Health (film)
Encyclopedia
HealtH is a 1980
ensemble
comedy film
, the fifteenth feature project from director Robert Altman
. It stars Carol Burnett
, Glenda Jackson
, James Garner
, Lauren Bacall
, and Paul Dooley
, and was written by Altman, Dooley and Frank Barhydt. The film's title is an acronym for "Happiness, Energy, and Longevity through Health".
A parody and satire of the U.S. political scene of the time, HealtH is set at a health food
convention at a Florida
luxury hotel, where a powerful political organization is deciding on a new president. The election is rife with backroom deals and scandal; a businessman, Colonel Cody, is out to rig the votes and the outcome. Dick Cavett
and Dinah Shore
, two television talk show
personalities of the time, are mentioned prominently in the film.
HealtH was made by Robert Altman's company, Lion's Gate Films, in early 1979. It was the director's last film for the 20th Century-Fox
studio, which shelved its official release for over two years. Despite this, it received festival showings and a brief Los Angeles run during 1980. The film was broadcast on various U.S. television stations over the years, including The Movie Channel
and Fox Movie Channel
, but has never been issued on home video.
, Florida. As the convention takes place, the members of an organization called HealtH hold a campaign to find out who will become its President. (Their name stands for "Happiness, Energy and Longevity through Health"; it also serves as their slogan.) The candidates are Esther Brill, an 83-year-old who calls herself "the first lady of health"; Isabella Garnell, who is serious against commercialism
and materialism
; and Dr. Harold (Gil) Gainey, a salesperson-turned-independent
.
On the first day of the conference, The Steinettes
(a female quartet dressed in green and yellow) introduce Dick Cavett, who is hosting his show
on location and covering the details of the event. He interviews Gloria Burbank and Esther Brill, two of the candidates competing for the new Presidency of the HealtH organization. Burbank, a White House
representative, has been sent to this venue on the President of the United States
' behalf. Later that day at the hotel lounge, Burbank's ex-husband Harry Wolff plans to re-schedule the Cavett interview, due to difficulties with Brill during her profile. The moment Burbank heads to her room, Gil Gainey (a minor candidate) stops her and debates on the worth of her strategy.
On the morning of the second day, several conventioneers notice a seemingly dead body sunk to the bottom of the pool from their balconies. Harry Wolff and the President's advisor on health, Gloria Burbank, are chatting by the deep end of the pool. Gloria then dives in to the pool, not realizing there is a body floating on the bottom. As she approaches it, she finally sees it and screams in fear, heading back to the surface. Some other men dive in to rescue the drowned body, but it turns out that Gainey had been using an oxygen tank
in order to play a publicity stunt
.
That night, Garnell announces a serious message from the top of the hotel through her loudspeaker; many guests take notice, and some complain. Around that time, a businessperson named Colonel Cody arrives at the conference, and heads to Garnell's room to interrogate and find out her plans.
Next morning, Harry finds out that Burbank is beginning to support Garnell, and thinks that this is not right. Later on, while discussing breastfeeding
and abortion
with Brill, Burbank is astonished that Garnell and Brill were actually born male. After serving in the Army
, both had sex change operations
in 1960. Bobby Hammer, a dirty tricks
specialist, actually concocted this revelation to trick Burbank.
After another discussion with Brill, Burbank enters the empty convention hall, where Cody interrupts her. He finds her title, and the ideals of the HealtH organization, worthless. Ashamed and in tears, Burbank is shocked that he controls not only HealtH, but also the ongoing election; he even plans to rig the votes and the outcome. She runs back to tell Wolff on Cody's scheme. As the couple start making love, Burbank is worried that it will be all over for her if Garnell wins. Harry, however, assures her that Garnell is still a woman anyway.
On the fourth and final day, the results of the HealtH election are announced live on Cavett's show, and Esther Brill comes out as the victor. Burbank and her ex-husband watch on from their balcony outside, and also take a glimpse at Cody proposing an offer to Brill. Some time later, Cody, who turns out to be her harmless nut brother, gets into a fit of anger, knocking down everything in his path, and demands to get away immediately.
With the HealtH convention over, another one involving hypnotists
is taking root at the hotel. Before he and the candidates leave, Cavett briefly greets Dinah Shore, the host on hand for this event. As the HealtH sign is taken down in front of the hotel, the Steinettes perform a Broadway-style show tune
that closes the film.
