ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - January 6th
"COMA' released in 1978
When a young female doctor notices an unnatural amount of comas occurring in her hospital she uncovers a horrible conspiracy, in Michael Crichton's adaptation of Robin Cook's bestselling novel, Coma!
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Dr. Susan Wheeler (Geneviève Bujold) is a surgical resident at Boston Memorial Hospital. Wheeler is devastated when a patient, who happens to be her best friend, is pronounced brain dead and ends up in a coma after minor surgery at the hospital. Looking at the records, Susan finds that over the previous year a number of other fit young people have ended up the same way. She comes across two similarities to the cases: they all took place in the same operating theatre (operating room eight), and all the comatose bodies were moved to a remote facility called the Jefferson Institute. She continues to investigate, increasingly alone, starting to wonder if she can trust even her own boyfriend, Dr. Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas).
Eventually she discovers that the Jefferson Institute is a front for black-market organ sales, where the patients' organs are sold to the highest bidder. Boston Memorial is in on this, purposely inducing comas in patients whose organs match those of potential buyers. The patients are rendered brain dead via covert carbon monoxide poisoning, through a pipe that leads from the basement to the OR.
Susan's investigation then reveals the mastermind behind all of it - Dr. George Harris (Richard Widmark), Chief of Surgery, whom she has been confiding in all along. Dr. Harris tries to stop Susan from exposing the truth, and attempts to render her brain-dead with carbon monoxide in operating room eight, under the pretext of performing an appendectomy. However, Mark, now having realized the truth as well, races to find and disconnect the pipe before it can poison Susan!
Eventually she discovers that the Jefferson Institute is a front for black-market organ sales, where the patients' organs are sold to the highest bidder. Boston Memorial is in on this, purposely inducing comas in patients whose organs match those of potential buyers. The patients are rendered brain dead via covert carbon monoxide poisoning, through a pipe that leads from the basement to the OR.
Susan's investigation then reveals the mastermind behind all of it - Dr. George Harris (Richard Widmark), Chief of Surgery, whom she has been confiding in all along. Dr. Harris tries to stop Susan from exposing the truth, and attempts to render her brain-dead with carbon monoxide in operating room eight, under the pretext of performing an appendectomy. However, Mark, now having realized the truth as well, races to find and disconnect the pipe before it can poison Susan!
[Wheeler discusses how to put a patient into a coma with a pair of Pathologists]
Jim: First rule of crime: Keep It Simple. What's simple? Carbon Monoxide.
Pathology Resident #2: Boring.
Dr. Susan Wheeler: Carbon Monoxide?
Jim: Sure, it's perfect. Anesthetist feeds the patient some carbon monoxide instead of oxygen. It's colorless and makes the blood very red so the surgeon doesn't notice anything funny. But the brain dies from lack of oxygen. End of operation - the patient doesn't wake up.
Top: Dr Susan Wheeler (Geneviève Bujold) is convinced there is a sinister plot at Boston Memorial Hospital involving coma patients;
Above: Wheeler's doubting lover, Dr. Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas)
Producer Martin Erlichman first read the film's source novel when it was in galley form, stating in an interview years later that for this movie he wanted to do for hospitals what Jaws (1975) had done to people with the ocean and sharks. He said: "People have a primal fear of the ocean and Jaws titillated that phobia. In a similar manner, Coma accents one's primal fears of hospitals. This is an even stronger phobia because a person can always refrain from going into the water, but cannot always avoid the necessity of going into hospital!".
Erlichman then approached novelist and Westworld writer/director Michael Crichton to helm the big screen adaptation. Crichton was actually a friend of Cook's, having first met while Crichton was doing post-doctoral work in biology at La Jolla's Salk Institute and Cook was a Navy physician stationed at San Diego. In writing the screenplay, Crichton made a number of changes, including turning the novel's protagonist Dr. Susan Wheeler from a attractive feminist blonde medical student in the book to an unglamorous brunette second year surgical resident medical officer, also cutting the women's lib feminist content of the novel right down. Moreover, the medical institute building in the book was situated in the city whereas in the movie the building is located in the outer suburbs out of town. After the films release, Crichton stated in an interview that even though the lead in the book was a female the studio talked about getting Paul Newman to play it, but he fought it. "If a man had done the movie it would be a much more conventional thing."
Erlichman then approached novelist and Westworld writer/director Michael Crichton to helm the big screen adaptation. Crichton was actually a friend of Cook's, having first met while Crichton was doing post-doctoral work in biology at La Jolla's Salk Institute and Cook was a Navy physician stationed at San Diego. In writing the screenplay, Crichton made a number of changes, including turning the novel's protagonist Dr. Susan Wheeler from a attractive feminist blonde medical student in the book to an unglamorous brunette second year surgical resident medical officer, also cutting the women's lib feminist content of the novel right down. Moreover, the medical institute building in the book was situated in the city whereas in the movie the building is located in the outer suburbs out of town. After the films release, Crichton stated in an interview that even though the lead in the book was a female the studio talked about getting Paul Newman to play it, but he fought it. "If a man had done the movie it would be a much more conventional thing."
[Dr. George defends his actions to Wheeler]
Dr. George A. Harris: Our society faces momentous decisions. Decisions about the right to die. About abortion. About terminal illness, prolonged coma, transplantation. Decisions about life and death. But society isn't deciding. Congress isn't deciding. The courts aren't deciding. Religion isn't deciding. Why? Because society is leaving it up to us, the experts. The doctors.
