Themes: Doctors and Patients, Woman In Jeopardy, Witnessing a Crime
Main Cast: Geneviève Bujold, Michael Douglas, Elizabeth Ashley, Rip Torn, Richard Widmark
Release Year: 1978
Country: US
Run Time: 113 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
A feisty, feminist intern uncovers a medical conspiracy in this icy thriller about mysterious goings-on at Boston Memorial Hospital. When her best friend and aerobics partner, Nancy Greenly (Lois Chiles), emerges in a vegetative state from a routine abortion, Dr. Susan Wheeler (Genevieve Bujold) does some digging and discovers an overabundance of anesthesia-induced comas among otherwise healthy young patients. The male authority figures who challenge Susan's technically illegal tampering with medical records include her boss, Dr. Harris (Richard Widmark); the chief anesthesiologist, Dr. George (Rip Torn); and even her boyfriend, Dr. Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas), who doesn't want Susan's shenanigans to get in the way of his shot at chief resident. As Susan continues her crusade, the paper trail leads to the Jefferson Institute, a mysterious, experimental facility in which vegetative patients are stored en masse, suspended from the ceiling by wires threaded through their long bones, in order to reduce the cost of long-term care. A shadowy assailant begins to stalk Susan just as she uncovers the link between the Jefferson Institute and the comas at Boston Memorial, setting the stage for climactic suspense scenes involving morgues, malpractice and endless institutional corridors. Writer/director Michael Crichton adapted his second feature film from Robin Cook's bestseller of the same name. Tom Selleck, who would star in Crichton's Runaway several years later, appears briefly in Coma as another victim of lethal anesthesia. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
One of medical expert/author/filmmaker Michael Crichton's stronger directorial efforts, this taut '70s conspiracy thriller features a button-pushing premise, lots of disturbing imagery, and an appealing heroine played by the sexy, cerebral Genevieve Bujold. The dogmatism of Coma's feminist themes comes directly from Robin Cook's source novel; the fact that the first victim is a sexy woman seeking an illicit abortion is about as subtle as the film's gender politics get. In one of her biggest hits ever, though, Bujold manages to overcome such stridency by simply playing what she plays best: a woman of steely self-determination, strong intellect, and unselfconscious sensuality. Meanwhile, Rip Torn, Richard Widmark, and Michael Douglas provide an early Hollywood example of pervasive male villainy. Douglas' ambitious, arrogant doctor helped build the template for his enduringly sleazy screen persona. One intriguing lapse in the feisty-heroine-vs.-old-boy-network plot comes in the form of Elizabeth Ashley's crisp, sinister medical administrator; the veteran stage actress turns her small role into the very picture of institutional dread. Although Crichton's script proves more capable of suggesting its conspiracy than explaining it, the writer/director does build an effectively escalating sense of dread. A better visual stylist -- for example, David Cronenberg, who must have had Coma in mind when he cast Bujold in Dead Ringers -- could have turned this material into something even more insidiously disturbing. Nevertheless, Coma is an effective thriller whose vision of medicine corrupted by profit is as chilling and relevant as it is heavy-handed. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Lois Chiles - Nancy Greenly; Lance Le Gault - Vince; Hari (Harry) Rhodes - Dr. Morelind; Gary Barton - Computer Technician; Frank Downing - Kelly; Richard Doyle - Jim; Alan Haufrect - Dr. Marcus; Michael MacRae - Chief Resident; Betty McGuire - Nurse; Tom Selleck - Sean Murphy; Charles Siebert - Dr. Goodman; William Wintersole - Lab Technician; Ernest Anderson - First Doctor; Harry Basch - Second Doctor; Joe Bratcher - Surgical Resident; Kay Cole - Sally; Maury Cooper - Doctor; Sarina Grant - Woman in Elevator; Ed Harris - Pathology Resident #2; David Hollander - Jimmy; Joanna Kerns - Diane; David McKnight - Man in Elevator; Roger Newman - Surgical Resident; Joni Palmer - Dance Instructor; Don Torres; Lois Walden - Nurse; Benny Rubin - Mr. Schwartz; Martin Speer - Surgical Resident; Dick Balduzzi - First Maintenance Man; Gary Bisig - Second Maintenance Man; Gerald Berns - Security Guard; Duane Tucker - First Man in Shower; Michael Lally - Security Man; Paul Ryan - First Technician; Robert Burton - Pathology Resident #1; Amentha Dymally - Nurse; Wyatt Johnson - Second Cop; Kurt Andon - First Cop; Gerald Benston - Anesthetist; Tom Borut - Dr. Cowans; Philip G. Brooks - Dr. Richards; Sue Bugden - Nurse; Paul Davidson - Surgical Resident; Sharron Frame - Nurse; Edward C. Higgins - Security guard #2; Del Hinkley - Second Man in Shower; Susie Luner - Nurse; John Widlock - Norman; Michael Mann - Second Technician
Credit
Joyce Robinson - Casting, Sam Christensen - Casting, Eddie Marks - Costume Designer, Yvonne Kubis - Costume Designer, William McGarry - First Assistant Director, Ronald R. Grow - First Assistant Director, Michael Crichton - Director, David Bretherton - Editor, Carolyn Ferguson - Hair Styles, Carrie White - Hair Styles, John James - Location Manager, Jerry Goldsmith - Composer (Music Score), Harry V. Lojewski - Musical Direction/Supervision, Don Schoenfeld - Makeup, Albert Brenner - Production Designer, Gerald Hirschfeld - Cinematographer, Victor J. Kemper - Cinematographer, Martin Erlichman - Producer, Rick Simpson - Set Designer, Joe Day - Special Effects, Ernie Smith - Special Effects, Bill Griffith - Sound/Sound Designer, Michael J. Kohut - Sound/Sound Designer, Harry V. Lojewski - Sound/Sound Designer, Wiliam L. McCaughey - Sound/Sound Designer, Aaron Rochin - Sound/Sound Designer, John Riordan - Sound Editor, Chris Hutson - Technical Advisor, Cydney Michaelson - Technical Advisor, Phil Rawlins - Unit Production Manager, Michael Crichton - Screenwriter, Don Morgan - Unit Publicist, William Saracino - Music Editor, Sam Moore - Properties Master, Betsy Norton - Script Supervisor, Alan Brimfield - Second Assistant Director, Bruce McBroom - Still Photographer, V. "Bud" Shelton - Assistant Properties, Chuck Ellison - First Assistant Editor, Robin Cook - Book Author
Ed Harris as one of two pathology residents who tell Susan how to kill a patient
Synopsis
Susan Wheeler, a young doctor, discovers many mysterious cases in which at Boston's Memorial Hospital patients are comatose after surgery. After discovering that the reason for coma appears to be brain damage, Dr. Wheeler embarks upon a quest to find out why.
