Daily Dialogue — February 8, 2016

O’HOULIHAN: Bastards!
CORPSMAN: Uh, Major, what went on over there?
O’HOULIHAN: Where’s Colonel Blake?
CORPSMAN: Wait a second, you can’t go see Colonel Blake.
O’HOULIHAN: You shut up you twerp!

Major O’Houlihan barges into Lt. Colonel Blake’s tent, interrupting an intimate moment.

O’HOULIHAN: This isn’t a hospital, it’s an insane asylum, and it’s your fault because you don’t do anything to discourage them!
BLAKE: What do you want me to do?
O’HOULIHAN: Put them under arrest. See what a court martial thinks of their drunken hooliganism. At first they called me Hot Lips and you let them get away with it. And then you let them get away with everything. If you don’t turn them over to the MPs this minute, I’m going to resign my commission!
BLAKE: God dammit, Hot Lips, resign your goddamn comission.
O’HOULIHAN: My commission! My commission!

— M*A*S*H (1970), screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. based on the novel by Richard Hooker

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Annoying. Today’s suggestion by Will King.

Trivia: The first take of the shot where Hot Lips is revealed in the shower didn’t work because Sally Kellerman anticipated the reveal and was already lying on the floor when the tent flap went up. To distract her, Robert Altman and Gary Burghoff entered the shower tent and dropped their trousers while the shot was rolling outside. While Kellerman was staring at them, the tent flap was raised, resulting in her genuine surprise and shock when she realized what had happened. In the special double disc dvd they say that Radar is standing naked beside the camera and that that’s the reason why Sally Kellerman looks so surprised when the flap was raised.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: “Just prior to this scene the camp witnessed Hot Lips taking her shower when the shower tent’s side was rigged to open. Embarrassed and enraged, Hot Lips’ patience is finally pushed beyond the breaking point and she confronts Colonel Blake about his (lack of) leadership at the base.”