Under the supervision of Alan Ladd, Jr.
, head of 20th Century-Fox, director Robert Altman made HealtH for US$6 million through his Lion's Gate Films company. At the time, Altman had commitments to deliver films for Fox until 1981; HealtH was his fifteenth feature project. "[Alan] had great faith in me," he told David Sterritt
in 2000; "he put his own job on the line." Of the film's timing, he said, "HealtH could have only been made when it was made, and that was the end of the Carter
era." This and 1979's Quintet
were Altman's first collaborations with writer Frank Barhydt; the two would later work on the 1988 HBO miniseries Tanner '88
, as well as 1993's Short Cuts
and 1996's Kansas City
.
In response to the diminishing box office returns of his last three efforts (A Wedding
, Quintet and A Perfect Couple
), and in case any delays could put a damper on his financing, Altman rushed HealtH into production. The film was shot in sequence at only one location: the Don CeSar Beach Hotel
in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Production began on February 20, 1979, and continued for three months. The crew chose the CeSar, said Altman, because "we felt [this] would be fun, with lots of crazy situations and off-beat characters." Joseph Byrd
worked on the music score, along with supervisor Allan Nicholls
.
To capture the authenticity of the convention in the movie, art director Bob Quinn and co-writer Frank Barhydt visited an actual one in Boston
, Massachusetts before shooting. Over one hundred health food companies contributed to the set. One of them, Sovex Granola, participated during the shoot; their scenes did not make it into the finished film, but they received end-credit billing.
Robert Altman was known to wear different hats on every new production of his; on the set of HealtH, he wore a straw one. While filming, Altman got into a conflict with members of the local Teamsters
branch, and had to pay "outrageous salaries" for certification.
A short while after HealtH finished production, producer Robert Evans hired Altman for a musical version of Popeye
, co-produced by Paramount Pictures
and Walt Disney Productions
. Altman went to Malta
to shoot the film, and brought the Steinettes from HealtH along with him.
.
Before that could take place, the company's new president, Norman B. Levy, planned an April 1980 run in St. Louis, Missouri
. Altman went against it and suggested test runs in four markets instead: San Francisco and Sacramento
, California; Houston, Texas; and Boston, Massachusetts. The resulting previews played to poor audience response, and some time later, Fox deemed it uncommercial for release. In the end, the company replaced it on their schedule with Oh! Heavenly Dog, a crime comedy starring Chevy Chase
and Benji
the dog.
Save for Sherry Lansing
, who loved the film, Robert Altman had a fallout with Fox personnel over their handling of HealtH. After filming Popeye, Altman tried to contact Norman Levy on its status. The filmmaker complained, "[Levy] didn't return my phone calls for seven weeks. That's just basic rudeness. I don't think he knows what a movie is anyway." Moreover, he said of the studio's distribution unit: "Norman Levy and the rest are scum. [...] They're not interested in movies. They're interested in ski lift
s and Coca-Cola
."
Amid this situation, Altman began to distribute HealtH on his own by taking it to the film festival
circuit. The comedy was screened at the Montreal Film Festival in August 1980, and later appeared at Telluride
and Venice
. Of the response at those venues, the director said: "It has a love-hate reaction—but what's wrong with that?"
By September 1980, the festival exposure prompted 20th Century-Fox to hold over a month of preview screenings at the UA Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles
; a nationwide release was also considered. Despite even worse acclaim this time, Altman remarked that this run "did respectable business, considering that there was no advertising. But it's finished, dead, buried." Ultimately, HealtH would be Altman's last film for Fox; his experiences would later convince him to skip major distribution for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.
On March 7, 1981, a 16 mm print of HealtH was shown at the facilities of Northwestern University
in Evanston, Illinois
. The film also received a screening in Baltimore
, Maryland, on March 28. On April 7, 1982, it received its official cinema opening at the Film Forum 1
in New York City.
The film was released in at least two European markets: in Germany under the title Der Gesundheitskongress, and in the United Kingdom, where prints ran a few minutes longer than the original U.S. cut.
HealtH aired on the Philadelphia-based PRISM pay-TV service in February 1981, and also on the national U.S. outlet The Movie Channel
that same year. The film also was also broadcast on the CBS
network in August 1983. As of 2010, a widescreen
version has been shown on basic cable's Fox Movie Channel
. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
has not released the film on VHS, DVD or Blu-Ray.