Top: The sinister nurse at the Jefferson Institute, Mrs Emerson (Elizabeth Ashley);
Above: Chief of Surgery Dr. George Harris (Richard Widmark) is revealed as the mastermind behind the conspiracy!
Both Julie Christie and Farrah Fawcett were considered for the lead role before Canadaian actress Geneviève Bujold was cast in the lead role of Dr. Susan Wheeler (Fawcett missed out on the role due to her commitments to the TV show Charlie's Angels). The remaining cast were soon assembled, including; Rip Torn as Chief of Anesthesiology Dr. George, Elizabeth Ashley as the sinister Mrs. Emerson from the Jefferson Institute, Lois Chiles as Wheeler's friend Nancy Greenly, Lance LeGault as the assassin Vince, and Richard Widmark as the main villian Dr. George Harris, Chief of Surgery. Michael Douglas was also cast as Wheeler's love interest and fellow surgery resident at Boston Memorial Hospital. Before filming began, Douglas called the film "the first time I've been offered a project with a good story laid out well, a good cast and a good director." Making their feature film debut with Coma, was Ed Harris as a pathology resident and Tom Selleck as one of the doomed patients, Sean Murphy. Interestingly, Selleck would later work with Crichton again in the 1984 sci-fi thriller Runaway.
Filming begun on June 20, 1977, with shooting taking place at Boston City Hospital and the University of Southern California's dissection room. The building used for the exteriors of the evil medical facility is actually the former Xerox headquarters and sales office in Lexington, Massachusetts, located about 10 minutes from downtown Boston (it is now the HQ of Stride Rite footwear, although the building has been altered since 1978 but is largely unchanged). The interiors of the medical facility were filmed at the MGM studio on one of the four sound stages used for this picture, with these scenes needing special filming and lighting requirements.
Background artists playing the coma patients being suspended by wires in the coma clinic underwent such great a physical strain that they could only be filmed in six minute bursts. Because of this, the extras were paid a much higher rate. Crichton said that "It was technically very complicated because the people could only hang for six minutes...You see, the suspension was actually only from the hips and neck. But because you had to act like you were suspended by wires everywhere, a great strain was put on the back...We had special tables built that were on jacks, like car jacks, and people would sit on these tables in between shots. And then they would be hung, and the tables would be rolled down and moved out...I think we used sixteen real people and fifteen dummies...But most of what the camera sees is real people." Two versions of all scenes of the coma patients in the coma clinic were filmed - one version had them semi-naked whilst the other, for television screenings, had them covered-up.
Filming begun on June 20, 1977, with shooting taking place at Boston City Hospital and the University of Southern California's dissection room. The building used for the exteriors of the evil medical facility is actually the former Xerox headquarters and sales office in Lexington, Massachusetts, located about 10 minutes from downtown Boston (it is now the HQ of Stride Rite footwear, although the building has been altered since 1978 but is largely unchanged). The interiors of the medical facility were filmed at the MGM studio on one of the four sound stages used for this picture, with these scenes needing special filming and lighting requirements.
Background artists playing the coma patients being suspended by wires in the coma clinic underwent such great a physical strain that they could only be filmed in six minute bursts. Because of this, the extras were paid a much higher rate. Crichton said that "It was technically very complicated because the people could only hang for six minutes...You see, the suspension was actually only from the hips and neck. But because you had to act like you were suspended by wires everywhere, a great strain was put on the back...We had special tables built that were on jacks, like car jacks, and people would sit on these tables in between shots. And then they would be hung, and the tables would be rolled down and moved out...I think we used sixteen real people and fifteen dummies...But most of what the camera sees is real people." Two versions of all scenes of the coma patients in the coma clinic were filmed - one version had them semi-naked whilst the other, for television screenings, had them covered-up.
TRIVIA: The name of the experimental clinic was The Jefferson Institute whilst the name of the hospital was the Boston Memorial Hospital, the latter closely resembling the real life Massachusetts General Hospital, though the site used for it was the real life Boston City Hospital.
Top: Writer/director Michael Crichton;
Above: Crichton on set with actress Geneviève Bujold
Released in January 1978, Coma was a huge success at the box office, grossing $50 million against it's relatively small budget of $4 million. In 2000, Empire Magazine reviewed Coma, writing, "Crichton's past in the medical profession help him to create a believable setting and cast of characters from a game adaptation of Robin Cook's successful novel, almost two decades before his ER hit the small screen. And Bujold gives the finest performance of her career, closely resembling Sigourney Weaver's Ripley (Alien) as a woman forced to be strong beyond her wildest imagination, until a rather mundane plot twist does its best to send her from heroine to damsel in distress." In 2012, Coma was remade as a two-part miniseries for A&E, premiering on September 3rd, with Lauren Ambrose as Susan Wheeler, Steven Pasquale as Dr. Mark Bellows, and Ellen Burstyn as the evil Mrs. Emerson. 2012's Coma received mostly positive reviews, with David Hinckley of the New York Daily News stating, "This Coma is different enough from the 1978 movie to have its own appeal, and the cast keeps things interesting even during plot lulls."
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 79%
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