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"You'll forgive me if I probe, doctor. It's an old surgical habit." A page out of Chandler for the acerbic outlook, a Kokoschka view of Boston behind the opening titles sets it up. A new pathologist at the hospital, transplanted from California and promptly at odds with institutional rules, James Coburn parading his craggy hipness. The comely dietitian (Jennifer O'Neill) sizes him up: "Did you forget your wall? You know, that thing you carry around to keep everybody out?" The mystery at hand involves a hemorrhaging teen who turns out to be the daughter of the top surgeon (Dan O'Herlihy), the victim on the autopsy slab is briefly recalled as a cavorting beachgoer in a flash emulated by Aldrich in Hustle. The scapegoat is a fellow physician and part-time abortionist (James Hong), his colleague turns amateur gumshoe, the city's caste system is X-rayed in the process. "You know, a doctor plays God in a lot of crappy ways. I thought this was a good way." Blake Edwards in the New Hollywood wilderness, a bitter chill perfect for medical whodunit and societal indictment alike. Hard-edged under his groovy patina, the protagonist interrogates a coed (Jennifer Edwards) by terrorizing her with a reckless car ride and extracts a confession from a junkie (Skye Aubrey) by withholding a morphine fix. (By contrast, he knows better than to slug a snoop who's just had a hernia operation, and diagnoses his own ruptured spleen after getting nearly ran over.) "Synthetic" is the word, cf. Gunn, a bloody trail in the antiseptic corridor. "You don't think that science can provide the answer, huh?" "Not as fast as sex." Altman's The Long Goodbye and Crichton's Coma are the main beneficiaries. With Pat Hingle, Elizabeth Allen, Melissa Torme-March, John Fink, Alex Dreier, Michael Blodgett, Regis Toomey, Robert Mandan, and John Hillerman.
--- Fernando F. Croce |