' Vincent Canby
wrote: "HealtH is, I suppose, a mess, but it is a glorious one in the recognizable manner of a major film maker who sometimes gets carried away—by his subject, by his own enthusiasms and those of his actors, and by the collaborative creative process he loves. As do so many of his films, HealtH gives one the feeling of being on a nonstop party with the people who made it." He added that it "is no masterpiece, but it is one of the most appealing entertainments that Mr. Altman has ever put together". In a later article, he declared: "HealtH deserves to be seen by anyone interested in the career of this most eccentric and unpredictable of contemporary American film directors."
Leonard Maltin
gave HealtH two stars out of four in his Movie Guide, and added: "Non-Altman fans may love this more than devotees; Woodard steals the film—no easy feat considering that incredible cast—as [the] hotel's ultra-patient manager." Halliwell's Film Guide referred to it as a "zany satirical all-star romp on the lines of A Wedding but by no means as likeable or laughable, considering its cast, as it should be". The Film Bulletin called it a "misfired satire", and commented that its "major stars [...] are otherwise wasted".
In a 1985 book on Altman, Gerard Plecki called HealtH "a humorous companion piece to Nashville", adding that it "was certainly a major improvement over his two previous films". In regards to the studio shelving the film, Plecki remarked that it "certainly deserved mass marketing and a large promotion campaign".
On June 12, 1982, U.S. President Ronald Reagan
screened the film at Camp David
during stormy weather. In his diaries
that day, he called it "the world's worst movie".
Kolker also observed Altman's use of the carnivalesque
, a style from Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin
that the filmmaker employed in many of his productions. O'Brien called this the film's "strongest asset [...], complete with huckster
s and suckers (a handy metaphor
for most aspects of American society".
In Kolker's words, HealtH is "a hilarious documentation of politics and culture at the end of the Carter era when passivity began to disguise itself as self-satisfaction and marginal interests requested majority attention". The convention in the film "becomes a small mirror of larger political follies, of silly, self-serving people so convinced of their importance that they take for granted the fact that major significance attends their ridiculous activities".
O'Brien noted that in HealtH, "most of the main characters exhibit the expected Altman eccentricites", including the candidates in the election. "All this comes across as a little forced," he continued, "recalling the random weirdness of Brewster McCloud
rather than the carefully etched idiosyncracies
of The Long Goodbye
or Three Women." Moreover, someone says "Hit it!" just before the convention band replaces the opening Fox fanfare.
1980 in film
- Events :* May 21 - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released and is the biggest grosser of the year ....
ensemble
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
, the fifteenth feature project from director Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
. It stars Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
, Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
, James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
, Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
, and Paul Dooley
Paul Dooley
-Personal life:Dooley was born Paul Dooley Brown in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the son of Ruth Irene , a homemaker, and Peter James Brown, a factory worker. Dooley was a cartoonist as a youth and drew a strip for a local paper in Parkersburg. He joined the Navy before discovering acting while at...
, and was written by Altman, Dooley and Frank Barhydt. The film's title is an acronym for "Happiness, Energy, and Longevity through Health".
A parody and satire of the U.S. political scene of the time, HealtH is set at a health food
Health food
The term health food is generally used to describe foods that are considered to be beneficial to health, beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition. However, the term is not precisely defined by national regulatory agencies such as the U.S...
convention at a Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
luxury hotel, where a powerful political organization is deciding on a new president. The election is rife with backroom deals and scandal; a businessman, Colonel Cody, is out to rig the votes and the outcome. Dick Cavett
Dick Cavett
Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues...
and Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...
, two television talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
personalities of the time, are mentioned prominently in the film.
HealtH was made by Robert Altman's company, Lion's Gate Films, in early 1979. It was the director's last film for the 20th Century-Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
studio, which shelved its official release for over two years. Despite this, it received festival showings and a brief Los Angeles run during 1980. The film was broadcast on various U.S. television stations over the years, including The Movie Channel
The Movie Channel
The Movie Channel is an American premium channel owned by Showtime Networks, Inc., a subsidiary of CBS Corporation, which shows mostly movies, as well as special behind-the-scenes features, softcore adult erotica and movie trivia....
and Fox Movie Channel
Fox Movie Channel
The Fox Movie Channel is a channel which shows movies uncut and commercial-free.-Overview:Movie content consists mainly of selections from 20th Century Fox's library of releases through the 1990s and movies produced exclusively for television. Widescreen versions are shown whenever available....
