Frank Burns (M*A*S*H)

For other characters named Burns, see Burns (disambiguation).

Major Franklin "Frank" Marion Burns was a character in both M*A*S*H the film and the television series. In the movie, Burns was portrayed by Robert Duvall, and in the series he was portrayed by Larry Linville.

The character is radically different in the movie and the television series; in the film, Frank is a brooding religious fanatic, while in the television series he is an officious, frenetic, pompous twit.

Movie

In the movie, Frank Burns is portrayed as a very religious man who prays for all the souls to be saved. He also is a firm believer in military discipline who dislikes the undisciplined manner of both Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre. When the new head nurse, Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan arrives, the pair soon fall for each other.

When the two meet in Houlihan's tent, they soon begin making love. What neither of them know is that a microphone had been planted underneath Houlihan's bed. Every sound the pair made during their lovemaking is heard in the clerk's office. Soon Trapper decides that this has to be shared with the rest of the camp, and he puts Burns and Houlihan on the PA.

The next morning, Burns gets into a fight with Hawkeye when the latter asks Burns how Houlihan was in bed, demonstrating noises. As a result, Burns attacks Hawkeye physically, and is next sent to a psychiatric hospital in a straitjacket. This is the last the audience sees of him in the movie.

In the original novel, Frank was only a captain, not a major. He was promoted presumably for dramatic and story conflict. His medical skills are not greatly focused on in the book, but in both the movie and the television series, it is directly or indirectly suggested that Burns is an incompetent surgeon who blames others for his surgical errors.

Television series

In the television series, Major Frank Burns was played by Larry Linville. The character of Frank Burns was said to be diametrically opposite of Larry Linville in real life, who was generally a friendly, courteous, well-read man. (Reportedly, Linville could also be high-strung, and this trait played into his TV character.) He based his portrayal of Major Burns on "every idiot I've ever known". While the TV Burns would appeal occasionally to religious and moral values (typically in the process of showing himself up), the emphasis in storylines was more on his surgical and personal shortcomings, than on his sanctimony.

In the television series, Burns is a firm believer in discipline and unwavering patriotism, and dislikes intensely the fact that Pierce and McIntyre are so laid back. At the beginning of the series, Burns and Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan are a couple and their romance scenes were played in a way that could be described as a soap opera parody, with the main jokes being excessive sentimentality, sappy nicknames ("Oh, Margaret, you're my snug harbor--I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you to sail into.") and casual references to Frank's wife, Louise (whom he is said to have only married for her money). It is hinted at in the second season that Hot Lips really isn't happy with Frank and, deep down, she knows he's not the man they both like to think he is. She clings to him because he's the only other person in the camp who shares her opinion that strict discipline is the only discipline (though even at her worst she showed more humanity than Frank), and because of their common contempt of Hawkeye and Trapper. Though Frank is hopelessly in love with Hot Lips, he is too weak and greedy to divorce his wife; when it was discovered that Frank's wife had heard of the affair and tried to get a divorce, Frank lied about Hot Lips' beauty and the whole affair to get the divorce off. This puzzled Radar, who thought Frank would have been happy to leave his wife and marry Hot Lips, but as Hawkeye noted, Frank didn't want to leave "mommy".

Burns is portrayed as a barely-passable surgeon; throughout the series it is stated that he only became a doctor to please his beloved mother, and/or for the money (more than a few episodes spotlighted Frank's seemingly insatiable greed, making it a driving factor in his personality). He admits in different episodes that it took him twice as long to graduate medical school (having flunked out of two) as normal, and only passed his first year by buying the answers to a final exam. He stayed in medical school hoping to cure the acne that plagued him beyond his teen years, and would have settled for becoming a male nurse if he'd been able to master folding hospital corners in bedsheets.

Burns is often seen making mistakes that could have cost patients their lives if the other surgeons hadn't intervened. His insufficient surgery skills were a constant source of humor throughout the series, even after he left. In the pilot episode, when Frank is chastising Hawkeye for his behavior in the operating room, Hawkeye replies "If you want to question my conduct as a soldier that's one thing, but as for my conduct as a doctor, if you seriously want to question that, I'm afraid I'll have to challenge you to a duel." Hawkeye then asks Frank if he's tired after "all that malpractice" he put in. Later, when Hot Lips threatens to file a formal complaint about the insult, Hawkeye retorts that he'll file a countercomplaint about Frank "posing as a doctor and as a human being!"

Trapper John described Frank as a "medical moron" who couldn't cut a salami without bumbling it; in a letter to his daughters, Trapper described Hawkeye as a "good egg" while likening Frank to "a substitute teacher who comes for a day and stays all year." During an inquiry, Burns quizzes a military lawyer about his service record, and is told "If you hadn't been drafted as a doctor, you'd have been assigned as a pastry chef," and even the native doctors (friend and foe alike) are aware of Burns's ineptitude. In the next-to-last episode when the 4077th buries a time capsule, Frank's replacement Major Winchester points out that they didn't include any mementos from the "odious Major Burns", and Hawkeye replies "I thought about putting in Frank's scalpel, but I didn't want to include any deadly weapons."

Burns often tried to undermine Lt. Col Henry Blake because of Blake's rather lax approach to those under his command, or in an attempt to take control himself. Several times he went over Blake's head to complain about events at the camp; one example of this is when Pierce was appointed chief surgeon over Burns, who appealed directly to General Barker (Sorrell Booke). Initially ready to send Hawkeye packing, Barker winds up so thoroughly impressed with him that he tells Col. Blake to give Burns a high colonic and send him on a ten-mile hike (with full pack) as punishment for wasting his time. Henry once threatened to note in Frank's personnel file that Frank didn't work and play well with others. Frank spent most of his time on the series battling and antagonising virtually everyone in the camp, specifically his tentmates and his commanding officers. By the fifth season he was the show's main antagonist and, essentially, the closest thing the series had to an actual villain (aside from the enemy North Koreans and Chinese).

When Blake left, and died on his way home, Burns (who actually cried when he heard of Blake's death, one of the few times he ever showed any genuine humanity) was initially slated to take command of the camp. However the Army soon appointed a new Commanding Officer, Sherman T. Potter. Everyone except Burns liked the new CO from the start, even Major Houlihan. Burns did not get along with Potter, often making insulting comments regarding Potter's age. Potter in turn referred to Burns as the camp's "head twerp".

Eventually, Burns and Houlihan had a falling out. Houlihan married Donald Penobscot, another career military officer, and wasted few opportunities of praising Donald and her love for him in Frank's face. The two left on their honeymoon, leaving Frank alone and heartbroken, despite the fact he was already married to begin with. During their honeymoon, Burns was sent on leave to Seoul. While there, he suffered a breakdown and started running wild throughout the city with the Military Police in pursuit until he accosted a General's wife (whom he mistakenly thought was Houlihan) in a public bath. As a result of a psychiatric examination after his capture, he was sent back to the States. Much to Pierce and Hunnicutt's (Trapper's replacement) disgust, Burns was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and posted to a VA Hospital in Indiana. Burns was replaced with Major C.E. Winchester III, who by contrast, was considered an excellent surgeon even by the people who disliked him. Winchester also had a relatively more bearable personality.

Burns was written out of the series at the request of Linville. Linville, who once commented that there was actually a very dark aura hovering over Frank, believing that Frank was not all that stable yet he was still operating on patients, felt that the character of Frank Burns had gone as far as it possibly could, with the way the series had developed.

External links

• Finest-Kind.net - M*A*S*H website with character profile
• Best Care Anywhere - M*A*S*H website with character profile