Dr. Peter Carey is the new pathologist at a Boston hospital. He befriends his colleagues and falls in love with dietitian Georgia Hightower. The hospital is run by surgeon J.D. Randall. Police are investigating a series of morphine thefts at the hospital. One night, Dr. Randall's daughter Karen dies in the emergency room after a botched abortion.
Dr. Tao is arrested for performing the abortion. Carey pretends to be his lawyer in order to visit him in jail. Tao admits to charging $25 for illegal abortions, because he was horrified at how women suffered at the hands of amateurs. However, Tao says he did not perform Karen's abortion. Police Captain Pearson warns Carey to leave the case alone, but Carey hates the idea of his innocent friend going to prison.
The post-mortem reveals that whoever did the procedure had curettage knowledge but pierced the endometrium, causing the fatal hemorrhaging. Karen's blood work shows she was not pregnant. Carey suspects she missed a few periods and panicked into getting an abortion.
He questions Karen's roommate Lydia Barrett. She confesses that she hated Karen for stealing her boyfriend Roger Hudson. Carey visits Hudson at the massage parlor where he works. He sees nurse Angela Holder leaving as he arrives.
Carey deduces that Holder was stealing the hospital's drugs for Hudson to sell. He gets Holder to confess to performing the abortion to fund her drug habit. Hudson goes berserk and tries to kill Carey multiple times before Pearson kills him.
Film rights were bought in August 1968 by A&M Productions, the production company of Herb Alpert. They said filming would take place the following year in Boston.[3] In October Perry Leff signed Wendell Mayes to a two-picture contract to write and produce, the first of which was to be A Case of Need.[4][5][6]
Film rights were then picked up by MGM. In March 1971 it was announced Bill Belasco was producing and Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch were working on a script.[7]
In June Blake Edwards signed to direct.[8] This was considered surprising because Edwards had clashed with MGM's chief executive, James Aubrey, during the making of The Wild Rovers. Edwards' wife Julie Andrews later wrote "for reasons I can only guess at, Blake took the bait. Perhaps there was some compulsion on his part to make things right, or perhaps he simply wanted to finally win out against the man who had caused him such pain."[9]
Aubrey promised Edwards he would finance The Green Man, a project of Edwards' to star Julie Andrews.
The cast included Aubrey's daughter Skye,
Shooting
Filming started in September 1971 under the title A Case of Need.[10] It was a difficult shoot with Edwards claiming Aubrey cut his schedule and refused to let Edwards rewrite the script. Edwards left the film after completing it.[11]
Edwards launched a breach of contract suit against MGM and president James T. Aubrey for their post production tampering of the film.[12] Edwards:
The whole experience was, in terms of filmmaking, extraordinarily destructive. The temper and tantrums from my producer, William Belasco, were such that he insulted me in front of the cast and crew and offered to bet me $1,000 that I'd never work in Hollywood again if I didn't do everything his and Aubrey's way. They told me that they didn't want quality, just a viewable film. The crew felt so bad about the way I was treated that they gave me a party – and usually it's the other way round. I know I've been guilty of excuses but my God what do you have to do to pay your dues? I made Wild Rovers for MGM and kept quiet when they recut it. But this time I couldn't take it. I played fair. They didn't.[11]
Coburn later said "You know, I don’t mind that film. I liked my work on it. There again the studio (MGM) fucked it up. They cut ten days out of the schedule. They pulled the plug on us early. It’s too bad. We did shoot the film on location in Boston though."[13]
Reception
Critical response
The Carey Treatment received mostly mixed to negative reviews from critics.
Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, was amused by The Carey Treatment but wrote, "...I don't think we have to take this too seriously, for The Carey Treatment, like so many respectable private-eye movies, is sustained almost entirely by irrelevancies."[15]
Roger Ebert wrote, "The problem is in the script. There are long, sterile patches of dialog during which nothing at all is communicated. These are no doubt important in order to convey the essential meaninglessness of life, but how can a director make them interesting? Edwards tries."[16]
The Los Angeles Times called it "Edwards' best movie in years" and Coburn's "best role since moving up from supporting player to star."[17]
Variety said it was "written, directed, timed, paced and cast like a feature-for-tv... a serviceable release... Jennifer O'Neill... graces with her beauty plots to which she has absolutely no integral contribution."[18]
^Brown, Peter H. (June 28, 1981). "Julie Andrews: Bye, Mary Poppins, here's a thoroughly modern movie star Julie Andrews changes image from 'Mary Poppins' to 'S.O.B.'". Chicago Tribune. p. k1.
^Kehr, Dave (Feb 15, 2004). "Anatomy of a Blake Edwards Splat". New York Times. p. MT26.
^Martin, Betty (Aug 9, 1968). "'Case of Need' on A&M Slate". Los Angeles Times. p. e12.
^Martin, Betty (Oct 1, 1968). "Irene Pappas Signs Contract". Los Angeles Times. p. c14.
^Judith Martin (28 Feb 1969). "Dropping the Scalpel: Film Notes Columbia Frowns Speeds the Turnover Refuge From Roles". The Washington Post and Times-Herald. p. B12. Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsers by selecting the Enter buttonHide highlighting.
^A. H. WEILER (July 6, 1969). "No Gap Like the Generation Gap". New York Times. p. D11.
^A. H. WEILER (Mar 21, 1971). "Our 'Boy' Barbra: Our 'Boy' Barbra". New York Times. p. D13.
^Martin, Betty (June 23, 1971). "Comeback for Ida Lupino". Los Angeles Times. p. e7.
^Andrews, Julie (202). Home work : a memoir of my Hollywood years. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 167.
^"MGM Slates Busy Month in September". Los Angeles Times. Aug 27, 1971. p. d11.
^ abWarga, Wayne. (Dec 26, 1971). "What's Going On in the Lion's Den at MGM?: What's Going On". Los Angeles Times. p. q1.
^Servi, Vera. (Dec 20, 1971). "To Viet Nam with Hope". Chicago Tribune. p. b20.
