One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Turkish movie Cuckoo; It is a 1975 film adaptation of the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey. In addition to its 8.7 IMDb score and 96% Rotten Tomatoes score, the production, which won many Oscar awards at that time, is considered one of the most successful feature films ever made. The story of the movie was staged as a play by the Kent Theater in our country under the name A Bird From the Cage.
The main character of the movie The Cuckoo Bird, in which we watched the famous actor Jack Nicholson, is a man sentenced to prison for a crime he committed but sent to a mental hospital for pretending to be insane. Throughout the movie, we watch our character continue to imitate and the extraordinary and interesting story he sets up with other patients. Let’s take a closer look at interesting information about the Cuckoo movie that even the hardest fans do not know.
Interesting information about the Cuckoo movie:
The producer of the Cuckoo movie, a famous Hollywood star:
The Cuckoo’s novel was adapted for the theater stage in 1963 before the movie was made and starring the famous actor Kirk Douglas. Douglas bought the rights to the novel and planned a movie starring him. However, due to the long preparation process, Kirk Douglas was too old to play the lead role. His son, Michael Douglas, inherited the flag, but instead of appearing in front of the camera, he became the producer of the film. We understand how correct this decision was from the Best Picture Oscar.
The movie was shot in a real mental hospital:
The tradition of using real space, which we see in Hollywood movies, is also seen in the Cuckoo movie. The director of the film, Miloš Forman, who went to Oregon State Asylum a month before the shooting and started to stay there, turned the place into a shooting area without frightening the patients. The hospital was such a successful set that most of the extras and visible faces we watched are actually patients and healthcare workers in the hospital. The set crew had unrestricted access to the facility.
The Cuckoo was the movie that made Jack Nicholson’s career shine:
Many names such as Burt Reynolds, Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, and James Caan were considered to portray Randle Patrick McMurphy, the main character of the film, but either those actors rejected the offer or the producer did not approve of these names. The name Jack Nicholson was long opposed by the author of the novel, Ken Kesey, because he thought he was unsuitable for the character.
Another problem was that Nicholson was chosen by first director Hal Ashby, not by director Miloš Forman. Nicholson had never played such a strong character before. Fortunately, producer Michael Douglas trusted this young man, and after a six-month delay, filming began. The movie in which Jack Nicholson’s star truly shines is The Cuckoo.
The role of the nurse threw Hollywood together:
There was a fierce competition between the actors who wanted to play Nurse Mildred Ratched, one of the most important characters of the Cuckoo movie. The role of Anne Bancroft, Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Paige, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda , Audrey Hepburn, Jeanne Moreau and Shirley MacLaine, where numerous names were considered and auditioned; Louise Fletcher won with just one week to go. Fletcher had auditioned for the role multiple times before.
The shooting process of the Cuckoo movie was quite tense:
Ken Kesey, the author of the Cuckoo’s novel, often interfered with the film and was not happy. Worse still, the stars did not make peace between the lead Jack Nicholson and the director Miloš Forman. The tension escalated as Nicholson showed up on set with a big beard that he thought fit the character. After a while, the communication between the two became possible through the cinematographer. The feud between the two had ended at such a point that Jack Nicholson did not even participate in the bonus filming for the DVD version years later.
The fishing scene turned into a real nightmare for the cast and crew:
Indoor shooting for The Cuckoo was easy because the shots were taken in sequence. The fishing scene, which is one of the most popular scenes of the movie, was left at the end. At one point, the director considered removing the scene from the film, but the producer insisted. This scene turned into a nightmare for everyone because everyone was seasick. Filming took a whole week because the director didn’t like it. Danny DeVito says he still has nightmares of that shooting process even today.
Sydney Lassick suffered a major depression during the filming of the movie:
As the audience, we can see that Sydney Lassick, who plays the character of Cheswick in the movie, has a breakdown as the story progresses, but this is not a successful acting performance. Sydney Lassick did indeed begin to experience severe depression during the filming of the movie. During the filming of an emotional scene between McMurphy and Chief, Lassick was so moved that he had a terrible fit of crying and had to be removed from the set.
The news of leukemia that brought the end of William Redfield was learned during the set:
Actor William Redfield, who plays Harding, one of the beloved characters of the movie, received news during the shooting of the movie; Redfield had leukemia. Suspecting that he has a problem for a long time, Redfield completed the shooting, even though he was very upset when he received this news. Unfortunately, he passed away on 17 August 1976 due to this illness.
Ken Kesey, author of The Cuckoo’s novel, sued the film’s producers:
Ken Kesey wrote the novel The Cuckoo, based on his experiences while working as a volunteer at a mental health center in California. He totally hated the movie because its main character was Chief, but the movie told the story through McMurphy. Kesey sued the producers and demanded a large sum of money. The verdict was not given because the parties somehow agreed. Kesey says he’s never seen the movie, but once came across it on TV.
We tried to shed light on the back of the film by talking about interesting information about the Cuckoo Bird, which is considered one of the most successful films ever made. Do you like the Cuckoo movie? You can share your thoughts in the comments.
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