, but has never been issued on home video.
Plot
Bearing similarities to Altman's 1975 film Nashville, along with a plotless structure, HealtH chronicles the progress of a health-food convention held at a luxury hotel in Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Florida. As the convention takes place, the members of an organization called HealtH hold a campaign to find out who will become its President. (Their name stands for "Happiness, Energy and Longevity through Health"; it also serves as their slogan.) The candidates are Esther Brill, an 83-year-old who calls herself "the first lady of health"; Isabella Garnell, who is serious against commercialism
Commercialism
Commercialism, in its original meaning, is the practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business. Today, however, it primarily refers to the tendency within open-market capitalism to turn everything into objects, images, and services sold for the purpose of generating profit...
and materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
; and Dr. Harold (Gil) Gainey, a salesperson-turned-independent
Independent (politician)
In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...
.
On the first day of the conference, The Steinettes
The Steinettes
The Steinettes were an a cappella doo-wop street quartet from Greenwich Village, New York, formed in 1978. The group appeared in HealtH and Popeye, two films from director Robert Altman that saw release in the early 1980s.-Career:...
(a female quartet dressed in green and yellow) introduce Dick Cavett, who is hosting his show
The Dick Cavett Show
The Dick Cavett Show has been the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks, including:* ABC daytime ...
on location and covering the details of the event. He interviews Gloria Burbank and Esther Brill, two of the candidates competing for the new Presidency of the HealtH organization. Burbank, a White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
representative, has been sent to this venue on the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
' behalf. Later that day at the hotel lounge, Burbank's ex-husband Harry Wolff plans to re-schedule the Cavett interview, due to difficulties with Brill during her profile. The moment Burbank heads to her room, Gil Gainey (a minor candidate) stops her and debates on the worth of her strategy.
On the morning of the second day, several conventioneers notice a seemingly dead body sunk to the bottom of the pool from their balconies. Harry Wolff and the President's advisor on health, Gloria Burbank, are chatting by the deep end of the pool. Gloria then dives in to the pool, not realizing there is a body floating on the bottom. As she approaches it, she finally sees it and screams in fear, heading back to the surface. Some other men dive in to rescue the drowned body, but it turns out that Gainey had been using an oxygen tank
Oxygen tank
An oxygen tank is a storage vessel for oxygen, which is either held under pressure in gas cylinders or as liquid oxygen in a cryogenic storage tank.Oxygen tanks are used to store gas for:* industrial processes including the manufacture of steel and monel...
in order to play a publicity stunt
Publicity stunt
A publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized or set up by amateurs...
.
That night, Garnell announces a serious message from the top of the hotel through her loudspeaker; many guests take notice, and some complain. Around that time, a businessperson named Colonel Cody arrives at the conference, and heads to Garnell's room to interrogate and find out her plans.
Next morning, Harry finds out that Burbank is beginning to support Garnell, and thinks that this is not right. Later on, while discussing breastfeeding
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
and abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
with Brill, Burbank is astonished that Garnell and Brill were actually born male. After serving in the Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, both had sex change operations
Sex reassignment surgery
Sex reassignment surgery is a term for the surgical procedures by which a person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are altered to resemble...
in 1960. Bobby Hammer, a dirty tricks
Dirty tricks
Dirty tricks are unethical, duplicitous, slanderous or illegal tactics employed to destroy or diminish the effectiveness of political or business opponents...
specialist, actually concocted this revelation to trick Burbank.
After another discussion with Brill, Burbank enters the empty convention hall, where Cody interrupts her. He finds her title, and the ideals of the HealtH organization, worthless. Ashamed and in tears, Burbank is shocked that he controls not only HealtH, but also the ongoing election; he even plans to rig the votes and the outcome. She runs back to tell Wolff on Cody's scheme. As the couple start making love, Burbank is worried that it will be all over for her if Garnell wins. Harry, however, assures her that Garnell is still a woman anyway.
On the fourth and final day, the results of the HealtH election are announced live on Cavett's show, and Esther Brill comes out as the victor. Burbank and her ex-husband watch on from their balcony outside, and also take a glimpse at Cody proposing an offer to Brill. Some time later, Cody, who turns out to be her harmless nut brother, gets into a fit of anger, knocking down everything in his path, and demands to get away immediately.
