Who wrote the screenplay for the 1970 M*A*S*H film?

Ring Lardner Jr. wrote the screenplay for the 1970 M*A*S*H film.

The film was directed by Robert Altman and adapted from Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel, MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. Lardner’s screenplay supplied the film’s basic structure, characters, and much of its dialogue, even though Altman encouraged improvisation and allowed actors to reshape lines during production.

The movie’s loose, episodic quality can make its authorship seem less definite than it was. Altman’s unconventional directing style, overlapping performances, and improvised exchanges are major parts of the finished film, but they do not replace Lardner’s credited screenplay. Robert Altman was the director, not the screenplay writer.

Lardner was a prominent screenwriter whose career was affected by the Hollywood blacklist. His work on M*A*S*H earned him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film’s story is set during the Korean War, while its antiwar subtext was strongly associated with the Vietnam-era context in which it was made.