Sam Flagg
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| M*A*S*H character | |
 Lt. Col/Col. Sam Flagg, played by Edward Winter |
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| Sam Flagg | |
|---|---|
| Rank | Captain/Lieutenant Colonel/Colonel |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Dark Brown |
| Eye color | Unknown |
| Home city | Unknown |
| Film portrayer | None |
| Television portrayer | Edward Winter |
| Spanish voice dubber | Carlos Hugo Hidalgo |
| First appearance | "A Smattering of Intelligence" |
| Last appearance | "Trials" (AfterMASH) |
Colonel Samuel Flagg is a fictional character on the television series M*A*S*H, played by actor Edward Winter.
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[edit] Character history
Col. Flagg is a U.S. Military Intelligence agent. His behavior is rather paranoid and irrational, and he appears to the staff of the 4077th to be mentally unstable; the fact that he deliberately seriously injures himself to advance an investigation seemed proof of that. At one point he tried to get into Counter Intelligence Corps headquarters by crashing his jeep into a brick wall and setting himself on fire. When told of this event, Hawkeye's response was "Is this guy available for kid's parties?" This time, to get into MASH 4077, he orders a helicopter pilot to crash and then twice breaks his own arm.[1] He claims that he is either with the CIA, the CIC, or the CID, depending on who he's dealing with. Majors Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan, strong anti-Communists and super-patriots, followed one of his assignments with great interest, but were unable to "buddy up" to him as they'd hoped.
His paranoia is so fanatical that Flagg even accuses Major Burns of being a communist agent on the "grounds" that Burns had seen a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet in Tokyo and is reading Reader's Digest, which Flagg notes is "Red's Digest" if you eliminate the 3rd, 5th, and 6th letters.
Flagg used multiple aliases, including "Captain Halloran" (during Winter's initial appearance, in the episode "Deal Me Out"), "Captain Goldberg" (a Jewish chaplain with horn-rimmed glasses), and others. (One of his code names was "Queen Victoria".) At the conclusion of his second appearance (and his first under the name Flagg), a rival intelligence officer says, "Buy you a cup of coffee, Sam?", revealing his (probable) first name. However, his disguises were so obvious that people generally saw through them immediately. Once, he showed up as an Italian officer ("The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan") and Radar O'Reilly casually greeted him by name. When pressed, Radar's hasty explanation was that since Flagg looked nothing like himself, it had to be him, as only Flagg had that skill.
Flagg used his position to intimidate 4077th commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake. When Colonel Potter took Blake's place, Potter made a point of standing up to Flagg, telling him coldly "I'm not fond of personal abuse." Army psychiatrist Major Sidney Freedman also refused to cave in to Flagg's intimidation: "I'd like to help you, but with your schizophrenia, I'd have to charge you double rates." Freedman, Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John McIntyre, and later B.J. Hunnicutt were high on Flagg's list of suspects (as "unpatriotic" Communist sympathizers or subversives), but always outwitted him, if Flagg wasn't busy outwitting (or harming) himself.
Flagg's "trademark" is to assure that no one sees him leave when he finishes a job. ("I have no home, I am the wind.") Keeping up that image backfired at least once when he ordered all of the others in the room to close their eyes as he exited via a leap through the window in Col. Potter's office. When the others opened their eyes after hearing a yelp of pain, Hawkeye investigated and dryly noted, "It looks like the wind, just broke his leg."
Flagg made a serious mistake when he tried to manipulate Major Winchester into spying on Hawkeye when he put the welfare of a communist soldier over the other patients, which led to Flagg thinking Hawkeye was a Communist Sympathizer. Winchester, who was of better character than Flagg suspected, instead duped him into thinking a camp bridge game (which included the mayor of Uijongbu and his brother, the city's chief of police, as guest players), was a meeting of conspirators, which Flagg then attempted to raid. Even though they found out that Major Winchester set the whole thing up, the two angry Korean officials vowed to use their US military contacts to ensure that Flagg would be punished, and since Flagg was never seen again in the series, they apparently succeeded.
Flagg did appear several years after the war in a visit to General Pershing Veteran's Hospital (a guest appearance on the short-lived spinoff AfterMASH), indicating that he at least remained in the military.
[edit] Rank
During Flagg's visits (to MASH 4077), in the first three seasons (1972-75), he held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Afterwards, for the rest of the series (1975-83), he held the rank of Colonel. Note- his rank was the same with each MASH 4077 commanding officer: Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake and later Colonel Sherman Potter. In his first appearance on MASH as an Army Captain-under an alias-Flagg has the same rank as Hawkeye Pierce.
[edit] Service
In one episode Flagg remarks he has been in Intelligence for twenty years.
He was a showgirl at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas for six weeks.
[edit] Quotes
"Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion."
"I've trained myself not to laugh or smile. I watched a hundred hours of the Three Stooges; every time I felt like smiling or laughing, I jabbed myself in the stomach with a cattle prod."
"My father touched me like that once. To this day, he still has to wear orthopedic shirts."
(Frank Burns tried to buddy up to Flagg by slapping him on the shoulder)
(confronting Sidney Freedman)
"You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me."
(After Hawkeye treated a wounded North Korean soldier prior to operating on an American one)
"You took a yellow Red before a White American, and that's pretty pinko!"
(Hawkeye replies, "You're even boring in Technicolor.")
(To Radar) "Shut up, you, or I'll use you to clean a cannon!"
"Don't try to make friends with me."
(After Hawkeye suggests using nuclear weapons in a search for the missing Major Houlihan)
(After Frank says, 'You’re crazy, buddy!')
"You call me that again, friend, I’ll reach into your throat and pull your heart out."
(Holding up his index finger to Major Winchester)
"Do you believe I can break your leg with this finger?"
(Winchester replied after a moment, "Strangely enough, I do.")
[edit] Trivia
- Flagg scares Henry Blake when Flagg tells how Blake could be killed by booby traps-if Blake does not cooperate with Flagg. Flagg threatens Major Winchester in the same way as Henry Blake-by cutting off Winchester's money. Flagg also scares Major Burns and Radar O'Reilly.
- After Flagg makes a fool of himself in the last episode, an MP remarks this is another one of Flagg's red herrings.
- After MASH, in the premiere of a TV SCI-FI series "The Misfits," in a character switch, Edward Winter played an Aide-de-camp who is killed trying to stop an insane General - who was played by Larry Linville.
- In last episode he appears in, Flagg wears US Army Finance Department insignia on his collar.
[edit] References
- ^ Episode 48/Season 2
| M*A*S*H | |
|---|---|
| Film: | MASH |
| TV series: | M*A*S*H | Trapper John, M.D. | AfterMASH | W*A*L*T*E*R |
| Characters: |
Hawkeye Pierce | Trapper John McIntyre | Duke Forrest | B.J. Hunnicutt | Henry Blake | Sherman T. Potter | Frank Burns | Margaret Houlihan | Charles Winchester | Radar O'Reilly | Father Mulcahy | Maxwell Klinger | Igor Straminsky | Luther Rizzo | Sidney Freedman | Col. Flagg | Spearchucker Jones | Ugly John | Walter Koskiusko Waldowski | Ho-Jon | Nurse Bigelow | Lieutenant Dish | Donald Penobscot |
| Episodes: | Season 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| Books: | M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors | M*A*S*H Goes to Maine |
| Related material: | Guest stars | Differences between book, film and TV versions of M*A*S*H | Suicide Is Painless |