With the HealtH convention over, another one involving hypnotists
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
is taking root at the hotel. Before he and the candidates leave, Cavett briefly greets Dinah Shore, the host on hand for this event. As the HealtH sign is taken down in front of the hotel, the Steinettes perform a Broadway-style show tune
Show tune
A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...
that closes the film.
Cast
| Name | Character | Description | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carol Burnett Carol Burnett Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut... |
Gloria Burbank | A candidate for the HealtH election, and a White House representative. She becomes sexually aroused Sexual arousal Sexual arousal, or sexual excitement, is the arousal of sexual desire, during or in anticipation of sexual activity. Things that precipitate human sexual arousal are called erotic stimuli, or colloquially known as turn-ons. There are many potential stimuli, both physical or mental, which can cause... whenever she is frightened. Burnett appeared in another Altman film, 1979's A Wedding A Wedding A Wedding is a 1978 black comedy film directed by Robert Altman, starring Carol Burnett, Lillian Gish, Geraldine Chaplin, Vittorio Gassman, Mia Farrow, Lauren Hutton, Craig Richard Nelson, Pam Dawber, Desi Arnaz, Jr., Paul Dooley, Dennis Christopher, and Howard Duff... . |
|
| Lauren Bacall Lauren Bacall Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,... |
Esther Brill | An 83-year-old virgin Virginity Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth... who is the most popular pick for the election; her motto is "Free Yourself". She tends to drift into sleep every time she tries finishing a sentence, and also believes that orgasm Orgasm Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure... s shorten a woman's life by 28 days. |
|
| Glenda Jackson Glenda Jackson Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate... |
Isabella Garnell | Brill's rival in the HealtH campaign, she borrows her speeches from Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson and commits her thoughts to a tape recorder Tape recorder An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage... . |
|
| James Garner James Garner James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades... |
Harry Wolff | Gloria Burbank's ex-husband, and Esther Brill's campaign manager. | |
| Paul Dooley Paul Dooley -Personal life:Dooley was born Paul Dooley Brown in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the son of Ruth Irene , a homemaker, and Peter James Brown, a factory worker. Dooley was a cartoonist as a youth and drew a strip for a local paper in Parkersburg. He joined the Navy before discovering acting while at... |
Dr. Gil Gainey | A salesperson for "Vita-Sea", a powdered kelp Kelp Kelps are large seaweeds belonging to the brown algae in the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera.... product. Twice in the film, he pretends to drown in a pool in order to receive publicity, after his part in the campaign gets little attention. His character is similar to John Triplette in Altman's Nashville. Dooley co-scripted HealtH along with Altman and Barhydt. |
|
| Henry Gibson Henry Gibson Henry Gibson was an American actor and songwriter, best known as a cast member of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and for his recurring role as Judge Clark Brown on Boston Legal.-Early life:... |
Bobby Hammer | Specializes in dirty tricks in the political field. To convince Burbank that Garnell is a transsexual Transsexualism Transsexualism is an individual's identification with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their biological sex. Simply put, it defines a person whose biological birth sex conflicts with their psychological gender... , he disguises himself as a female navy officer Cross-dressing Cross-dressing is the wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly associated with a gender within a particular society that is seen as different than the one usually presented by the dresser... . |
|
| Alfre Woodard Alfre Woodard Alfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss... |
Sally Benbow | An African-American, and the hotel's public relations Public relations Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.... director. At one point in the film, she observes that the convention's guests may not be as healthy as they seem. |
|
| Donald Moffat Donald Moffat Donald Moffat is an English-born actor, now a naturalized American citizen.-Early life:Moffat was born in Plymouth, Devon, the only child of Kathleen Mary and Walter George Moffat, who was an insurance agent. His parents ran a boarding house in Totnes... |
Colonel Cody | A businessperson who claims to own not only the convention, but the government as well. He is actually Esther Brill's brother, Lester. | |
| Dick Cavett Dick Cavett Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues... |
Himself | A talk show host at hand for the coverage of the HealtH events. | |
| Dinah Shore Dinah Shore Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality... |
Herself | Appears at the end of the film in a small cameo, as she prepares for a hypnotists' convention. | |
| Nathalie Blossom | The Steinettes | An a cappella A cappella A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato... quartet from Greenwich Village Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families... , New York New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and... , who are dressed in different outfits during the convention. Gerard Plecki calls their songs "ironic commentary on the health crisis implied in the film". |
|
| Julie Janney | |||
| Patty Katz | |||
| Diane Shaffer |
Production
Alan Ladd, Jr.
