to play, keeps `The Hospital' from being a complete disaster.
Ironically, though, Scott's performance does viewers a disservice. His magnetism keeps them watching when they might more profitably turn off the VCR and clean out the closets, stare at the clouds, or watch re-runs of `Baywatch.'
Certainly, anyone who emotionally invests in the set-up _ modern medicine apparently gone amok _ will feel cheated by the dismal payoff, where Chayefsky reveals that The System Works Just Fine, So Quit Your Carping.
While the first half of this film provides some entertaining black comedy, it all turns out to be a red herring. Before that becomes clear, though, Chayefsky gives some good lines to Scott as his middle-aged, middle-class, white male stand-in.
Bitter, alcoholic, impotent, Scott's Dr. Herbert Bock has alienated those who know him best, and he has the bile to keep alienating them. In Chayefsky's worldview, all that of course makes Bock a magnet for a hippie chick half his age.
Playing a collection of adjectives, the long-haired, long-legged, braless and almost bust-less Diana Rigg struggles in the part of `the girl.' The British Rigg is miscast as a southwestern free spirit, but any other actress would struggle as well. Like the rest of a good cast gone to waste, Rigg can't overcome a script that isn't interested in any character except Bock, or any philosophy beyond banality.
For fans of George C. Scott, this is another star turn and worth watching. For fans of black comedy, turn it off after the first 45 minutes. For anyone else, don't bother.