Battle Circus (1953)

Written and directed by Richard Brooks from a story by Allen Rivkin and his wife Laura Kerr this precursor to Richard Hooker’s novel (which inspired the movie MASH and TV series M*A*S*H*) focuses on the mobile aspects of a surgical hospital MASH unit number 66 and how it operates much like a circus tents down move to another location tents up etc. during the Korean War. Against this dangerous backdrop is the story of a tough-edged yet brilliant surgeon – Major Jed Webbe played by Humphrey Bogart – who’s also a hard drinking womanizer bent on seducing a naïve young blonde nurse – Lieutenant Ruth McGara played by June Allyson – fresh from the States.

Keenan Wynn plays Sergeant Orvil Statt who plays a role akin to Charlton Heston’s circus manager in the previous year’s Academy Award winning Best Picture The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) only Wynn’s character has a soft heart for the wounded including an injured Korean boy saved on the table by Webbe. Robert Keith plays Lieutenant Colonel Hilary Walters who disapproves of Webbe’s drinking and sanctions his best doctor by confining him to his quarters. Also in the cast are Philip Ahn who plays the film’s most dramatic scene (opposite Allyson) as a prisoner with a hand grenade and Steve Forrest who plays a Sergeant.

The action includes some ‘dramatic’ helicopter scenes ambushes by the enemy and mortar fire which wounds Walters otherwise it’s a lot of:

“Move ’em on head ’em up Head ’em up move ’em on Move ’em on head ’em up” …

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