Drummond and Dr. Mallory both Barnard Hughes?

I noticed this too, and it's driving me crazy! It's the same actor, just check the scar on the side of his chin.

It doesn't make plot sense. Drummond's self-confessed MO is to arrange merely to put the victims into a position to be killed by the hospital. Why would he don a fake mustache, glasses, and somehow replace another surgeon, in order to be present?

So what's the alternative? A deliberate double role? With an actor as distinctive as Barnard Hughes? Strange.

BTW, I must have missed any dialog that identified the hysterctomy doctor as Mallory.

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I too thought Barnard Hughes played both roles, but I thought that Dr. Mallory was a real doctor and it was just Hughes playing both roles.

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Hi,
Thanks,
That has bugged me for years.
Not stay awake nights worrying, but when I would think about hospitals
it always poped up in my head.

LB

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For all these years, I just assumed that Drummond was passing himself off as a visiting doctor, as part of his quest to kill off as many patients as possible. I now realize that this would be out of character for Drummond, whose other kills are the result of his passive-aggressive behavior. It wouldn't fit Drummond's view of the world for him to personally kill off an innocent patient. Hughes is wonderful in both parts, but I can't imagine why the filmmakers allowed an actor with such a distinctive, undisguiseable voice to play a dual role.

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It was a very odd choice to cast a major actor in two roles, and I thought that we'd find out that the "real" doctor was the crazy old guy. I can't think of any other major film that had actors doubling up on roles like this. Certainly they had the budget to hire two actors, with all due respect to the late, great Barnard Hughes. And what a cast it was!

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I can see how the dual role can cause confusion and consternation, but perhaps the ones who are troubled in this thread are taking things a bit too seriously. If we can believe the inside information (and I have no trouble accepting it as the truth) left here a few years ago by "TonyRNYC," which went:

"I was just talking with someone who knew Barnard Hughes and we were talking about the movie. He told me someone was needed to play the doctor (there was some problem with the actor hired for the role) and the director just asked Hughes if he would fill in!"

Then we can see how what occurred was nothing more than filling in a production gap. Things like this happen all of the time during moviemaking. An actor or technician fails to show up or fails to perform adequately, and needs to be replaced in a jiffy; the production juggernaut cannot afford to be delayed. I can easily imagine the thoughts running through the minds of the producers and/or Director Arthur Hiller. Oh, no! We've got to find a capable actor real fast! Hmmmm. Why not ask good old, capable Barnard Hughes to save the day?

I just watched the film today, and I didn't pay attention if Drummond came onscreen before the surgeon (identified in this thread as) Mallory. Maybe there was a shot of him lying comatose, and I sure didn't recognize the actor as Barnard Hughes. I did recognize, however, Mr. Hughes immediately, when he appeared in the operating room in his role as Mallory. His distinctive voice, and probably the fact that he wore eyeglasses, and subconsciously, maybe because he was in his TV-familiar role of doctor, made me recognize him instantly.

As the film progressed, toward its end, the George C. Scott character examines Drummond, lying on his bed with his eyes closed and mouth open. I didn't think that was Barnard Hughes, and what helped the non-recognition was maybe because I had already seen Barnard Hughes in the earlier role. Then Drummond attacked Scott's character, and perhaps another three hours elapsed, with more Drummond talk and more Drummond close shots, before it finally hit me -- by God, this actor playing Drummond is Barnard Hughes.

But I took it in stride. Oh, okay, Hughes was doing an unusual "Dr. Strangelove" Peter Sellers type of thing here. I bought it. It never occurred to me that there could have been a catch in the plot; Mallory could not have been Drummond, because it was obvious that Dr. Mallory was well known to his working crew (also giving clues to the fact that he had been around, as he mentioned that he wasn't going to take the rap for the fiasco that took place under his watch, what with his having another malpractice suit pending), and he could not have been impersonated by an insane patient. Sometimes it doesn't pay to read too deeply into such things, and you've just got to go with the movie-viewing flow.

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It was a confusing, wrong-headed choice. Having someone who is disguising himself as a doctor also play a doctor? What the hell was Hiller thinking?

"I'm such a moody fellow; it depends upon my mood."

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I totally didn't notice this and only read about it in the trivia section here. If I was to watch the movie again someday and know that beforehand, I'd pay more attention to this. There were a few other people in the movie that looked fairly similar to each other but were obviously not played by the same actor.

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