Full plot details
Susan Wheeler (Geneviève Bujold) is a surgical resident at Boston Memorial Hospital, a close analogue of Massachusetts General Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Her closest friend, Nancy (Lois Chiles), goes to the hospital for a routine abortion but ends up in a chronic vegetative state. Aided by an alcoholic but observant maintenance man and a computer analyst whom she persuades to produce a report not required by his job, Wheeler begins an investigation and discovers a number of similar accidents, certainly more than would occur at random. All of them were healthy, young patients having elective surgery, such as abortions; all wound up mysteriously brain-dead while on the operating table — in Operating Room 8. Among the suspects are her boyfriend, Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas), who is the chief surgical resident; Dr. George Harris, the chief of surgery (Richard Widmark); Dr. George, the chief of anesthesiology (Rip Torn); a mysterious truck driver; and others. Her investigations take her to the mysterious Jefferson Institute, run by a "nurse" (Elizabeth Ashley) rather than a doctor, where she uncovers the truth when she discovers the remains of another of the victims, Sean Murphy (Tom Selleck). He is lying on an operating-room (or autopsy) table with organs missing, while a telephone auction is going on in the background.
She discovers that the patients had been murdered while on the operating table by substitution of carbon monoxide for oxygen. The brain-dead patients were transferred to the Jefferson Institute: a very impressive building from outside, provided with viewing rooms where family members could see their loved ones receiving standard hospital care: firm bed, clean sheets, tubes and wires, and beeping monitors. In reality, patients are only moved to the viewing rooms by prearrangement — no unannounced visits are allowed — and patients are kept, long-term, in a huge room, hanging from a high ceiling by wires attached to steel rods through the long bones, which allows them to be kept in a level, head-up, or head-down position by adjusting the traction wires. The same tubes and electrical wires are present as in intensive care: All inputs are controlled and all outputs are monitored by one huge computer in its own room.
The organs of these patients were being sold on the international black market, by a telephone auction. When the organs are sold, the patient is moved to an operating/autopsy room, where the organs are removed, packed in ice, and rushed by ambulance to Logan Airport for shipment to other hospitals, where surgical teams are waiting to transplant the organs into desperately ill (and wealthy) patients.
Just as Wheeler discovers all this, she is noticed on the institute's extensive security system, whereupon armed guards and dogs chase her around the building. By hiding in a suspended ceiling, Wheeler eventually escapes from the institute on top of an ambulance. She races back to Bellows and tells him the whole story of what she has found, but he does not believe her, which leads her to think that parhaps he is part of the conspiracy. She races out of their apartment and to Boston Memorial, where she breathlessly tells the chief of surgery, Dr. Harris, of her discovery. He offers her a drink: Scotch on the rocks, with something extra the audience never sees clearly. Dr. Wheeler promptly doubles over in pain.
Dr Harris diagnoses appendicitis. Since he is a brilliant surgeon and available at the moment, he schedules her for an appendectomy — stat — in Operating Room 8, the room with the carbon monoxide fitting. On the way to the OR, she whispers to Bellows (who has come to the hospital looking for her) where she is going. Finally believing her, he goes into hidden areas of the hospital, where the oxygen and carbon monoxide tanks are kept, and traces the CO tube through a maze of twisty, little passages and up and down ladders to OR 8, where he manages to turn off the carbon monoxide flow, rescuing Wheeler. The final scenes in the film show Dr. Harris alone in the operating room, with a band of police officers outside; a voice says "We're waiting for you, Dr. Harris", implying that Dr. Harris et al. will soon receive their comeuppance.
The Jefferson Institute
The building used for the exteriors of The Jefferson Institute is actually the former Xerox Lexington, Massachusetts sales office, located about 10 minutes from downtown Boston near the intersection of routes 2 and 128. It is now the headquarters of Stride Rite footwear. The building has been altered since 1978 but is largely unchanged.
