WHERE DOES IT HURT?

US, 1972, 87 minutes, Colour.
Peter Sellers, Jo Ann Pflug, Rick Lenz, Harold Gould, Eve Bruce, Hope Summers, Pat Morita.
Directed by Rod Amateau.

Many audiences found Where Does It Hurt very funny when it was first released. However, it was not a critical success. The 1970s were not kind to Peter Sellers after the 1960s where he established his Inspector Clouseau character and appeared in a range of amusing comedies, especially in the early part of the 60s in England. During the 1970s The Optimists and Being There stand out above the rest of the films, although he made a number of Pink Panther sequels.

This was a period when there was a lot of satire on hospitals – from M*A*S* to the George C. Scott satire, The Hospital. It is more in the vein of Scrubs than ER.

An American cast of the period is in support – although Pat Morita was about to have great success with The Karate Kid films.

The film was directed by Rod Amateau, who made a number of television films and the cinema movie, Drive-in.

1. The purpose of this comedy? Part of the early seventies' fashion of cynically and ironically attacking hospitals and doctors? Its quality?

2. The American style of the film, the brashness of the dialogue and the situations, the push of America, vulgarity, broad farcical elements?

3. The quality of the film as a Peter Sellers vehicle? The characteristics of his portrayal, the Americanization, the corruption, the cynicism, manipulation? How funny, how clever?

4. How much tone of realism did the screenplay have? The presentation of the hospital and its layout, personnel, management? Its medical work? The satire in relationship to realism and lack of realism? The exaggerations, the point of all this satire?

5. Audience response to hospital film, the conventional heroes and soap opera heroics? How did this contrast with those? Gain its humour by ironic contrast? Audience response to the malpractice, the gaining of money, the examples of such malpractice?

6. The character of Albert Hoffnagel? His control of the hospital and its staff his personality, relationship with Alice his victimizing Looter, his fear of being discovered, his hold over the other doctors, his tantrums, his being victim to his weaknesses?

7. The character of Alice and the satire on women and sexuality? Her role on the staff, her relationship with Hoffnagel, sex and marriage? The criticism in the satire?

8. Looter and his role in the hospital, the side of right and justice, his being victimized, his succumbing then to the pressures of the hospital and behaviour?

9. How humorous were the incidents, the operations, the accidents, the accounting, the offhandedness of the staff? The meetings of the medical staff?

10. The supervision of administration, the growing hold on Hoffnagel, his tantrums in defying the Board?

11. How appropriate were the sexual overtones and innuendos, the atmosphere of lust, spying?

12. How did Hoftnagel overreach himself? His being victimized by the Board? The irony of his operation and his becoming the victim of the incompetent doctors?

13. Was this a satisfying resolution of the film? Or was it simply the end of a black satire? The long range effect of this kind of satire?