Rented this DVD and watched it tonight. Darn good flick, but
A friggin’ LOBOTOMY for McMurhpy?!? Then smothered?! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
There is some sense of a resolved, mildly happy ending, but frick. Not expecting that.
[sub]nurse ratchet can suck my left nipple. I’m so bitter that
she wasn’t FIRED…grr!
Wow…
Um, --THANKS!?
You shoud read the book which is every bit as good as the movie (and it’s my all time favorite movie.) The movie is very, very true to the book but the book is through the Chief’s eyes instead of McNulty’s eyes.
Haj
Um…you’re welcome?
hajario, that’s something I thought about toward the end of the film. Perspectives did seem to shift, and I wondered if the book wasn’t in fact written from Chief’s perspective. Be kinda hard to be from McMurphy’s, I suppose, for some of it.
Now I know what to read as soon as I finish Return of the King. 
Just like the movie wouldn’t work as well from the Chief’s POV. It was a brilliant choice.
Haj
It was a different era.
These days, almost nobody gets a lobotomy, and certainly not for McMurphy’s blend of antisocial and free-wheeling behavior.
In the book,
it’s a lot easier to see that the Chief has some pretty weird stuff going on in his head.
BTW, it was filmed at the state hospital in Salem, Oregon, and I’ve heard that the guy who gives McMurphy his clinical interview was on staff there.
Ruffian, when I finished reading OFOTCN, I threw it across the room, I was so upset about McMurphy’s end. So I fully sympathize with you on all counts.
One of my all-time favorite films (I even lobbied to do the stage version of it in high school, but that got shot down faster than Carrot Top at a lesbian wedding) but what really made me mad…
Billy Bibbit committing suicide thanks to Nurse Ratched’s manipulation of him. Notice his stutter had gone until Ratched threatens to tell his mother what had happened.
Y’know, Rilch, last fall you had the chance to see me - ME, the Great and Malignant SPOOFE! - in a stage production of Cuckoo’s Nest. AND YOU MISSED IT!! My little SPOOFEy heart is broken…
Well, not really…
What character did I play? Why, Ruckly, of course (in the play, Ruckly is actually a combination of Ruckly and Ellis). I got to stand around in a crucified position, drooling and peeing on myself, staring into space. 'Twas a blast.
And the guy we got to play McMurphy was PHENOMENAL. In my opinion, of course.
Oops, that’s Ruffian. Don’t know why I was thinking of Rilchiam.
Bad me! Bad, bad me! Must be all that thorazine…
I saw an off-Broadway production of OFOTCK long before the film was made. If it’s the version SPOOFE was in, it’s well worth seeing. Haven’t read the book yet.
But I couldn’t help thinking (as did the guys at MAD, when they did their spoofe of the movie) as Chief Bromden escaped:
“Hey, what are we getting all excited about? The Chief was here voluntarily!”
Kesey wrote the book while working at a mental hospital, and even talked one of the staff members into giving him ECT so that he would know what the experience was like.
Louise Fletcher as The Big Nurse was perfect casting.
Kesey also used his experiences with LSD (he hung out with Timothy Leary when the drug hadn’t been made illegal) to describe the Chief’s hallucinations.
Yes, the Chief was there voluntarily, but McMurtry gave him the strength and courage to be able to leave. And though the name “Ratched” was used in the book, she was always referred to as “The Big Nurse.”
Was Bromden voluntary? I thought Chief, McMurphy and Taber were the only ones that weren’t there voluntarily.
Kesey and Leary didn’t really “hang out” that much at all. Kesey visited Millbrook in 1964, at the end of the cross-country trip on Further, but the visit only lasted a day and Leary, upon meeting the Pranksters, turned around and retreated to his rooms. Kesey’s participation in the government sponsored tests on LSD and related substances while a graduate student at Stanford had a more direct effect on the novel than did the fact that Leary was also advocating LSD use while on the faculty of Harvard.
Yep. It’s made pretty clear in the film, which is why it struck me (and the writer from MAD) so forcibly.
The oddest contrast between the book and the movie is that reading the book you know from the get-go that the Chief was faking it.
When I watched the movie with someone who hadn’t read the book, she almost fell off the chair at the moment the Chief spoke.
I saw the film before I read the book, and it was a lot like that for me as well. I usually like reading a book before I ever see a film, but in this case, I’m glad I didn’t. I also was surprised at how many stars were cast in that movie, it took me a bit before I even realized that was Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd.
Nurse Ratchet is probably my favorite movie villian. I love the villian in white idea. She is supposed to help you but guess what? You totally under estimated her and now you are screwed. The bit where she tells Billy that she must tell his mother about the hooker is so chilling. I think Ms. Fletcher gave one of the great acting performances in that film.
I always wonder what would happen if she were in charge of Hannibal.
Of course some people think the book is anti-women. Women are either mean or whores. (many of the mens problems come from their interactions with the women in their lives as well) I’ve never read the book so does any of the readers have that opinion?
cichlidiot-
Actually, neither Devito nor Lloyd WERE stars yet. I think this was maybe their first feature film, (I haven’t checked the IMDB), but it was certainly very early in their careers. I know it was “introducing Brad Dourif”, so I think that means it was his first movie. Great film.