Battle Circus is a 1953 film directed by Richard Brooks, who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Humphrey Bogart and June Allyson. and costars Keenan Wynn and Robert Keith. See also: 1952 in film 1953 1954 in film 1950s in film years in film film Events September 16 - The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film. ... Richard Brooks (born Ruben Sax, May 18, 1912; died March 11, 1992) was a Hollywood film writer, director, and (occasionally) producer. ... Humphrey Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an iconic American actor who retains legendary status decades after his death. ... June Allyson (born October 7, 1917) is an American actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. ... Keenan Wynn, (27 July 1916 – 14 October 1986), an American character actor and member of a well-known show-business family. ... This article is about the actor; Robert Keith is also the name of a Scottish historian. ...

The film is set in Korea during the Korean "conflict"; Bogart plays a surgeon at a mobile army surgical hospital, and Allyson plays a nurse. Korea (occasionally spelled Corea) is a formerly unified country, situated on the Korean Peninsula in northern East Asia, bordering on China to the west and Russia to the north. ... The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁), from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. ... A mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) is a self-contained United States Army military unit established to perform surgery and provide post-operative care immediately behind the front lines. ...

According to Brooks (in an interview filmed for the 1988 Bacall on Bogart documentary), the film was originally called MASH, a title rejected by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer because the studio thought people would think the film had something to do with potatoes. Brooks also noted that Bogart agreed to do the film because the script's humor, set in a story showing the tragedy of war, would make the film seem more realistic to an audience. For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ...

The title of the film refers to the speed and ease with which a MASH unit, like a circus, can pick up stakes and move to where the action is. The Big Top of Billy Smarts Circus Cambridge 2004. ...

See also

• M*A*S*H

M*A*S*H is a 1970 satirical American dark comedy film directed by Robert Altman, based extremely loosely on the novel written by Richard Hooker. ...

External links

• Battle Circus (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045544/) at the Internet Movie Database
• Synopsis (http://www.amctv.com/show/detail?CID=8497) from American Movie Classics
• Film summary (http://www.juneallyson.com/1953.htm) from the official June Allyson website