Alan Ladd, Jr. is an American film industry executive and producer. He is famous for giving George Lucas the go-ahead to make Star Wars and remained as Lucas' only support at times when the Board of Directors wished to shut down production...
, head of 20th Century-Fox, director Robert Altman made HealtH for US$6 million through his Lion's Gate Films company. At the time, Altman had commitments to deliver films for Fox until 1981; HealtH was his fifteenth feature project. "[Alan] had great faith in me," he told David Sterritt
David Sterritt
David Sterritt is a film critic, author and scholar. He is most notable for his work on Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, and his many years as the Film Critic for The Christian Science Monitor, where, from 1968 until his retirement in 2005, he championed avant garde cinema, theater and music...
in 2000; "he put his own job on the line." Of the film's timing, he said, "HealtH could have only been made when it was made, and that was the end of the Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
era." This and 1979's Quintet
Quintet (film)
Quintet is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film by Robert Altman produced in 1979. It features among others Paul Newman, Brigitte Fossey, Bibi Andersson, Fernando Rey, Vittorio Gassman and Nina Van Pallandt....
were Altman's first collaborations with writer Frank Barhydt; the two would later work on the 1988 HBO miniseries Tanner '88
Tanner '88
Tanner '88 is a political mockumentary miniseries written by Garry Trudeau and directed by Robert Altman. First broadcast by HBO during the months leading up to the 1988 U.S. presidential election, it purports to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the campaign of a former Michigan U.S...
, as well as 1993's Short Cuts
Short Cuts
Short Cuts is a 1993 American drama film directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Robert Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver...
and 1996's Kansas City
Kansas City (1996 film)
Kansas City is a 1996 film, directed by Robert Altman, and featuring numerous jazz tracks. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, Harry Belafonte, and Steve Buscemi starred. The film was entered into the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:...
.
In response to the diminishing box office returns of his last three efforts (A Wedding
A Wedding
A Wedding is a 1978 black comedy film directed by Robert Altman, starring Carol Burnett, Lillian Gish, Geraldine Chaplin, Vittorio Gassman, Mia Farrow, Lauren Hutton, Craig Richard Nelson, Pam Dawber, Desi Arnaz, Jr., Paul Dooley, Dennis Christopher, and Howard Duff...
, Quintet and A Perfect Couple
A Perfect Couple
A Perfect Couple is a 1979 film directed by Robert Altman.- Plot :An older man, played by Paul Dooley, tries romancing a younger woman, played by Marta Heflin. She is part of a travelling band of bohemian musicians who perform gigs in outdoor arenas around the country. He joins them on the road...
), and in case any delays could put a damper on his financing, Altman rushed HealtH into production. The film was shot in sequence at only one location: the Don CeSar Beach Hotel
Don Cesar
Loews Don CeSar Hotel is a Loews hotel located in St. Pete Beach, Florida, in the United States. Developed by Thomas Rowe and opened in 1928, it gained renown as the Gulf playground for America's pampered rich at the height of the Jazz Age and it still serves as a popular retreat for the rich and...
in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Production began on February 20, 1979, and continued for three months. The crew chose the CeSar, said Altman, because "we felt [this] would be fun, with lots of crazy situations and off-beat characters." Joseph Byrd
Joseph Byrd
Joseph Byrd was the leader of The United States of America, a notable rock band from the 1960s, as well as the psychedelic group Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, of cult fame through their release The American Metaphysical Circus...
worked on the music score, along with supervisor Allan Nicholls
Allan F. Nicholls
Allan F. Nicholls born April 8, 1945 in Montreal, Quebec, is a Canadian actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, composer and musician. He was nominated for both a BAFTA and WGA award for his writing on the 1978 film A Wedding. He is often credited as Allan Nicholls.Allan was lead...
.
To capture the authenticity of the convention in the movie, art director Bob Quinn and co-writer Frank Barhydt visited an actual one in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts before shooting. Over one hundred health food companies contributed to the set. One of them, Sovex Granola, participated during the shoot; their scenes did not make it into the finished film, but they received end-credit billing.
Robert Altman was known to wear different hats on every new production of his; on the set of HealtH, he wore a straw one. While filming, Altman got into a conflict with members of the local Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
branch, and had to pay "outrageous salaries" for certification.
