One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) on Netflix
Convict Randle McMurphy feigns insanity to finish his sentence in a psychiatric hospital rather than a work farm. On the ward he clashes with head nurse Miss Mildred Ratched.
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- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1963, Randle McMurphy is transferred from a prison work camp to a psychiatric hospital in Oregon. He is serving time for the statutory rape of a fifteen-year-old girl and has earlier arrests for assault, and he feigned insanity so the authorities at Pendleton would evaluate him instead of putting him to hard labor. His ward is ruled by Miss Mildred Ratched, a head nurse who holds the men through fear. The patients around him vary in lucidity: Billy Bibbit, who stutters; Charlie Cheswick, given to tantrums; the delusional Martini; the articulate Dale Harding; the profane Max Taber; and Chief Bromden, a tall Native American patient who appears deaf and mute. McMurphy's mocking presence threatens Ratched's authority, and she answers by rationing cigarettes and suspending their card games.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film was shot in the Oregon State Hospital, an actual mental hospital whose director, Dean Brooks, was supportive of the filming, ended up playing Dr. John Spivey, identified a patient for each of the actors to shadow and had his own patients incorporated into the crew.
- Gene Hackman, James Caan, Marlon Brando and Burt Reynolds were all considered for the role of McMurphy and all four turned it down; Hal Ashby wanted 37-year-old Jack Nicholson, who ultimately took the part.
- It is the second of three films to win all five major Academy Awards, Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Adapted Screenplay, following It Happened One Night in 1934 and preceding The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.
- Miloš Forman was kept from directing the film by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia: the Czechoslovak StB put him under strict surveillance, he and Douglas fell completely out of contact, and the secret police intercepted the copy of the novel Douglas sent to his Prague home.
- Novelist Ken Kesey took part in early script development but withdrew after creative differences with the producers over casting and narrative point of view; he sued the production and won a settlement, and his screenplay told from Chief Bromden's viewpoint went unused.
