The first MASH film - 1953!

Battle Circus (film)

Directed by Richard Brooks
Produced by Pandro S. Berman
Written by Richard Brooks, Allen Rivkin, Laura Kerr

Starring Humphrey Bogart
June Allyson
Keenan Wynn
Music by Lennie Hayton
Cinematography John Alton
Distributed by MGM
Release date(s) March 6, 1953
Running time 90 min
Language English

Battle Circus is a 1953 film directed by Richard Brooks, who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Humphrey Bogart and June Allyson. and costars Keenan Wynn and Robert Keith.

The film is set in Korea during the Korean War; Bogart plays a surgeon and commander of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), and Allyson plays a newly-arrived nurse.

According to Brooks (in an interview filmed for the 1988 Bacall on Bogart documentary), the film was originally called MASH, a title rejected by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer because the studio thought people would think the film had something to do with potatoes. Brooks also noted that Bogart agreed to do the film because the script's humor, set in a story showing the tragedy of war, would make the film seem more realistic to an audience.

The title of the film refers to the speed and ease with which a MASH unit, with its assemblage of tents, can, like a circus, pick up stakes and move to where the action is.

Cast
Humphrey Bogart as Major Jed Webbe
June Allyson as Lieutenant Ruth McGara
Keenan Wynn as Sergeant Orvil Statt
Robert Keith as Lieutenant Colonel Hilary Walters
William Campbell as Captain John Rustford
Perry Sheehan as Lieutenant Laurence
Patricia Tiernan as Lieutenant Rose Ashland
Adele Longmire as Lieutenant Jane Franklin
Jonathan Cott as Adjutant
Ann Morrison as Lieutenant Edith Edwards
Helen Winston as Lieutenant Graciano
Sarah Selby as Captain Dobbs
Danny Chang as Korean child
Philip Ahn as Korean prisoner
Steve Forrest as Sergeant