A short while after HealtH finished production, producer Robert Evans hired Altman for a musical version of Popeye
Popeye (film)
Popeye is a 1980 live-action film adaptation directed by Robert Altman and adapted from E. C. Segar's Thimble Theatre aka Popeye comic strip.Marketed with the tagline, "The sailor man with the spinach can!", the film is a musical...
, co-produced by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and Walt Disney Productions
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
. Altman went to Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
to shoot the film, and brought the Steinettes from HealtH along with him.
Release
Distributor 20th Century-Fox originally planned HealtH for a Christmas 1979 release. But by the time editing was complete, a change of management took place at the studio, and Alan Ladd, Jr. was among those to leave; as a result, Fox shelved the film. After canceling plans for a March debut in January 1980, they moved it to their summer schedule; Altman's strategy was to have the film released in time for that year's presidential campaignUnited States presidential election, 1980
The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent...
.
Before that could take place, the company's new president, Norman B. Levy, planned an April 1980 run in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. Altman went against it and suggested test runs in four markets instead: San Francisco and Sacramento
Sacramento
Sacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta...
, California; Houston, Texas; and Boston, Massachusetts. The resulting previews played to poor audience response, and some time later, Fox deemed it uncommercial for release. In the end, the company replaced it on their schedule with Oh! Heavenly Dog, a crime comedy starring Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...
and Benji
Benji
Benji is the name of a fictional dog who has been the focus of several movies from 1974 through the 2000s. It is also the title of the first film in the Benji series....
the dog.
Save for Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing is a former actress and American film studio executive. She is former CEO of Paramount Pictures, and when president of production at 20th Century Fox was the first woman to head a Hollywood studio In 1996, she became the first woman named Pioneer of the Year by the Foundation of...
, who loved the film, Robert Altman had a fallout with Fox personnel over their handling of HealtH. After filming Popeye, Altman tried to contact Norman Levy on its status. The filmmaker complained, "[Levy] didn't return my phone calls for seven weeks. That's just basic rudeness. I don't think he knows what a movie is anyway." Moreover, he said of the studio's distribution unit: "Norman Levy and the rest are scum. [...] They're not interested in movies. They're interested in ski lift
Ski lift
The term ski lift generally refers to any transport device that carries skiers up a hill. A ski lift may fall into one of the following three main classes:-Lift systems and networks:...
s and Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
."
Amid this situation, Altman began to distribute HealtH on his own by taking it to the film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
circuit. The comedy was screened at the Montreal Film Festival in August 1980, and later appeared at Telluride
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
and Venice
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
. Of the response at those venues, the director said: "It has a love-hate reaction—but what's wrong with that?"
By September 1980, the festival exposure prompted 20th Century-Fox to hold over a month of preview screenings at the UA Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles
Westwood, Los Angeles, California
Westwood is a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the home of the University of California, Los Angeles .-History:...
; a nationwide release was also considered. Despite even worse acclaim this time, Altman remarked that this run "did respectable business, considering that there was no advertising. But it's finished, dead, buried." Ultimately, HealtH would be Altman's last film for Fox; his experiences would later convince him to skip major distribution for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.
On March 7, 1981, a 16 mm print of HealtH was shown at the facilities of Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
in Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
. The film also received a screening in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland, on March 28. On April 7, 1982, it received its official cinema opening at the Film Forum 1
Film Forum
Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater located at 209 West Houston Street in New York City. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a US$19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership,...
in New York City.
The film was released in at least two European markets: in Germany under the title Der Gesundheitskongress, and in the United Kingdom, where prints ran a few minutes longer than the original U.S. cut.
HealtH aired on the Philadelphia-based PRISM pay-TV service in February 1981, and also on the national U.S. outlet The Movie Channel
The Movie Channel
The Movie Channel is an American premium channel owned by Showtime Networks, Inc., a subsidiary of CBS Corporation, which shows mostly movies, as well as special behind-the-scenes features, softcore adult erotica and movie trivia....
that same year. The film also was also broadcast on the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
network in August 1983. As of 2010, a widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
version has been shown on basic cable's Fox Movie Channel
Fox Movie Channel
The Fox Movie Channel is a channel which shows movies uncut and commercial-free.-Overview:Movie content consists mainly of selections from 20th Century Fox's library of releases through the 1990s and movies produced exclusively for television. Widescreen versions are shown whenever available....
. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of the 20th Century Fox film studio. It was established in 1976 as Magnetic Video Corporation, and later as 20th Century Fox Video, CBS/Fox Video and FoxVideo, Inc....
has not released the film on VHS, DVD or Blu-Ray.
