# Kubrick's Clockwork Orange is a Great Film **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2005, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586 "2005-03-15T04:16:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![me\_jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@me\_jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/me_jane)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/41 "2005-03-16T09:27:15Z")
I agree, but I also find it odd that the book and the movie are so totally different with their endings. However, it’s my understanding that Stanley Kubrick was unaware of the 2 different publications of the story…which each had different endings. I’m a little shocked that at no point in the movie-making process did that aspect come up… I mean, wasn’t the book written like, at least 10 years before the movie was made? Maybe I don’t understand the facts. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/42 "2005-03-16T09:51:51Z")
> [@me jane](#): > > I agree, but I also find it odd that the book and the movie are so totally different with their endings. However, it’s my understanding that Stanley Kubrick was unaware of the 2 different publications of the story…which each had different endings. This doesn’t go to the nub of your query exactly, viz. whether Kubrick was aware or not of the two different versions of the story, but it’s interesting nonetheless (from imdb): “It is said that Stanley Kubrick made this movie because of the failure of Waterloo (1970/I). [NB Waterloo was not his film.] After he completed 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), he had planned to film a movie about Napoleon’s life. After many years of research, he sent location scouts to various Eastern European locations, and even had an agreement with the army of Yugoslavia to supply troops for the vast battle scenes. However, after Waterloo tanked, Kubrick’s financial backers pulled out. He thus decided to adapt the American version of “Clockwork”, which had been given to him by Terry Southern (co-writer of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)).” Anyway, credit to K for choosing the better version, as far as it appears to me at this stage, having read neither! ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/43 "2005-03-16T14:01:27Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > Does Burgess himself, in his autobio or elsewhere, say whether the title of his book is taken from Bahasa Malay, and/or meant as a pun on the slang term “as queer as a clockwork orange”? Yes. I first learned of the pun on the Malay _orang_ from one of Burgess’s books on Joyce, _Joysprick_. I believe he mentioned the “queer as” phrase pretty much any time he discussed the book; certainly in his essay “A Clockwork Orange Resucked,” and I’m pretty sure in the earlier essay “Juice from A Clockwork Orange,” which I don’t have close at hand, but which I’m sure is where I first heard it. ---
**Author:** ![Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9dc877/32.png) [@Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightwatch_Trailer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/44 "2005-03-16T16:17:22Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Errmm . . . that’s not how the book ends, **Nightwatch.** I suggest you give the last two pages a second read. Are you referring to the American version? Both it and Kubrick’s film cut out the last chapter of the original British version, which (unless I’m terribly mistaken) contains the events I cited. Also, I should have said “maturation” instead of “maturity.” ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/45 "2005-03-17T17:53:01Z")
> [@Nightwatch Trailer](#): > > Are you referring to the American version? Both it and Kubrick’s film cut out the last chapter of the original British version, which (unless I’m terribly mistaken) contains the events I cited. > > Also, I should have said “maturation” instead of “maturity.” Kubrick didn’t know he had the “American” shorter version of the book. I think nowadays the American version is in sync with the UK version. ---
**Author:** ![SlyFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SlyFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlyFrog)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/46 "2005-03-17T23:50:50Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s the striking thing about ACO. Every character is a creep in one way or another. And yet, Kubrick makes us empathize with them! Which is interesting to me, because I apparently have a very different reaction to this movie than a lot of people. I have no empathy with Alex. He’s a rapist and murderer. He victimizes the weak. Perhaps he deserved a bullet in the back of the head more than the “conditioning” he received, but I have no sympathy for him. Perhaps had they actually tortured him my mind would have been different. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/47 "2005-03-17T23:58:44Z")
> [@SlyFrog](#): > > Perhaps had they actually tortured him my mind would have been different. I think you’ve got a different definition of torture than most of the people who saw the movie, then. ---
**Author:** ![SlyFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SlyFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlyFrog)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586/48 "2005-03-18T00:15:58Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think you’ve got a different definition of torture than most of the people who saw the movie, then. You know, I when I was writing that I forgot about playing the music to drive him nuts and make him jump out of the window. I was sympathetic for issues like that, so my statement was wrong at least to a degree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kubricks-clockwork-orange-is-a-great-film/294586.md?page=2)