coma

Director: michael crichton

Actor: michael douglas,rip torn,geneviève bujold,elizabeth ashley

Data Published: Fri Jan 06 1978

Genres: Drama,Horror,Mystery,Thriller

Key Words: conspiracy,hospital,surgery,coma,investigation

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077355/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma_(1978_film)

Description: Coma is a movie starring Michael Douglas, Rip Torn, and Geneviève Bujold. When a young female doctor notices an unnatural amount of comas occurring in her hospital she uncovers a horrible conspiracy.

Plot: Dr. Susan Wheeler (Geneviève Bujold) is a surgical resident at the prestigious Boston Memorial Hospital. Wheeler is devastated when a patient, Nancy Greely (Lois Chiles), who happens to be her best friend, is pronounced brain-dead and is comatose after minor surgery at the hospital. Initially accepting this as an unfortunate allergic reaction to the anesthetic, her suspicions are aroused when another young and otherwise healthy patient, Sean Murphy (Tom Selleck), also falls comatose during knee surgery for a recent sports injury, but while under a different combination of anesthetics. Looking at the records, Susan finds that over the previous year an unusual number of other fit, young people have suffered the same fate. She discovers two similarities among the cases: they all took place in the same operating room (operating room eight), and all the comatose bodies were subsequently moved to a remote facility called the Jefferson Institute. She continues to investigate, and angers Chief of Anesthesiology, Dr. George (Rip Torn) - a powerful figure in the hospital whose wife is also an heiress - by asking to review the relevant case patient charts, implying that his own investigation was somehow flawed. Increasingly alone and under mounting pressure from both superiors and colleagues, she begins to wonder if she can even trust her own boyfriend, Dr. Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas). She also visits the morgue where a postmortem examination is being performed on the body of her friend Nancy, who had since died. The pathologists are puzzled, and this leads to speculation on how to commit the perfect murder, to which one of the pathologists suggests carbon monoxide poisoning. Susan is called into the office of Chief of Surgery, Dr. George Harris (Richard Widmark), owing to her trouble with Dr. George, and given a weekend off to help recuperate from the loss of her friend. She and Mark travel to the seaside and spend a relaxing weekend together. On the way back to Boston, however, they happen to drive past a sign indicating the Jefferson Institute. They stop, and Susan pleads with Mark to drive back to see it. After traveling a distance from the highway along an access road, an imposing and unmarked concrete building reveals itself. Susan wants to go inside, but Mark refuses, allowing her to go alone while he waits in the car. After pressing the buzzer at the entrance, she is greeted by the stony Nurse Emerson (Elizabeth Ashley). Susan announces herself as Dr. Susan Wheeler, and asks if she can enter, but is informed that the facility is closed to all visitors. She's told, however, that the next tour for physicians is Tuesday morning. Returning on Tuesday morning to join the tour, conducted by Nurse Emerson, she finds what is apparently an advanced care facility for comatose patients. However, she decides after the tour is over to investigate the large areas of the building that were not visited over its course. Eventually, she discovers that the Jefferson Institute is in fact a front for black-market organ sales, where the patients' organs are sold to the highest bidder. Boston Memorial itself is complicit – purposefully inducing comas in select patients whose organs match those of potential buyers. As she earlier uncovered, the patients are rendered brain-dead via covert carbon monoxide poisoning through a line that leads from a tank in the basement to the OR, and is controlled by a radio signal. While she investigates the Jefferson Institute, she's caught on surveillance cameras by building security, and, after a chase, manages to escape atop the roof of an ambulance leaving to transport harvested organs to Logan Airport for delivery. Initially, Susan thinks that Dr. George is the mastermind of the entire scheme, and she rushes to her supervisor, Dr. Harris, with whom she has been confiding in all along, and explains what she has discovered. Dr. Harris expresses shock, but also seems supportive of her claims – even offering her a celebratory drink, which she accepts. The drink is in fact drugged, and begins to incapacitate Susan while also causing severe abdominal pain that mimics appendicitis. As she begins to lose consciousness, Dr. Harris reveals that it is in fact he who is the mastermind, and rationalizes this with a speech about how physicians must take charge of certain issues themselves, as neither the government nor the general public is informed enough or inclined to do so themselves. He phones in an emergency from his office, and reserves operating room eight, offering to perform the surgery on Susan himself, in order to silence her by rendering her brain-dead under the pretext of an appendectomy. However, as they are preparing for surgery, Dr. Harris is informed that operating room eight is not available. His vehement insistence upon using room eight arouses the suspicions of Mark, who, now realizing the truth, rushes off and finds in the basement the gas tank and line to room eight – disconnecting it before the carbon monoxide can permanently injure Susan. While in surgery Susan has some medical difficulty, having breathed the carbon monoxide for several minutes, but with the supply cut off, she manages to awaken – much to Dr. Harris' surprise – after surgery, and is wheeled out of the operating room holding Mark's hand. Meanwhile, a defeated Dr. Harris is left back in operating room eight, while two police officers wait outside to arrest him.