Movie Tonight was the 119th episode of M*A*S*H, and the 22nd in the fifth season of the show, which originally aired on CBS-TV on February 22, 1977. It was written by Gene Reynolds, Don Reo, Allan Katz, and Jay Folb and directed by Burt Metcalfe.
Storyline[]
Colonel Potter hopes a Western movie will be the cure for the 4077th's morale problem. But during the show, the staff is forced to make its own entertainment during the frequent film breakages.
Full episode summary[]
Without any wounded to take care of, the 4077th is bored and cranky. A simple session of cleaning up the O.R. leads to the staff yelling at one another. Col. Potter gets so frustrated, he walks out on all of them. But Father Mulcahy, coming from Seoul, brings some good news: a movie that Potter requested and he is clearly very excited about. He's so excited, in fact, he announces that his "all-time favorite movie" will be shown after dinner.
Folks start getting excited about the movie. Hawkeye visits the Nurses' tent, hoping for a date for the film, but they're on their way to a get-together at I-Corps, where they hope to meet some "new faces" (in the form of pilots). Frank visits Margaret in her tent, asking her to sit with him at the film "as a friend". She agrees at first, but when he pushes his luck, she threatens him with her new whip.
The crankiness continues through dinner - everyone's in such a bad mood, no one's talking, so dinner is a tension-filled event. But Potter comes in and announces the night's movie is the classic Henry Fonda picture My Darling Clementine (1946). This - and Potter's enthusiasm - seems to cheer everyone up.
Later, the movie starts, to the cheers and applause of the audience. Unfortunately, just a few minutes into the picture, the film goes off the reel and the screen goes dark. As Klinger fixes the film, Col. Potter send Father Mulcahy off to get the piano from the Officers Club and organizes a community sing-along, and after some cajoling (and an order), they all sing "The Tennessee Waltz."
The film starts again, and runs for another few minutes, when - at a crucial scene - it goes out again. The crowd starts to get really annoyed, when Father Mulcahy - on piano - breaks into "Gee Mom, I Want To Go Home", causing everyone to sing along, and add their own specific sets of lyrics. Radar then does some impressions, followed by everyone doing impressions of Father Mulcahy (Radar doing the best job), ending with Margaret singing Cole Porter's "C'est Magnifique", getting so wrapped up in the performance, she doesn't even stop after the movie starts up again.
During the film's climactic shoot-out, everyone gets into the act, play-pretending shooting each other, with them all falling over in mock agony. It leads to everyone laying on the floor as the movie rolls on. The festive mood is broken when an ambulance arrives carrying wounded, snapping everyone into action.
In a closing scene not shown in most syndicated airings, we see the staff of the MASH hard at work in the OR. Col. Potter starts softly singing "Oh My Darling, Clementine", and one by one, the rest join in.
Research notes/Fun facts[]
- Anomaly: The song Margaret sings is "C'est Magnifique", written by Cole Porter in 1953 for the musical Can-Can. The show premiered on Broadway May 7, and Korean War ended shortly after on July 27, so it's highly unlikely Margaret or anyone else in Korea would be aware of it.
- During one of the shots of the movie "My Darling Clementine", one of the cowboys uses a whip, and Hawkeye jokes, "Look, it's Margaret's whip!" Margaret received a leather whip from her fiancé Lt. Col. Donald Penobscott earlier in the season ("Lt. Radar O'Reilly"). She threatens Frank with it earlier in this episode.
- Three episodes earlier, B.J. is quite angry with himself when he spends the night with a nurse ("Hanky Panky"). In this episode, B.J. and Hawkeye cheerfully improvise a line in a duet, about how they work on patients throughout the day and nurses through the night.
- Anomaly: During one of the breaks from the movie, Col. Potter has Radar do impressions of actors. The first quote "Well, it looks like you got some people around here pretty mad at you, son. But I'm not gonna hit ya. I'm not gonna hit ya. Like hell I'm not!" is the famous John Wayne line from just before he starts the brawl at the quarry in the movie McLintock!. That movie came out in 1963, a near full decade after the end of the Korean War.
- Radar does two impressions: John Wayne and Jack Benny (Klinger chimes in as Benny's valet, Rochester).
Guest stars/Recurring cast[]
- Enid Kent as Nurse Bigelow
- Judy Farrell as Nurse Able
- Jeffrey Kramer as Ambulance driver
- Carmine Scelza as Corpsman
- Uncredited appearances
- Kellye Nakahara (in the front row of the movie audience)
- Jennifer Davis
- Jo Ann Thompson
- Gwen Farrell (one of the four nurses planning to go to a party; she has a line)
- The film, of which we see quite a bit, features Henry Fonda, Walter Brennan, Victor Mature, and Alan Mowbray, among others.
Gallery[]
