VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the April 25, 2023 episode of the Video Archives podcast and can be found on their site here.

Directed by Arthur Hiller and written by Paddy Chayefsky — the winner of the 1972 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as the narrator and the man who had control over the casting and content of this movie — The Hospital concerns a New York City medical center — Metropolitan Hospital Center, which is called Manhattan Medical Center — that is just as damaged as one of its lead medical experts, Dr. Herbert Bock (George C. Scott). His marriage is over, his children hate him and he’s been impotent for several years. And oh yeah, several doctors and a nurse have been murdered on his watch while the hospital takes over an apartment building so that it can expand, pushing citizens into the streets. Nobody comes here to be healed, just patched up and shoved back out. It’s enough to make Bock want to commit suicide, which is just what he was doing when Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg) barges into his office, engaging him in a spirited discussion that ends up with him roughly taking her.

This changes his life — one can argue, as Quentin Tarantino did on the Video Archives episode, whether she actually exists — but he can’t leave behind the hospital or stop solving problems, like how his new lover’s father (Barnard Hughes) is either on his death bed, the killer or both. I mean, it’s a spoiler but if you watch this, it’s so obvious that in no way is it hard to see coming.

The film makes a wild swing in the middle from a black comedy about the American medical system into a murder mystery mixed with a romance that starts with pretty much an assault. Luckily, it has strong acting from Scott — as always — and Rigg answers the challenge of playing against him in her first American movie.

It’s also the first movie of Tracey Walter, who may be one of the few people in this movie to have an action figure, as he was Bob the Goon, a short-lived but long-beloved character in Tim Burton’s Batman.

You can watch this on Tubi.