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 origina...
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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.
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