The Carey Treatment is a 1972 American crime thriller film directed by Blake Edwards and starring James Coburn, Jennifer O'Neill, Dan O'Herlihy and Pat Hingle.

Like Darling Lili and Wild Rovers before this, The Carey Treatment was heavily edited without help from Edwards by the studio into a running time of one hour and 41 minutes.

The post-mortem reveals that whoever did the procedure had curettage knowledge but pierced the endometrium, causing the fatal hemorrhaging.

[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.

In March 1971 it was announced Bill Belasco was producing and Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch were working on a script.

[8] This was considered surprising because Edwards had clashed with MGM's chief executive, James Aubrey, during the making of The Wild Rovers.

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.

The cast included Aubrey's daughter Skye, Filming started in September 1971 under the title A Case of Need.

[11] Edwards launched a breach of contract suit against MGM and president James T. Aubrey for their post production tampering of the film.

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.

"[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] Filmink argued it "took Michael Crichton’s excellent novel and turned it into a bland TV movie; Coburn’s groovy doctor feels out of place.