Battle Circus

Battle Circus (Richard Brooks, 1953) You don't get very far along in Battle Circus before you realize that it is actually, basically M*A*S*H (the 1970 movie, the novel it was based on, and, ultimately, the television series based on it), but without the 1960's counter-culture sensibility of the Robert Altman film. As the P.A. announcements would say "Follow the exploits of some zany Mobile Army Surgeons, cutting up and cutting loose, laughing and loving their way through Korea, dodging bombs and commitments, while passing the penicillin and morphine, but not the 'Mary-Jane.' That is all" (and that last part would be "Bogarting"). 

 

There's even a little flaunting of authority to go along the way, what with Humphrey Bogart as a less-than-regular-Army surgeon, who takes a lot of pride in his meatball-surgery but not a lot of guff from the higher-in-rank. You could almost imagine Richard Hooker, Ring Lardner, jr. and Larry Gelbart writing this stuff, if not, in fact, being inspired from it. It's like there's a pool of Korean War Army hospital stories that everybody is drawing from.

But, Battle Circus came first, and was in production while the war was still going on. Focusing on the arrival of Nurse Lt. Ruth McGara (June Allyson) to the MASH 8666 unit near the front lines, she has to learn her way through the no-better-than-camping conditions, the closeness of the battles, the harrowing work on wounded soldiers on a seemingly endless supply being choppered in, and the "bailing-wire-and-spit" resourcefulness of the unit in tending to the wounded but also the Korean villages caught in the cross-fire.

Then, there's the relations in the camp. Nerves are frayed, but the only way to cure those are to drown them in alcohol. Chief among those patients is Chief Surgeon Maj. Jed Webbe (Bogart), meticulous in the OR but erratic anywhere else. Warned of his tendency to think of breaking hearts as minor surgery, McGara keeps him at scalpel's length. But Webbe, being a brilliant surgeon, has a way of getting under your skin.

When one of the village children is in need of a delicate open heart surgery, she entreats the Camp Commander, Lt. Col. Hilary Walters (Robert Keith) who refuses, due to the man-hours and supplies such a procedure would drain on the already strapped base. But, Webbe knows his way around a heart and goes against the rules and performs the surgery anyway, despite the consequences, winning McGara's regard...and her own heart.

Webbe has a way of going against the grain. When blood supplies are needed at a nearby outpost, he convinces their chief helicopter pilot (William Campbell) to risk taking him there during a bad storm, barely making it, and when they return, going on a bender that Walters tells him it may be the last straw, threatening his career in the Army and probably stateside unless he sobers up. Good thing he stays, because at some point, the colonel takes a bullet, and Webbe has to take command, in a particularly hazardous re-deployment to another site (with some pretty tricky jeep maneuvers down precipitous hills that are done for real, no dummies, and the slipperiest of brakes).

So, who's "Radar?" That would be Keenan Wynn's Sgt. Orvill Statt (nice name in a hospital), loyal, unquestioning, and extraordinarily gifted in the "mother-of-inventions" department. He makes the camp work, seemingly by himself, and if you need a jeep repaired, a route planned, a supply filled, or an orderly on stand-by, he's your man.

Nurse McGara has a tough time adjusting to the craziness, but when a North Korean prisoner is being operated on and pulls a grenade (I think that was on the TV series at least twice), she's able to be disarming, earning the company's respect...and a scar...for her efforts. She wins her stripes in the community, if not from the Army. And it makes the flirtatious banter between Allyson (who's quite good, although I've always found a bit creepy) and Bogart (never one for too light a touch, but who acquits himself well) turn more serious as ties bind and wounds heal.

Richard Brooks wrote and directed Battle Circus from a story by Allen Rivkin and Laura Kerr and Bogart was attracted to the mixture of drama, action, romance and comedy. But, he wasn't entirely happy with the result, falling out with the director with whom he made Deadline-U.S.A. Perhaps it's because Brooks has mostly been a very deliberate, even heavy-handed, director, who, when he sets out to make a joke, does so without much subtlety, and was always more successful when it was sub-text rather than front and center. His subject matter could be controversial and boundary-pushing, but his approach to it rarely was. He was good at action (as movies like The Professionals and Bite the Bullet proved), but seemed to think little of it, aspiring to bigger (and big "I" important) themes that he pushed all too leadenly. Richard Brooks could be quite good, but rarely great. It's why Battle Circus is largely forgotten, while M*A*S*H stole the play-book, and lingers on.