Reception
At the time of the Film Forum premiere, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
wrote: "HealtH is, I suppose, a mess, but it is a glorious one in the recognizable manner of a major film maker who sometimes gets carried away—by his subject, by his own enthusiasms and those of his actors, and by the collaborative creative process he loves. As do so many of his films, HealtH gives one the feeling of being on a nonstop party with the people who made it." He added that it "is no masterpiece, but it is one of the most appealing entertainments that Mr. Altman has ever put together". In a later article, he declared: "HealtH deserves to be seen by anyone interested in the career of this most eccentric and unpredictable of contemporary American film directors."
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
gave HealtH two stars out of four in his Movie Guide, and added: "Non-Altman fans may love this more than devotees; Woodard steals the film—no easy feat considering that incredible cast—as [the] hotel's ultra-patient manager." Halliwell's Film Guide referred to it as a "zany satirical all-star romp on the lines of A Wedding but by no means as likeable or laughable, considering its cast, as it should be". The Film Bulletin called it a "misfired satire", and commented that its "major stars [...] are otherwise wasted".
In a 1985 book on Altman, Gerard Plecki called HealtH "a humorous companion piece to Nashville", adding that it "was certainly a major improvement over his two previous films". In regards to the studio shelving the film, Plecki remarked that it "certainly deserved mass marketing and a large promotion campaign".
On June 12, 1982, U.S. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
screened the film at Camp David
Camp David
Camp David is the country retreat of the President of the United States and his guests. It is located in low wooded hills about 60 mi north-northwest of Washington, D.C., on the property of Catoctin Mountain Park in unincorporated Frederick County, Maryland, near Thurmont, at an elevation of...
during stormy weather. In his diaries
The Reagan Diaries
The Reagan Diaries is an edited version of diaries written by President Ronald Reagan while in the White House. The book is edited by Douglas Brinkley, while the full, unedited diaries were published in 2009...
that day, he called it "the world's worst movie".
Themes
Since its release, HealtH has been viewed as a parody, and satire, of the U.S. political scene at the time of its filming; critic Daniel O'Brien also noticed "the parallels between the [HealtH] election and the U.S. Presidency explicitly spelt out (several times)" in the film. In his book A Cinema of Loneliness, Robert Phillip Kolker stressed this aspect, writing that "Altman creates a world that is a parody of a political phenomenon that is itself already a parody of show business, for political conventions always mediate the realities of power with the signifiers of spectacle. [HealtH] is, finally, a representation of a representation."Kolker also observed Altman's use of the carnivalesque
Carnivalesque
Carnivalesque is an traces the origins of the carnivalesque to the concept of carnival, itself related to the Feast of Fools, a medieval festival originally of the sub-deacons of the cathedral, held about the time of the Feast of the Circumcision , in which the humbler cathedral officials...
, a style from Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language...
that the filmmaker employed in many of his productions. O'Brien called this the film's "strongest asset [...], complete with huckster
Huckster
A huckster is a seller of small articles, who tricks others into buying cheap imitation products and then bargains them as if they were the real thing...
s and suckers (a handy metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for most aspects of American society".
In Kolker's words, HealtH is "a hilarious documentation of politics and culture at the end of the Carter era when passivity began to disguise itself as self-satisfaction and marginal interests requested majority attention". The convention in the film "becomes a small mirror of larger political follies, of silly, self-serving people so convinced of their importance that they take for granted the fact that major significance attends their ridiculous activities".
O'Brien noted that in HealtH, "most of the main characters exhibit the expected Altman eccentricites", including the candidates in the election. "All this comes across as a little forced," he continued, "recalling the random weirdness of Brewster McCloud
Brewster McCloud
Brewster McCloud is a 1970 movie, directed by Robert Altman, about a young recluse who lives in a fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome, where he is building a pair of wings so he can fly. He is helped by his fairy godmother, played by Sally Kellerman....
rather than the carefully etched idiosyncracies
Idiosyncrasy
An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person . The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be .-Etymology:...
of The Long Goodbye
The Long Goodbye (film)
The Long Goodbye is a 1973 neo noir, directed by Robert Altman and based on Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Leigh Brackett, who co-wrote the screenplay for The Big Sleep in 1946...
or Three Women." Moreover, someone says "Hit it!" just before the convention band replaces the opening Fox fanfare.