A criminal, Randle McMurphy, is sent to a mental institution where he disobeys and manages to get himself into trouble a lot.
Blaine: Kirk Douglas fell in love with the book by Ken Kesey after reading it and had bought the rights to it. In the early 60s, Kirk had transformed the book into a play with himself as the lead. It also starred Gene Wilder and Billy Daniels. People didn’t like the play because they thought it was making fun of crazy people. Kirk was very angry that the play didn’t do so well like he thought it would. It was shut down after that. Years later, Kirk Douglas was in Europe and he met a young and talented director named Milos Forman. Kirk told Milos about this really great book, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, and asked Milos if he was interested in reading it because he thought he was a good choice to make it into a movie. Milos thought about giving it a shot and so Kirk sent him the book, but the thing was Milos never got it. Ten years later, the book was finally delivered to Milos and it was sent by Kirk’s son, Michael Douglas, who now owned the rights to the book. Milos had read the book and then contacted Michael Douglas saying he would like to direct the film.
Kirk couldn’t understand why Milos didn’t reply to him ten years earlier after he had sent the book. Because the book was never delivered to Milos he had thought that the project had been shut down. Milos said yes to the project just at the right time because Kirk was starting to give up on “Cuckoo’s Nest” thinking no one wanted to make it into a film. Michael Douglas had decided to do things differently compared to the ways his father wanted them after the rights to the book were passed on to him. Studios didn’t want to finance “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, so Michael had decided that it should be a low budget movie. Lawrence Hauben had written a screenplay for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, but Michael Douglas felt that it needed some more work to it, so a man named Bo Goldman was hired to re-write the script.
The next thing was to find an actor who could play the lead character, Randle McMurphy. Producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz had went to actors like Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando, but they turned it down. Someone had recommended that Jack Nicholson play the lead character after seeing him in a movie called “The Last Detail” and he was a man who was rising to super stardom. When they went to Jack he was already getting ready to shoot another movie. He told Milos that if they wanted him in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” they were going to have to wait seven months until he was done with the other movie. Milos had decided to put “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” on hold and wait for Nicholson.
Michael, Saul and Milos had four different actresses in mind for that part of Nurse Ratched, but they all turned down the part. Actress Louise Fletcher would meet with Milos a few times, but he felt she wasn’t good enough for the part. Then he thought that Nurse Ratched should be an unlikable character. She believes she is helping people, but it’s too much work and it gets stressful for her, but she keeps it together. She doesn’t show anger and stress so much on the outside. Milos had finally decided to cast Louise Fletcher after that.
The big Indian guy, the Chief, was a huge challenge for Michael and Milos because it was hard to find an Indian who was big. They sent scouts to look for one. Then one day Michael got a call from a guy named Mel Lambert, who he had met while taking a trip back to New York, and he had told Michael about this big Indian guy he came across named Will Sampson. Mel asked Will if he could introduce him to Milos Forman, Michael Douglas, Saul Zaentz and Jack Nicholson. Milos, Michael, Saul and Nicholson had flown to Portland to meet Will and when they saw him they couldn’t believe it because of how big he was. Their jaws were down and Jack Nicholson was walking around Will thinking “he’s our guy”. The rest of the mental patients would be played by unknown faces because that’s what Milos wanted. Because Jack Nicholson was the star Milos thought of it as exploring the mental institution with faces he has never seen before. Most of those actors who played the mental patients are well known actors today like Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli and Brad Dourif.
Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz went to four mental institutions and the one they liked the most was in Oregon. They thought it would have been nice to shoot in a real mental institution and Milos wanted to make the movie feel real. The actors had a week of rehearsal before principal photography began. They would rehearse in the institution in order to know how it feels to be hospitalized. They spent so much time at that institution. They would sleep there, they would eat there and would have fun playing in the game area. The game area had pool and ping pong. During lunch time, Jack Nicholson would pass the other actors and they were still in character even though they weren’t shooting a scene. Jack was asking himself if these guys ever take a break from acting. Louise Fletcher was jealous of the guys because they were having fun and she had to play someone who was serious. The actors would also hang around real patients at that institution for ten days to learn how they behave. The actors had to believe they were patients in a mental institution because that’s what Milos wanted. A lot of the time Milos wanted to capture the real moment, meaning the cameras would be rolling while the actors believed they were rehearsing before shooting a scene. It was like being sneaky on the actors. The actors weren’t aware of when they would be on camera, but Louise Fletcher made sure she was always prepared because she was aware the cameras would be shooting, she just didn’t know when.
Nurse Ratched was written differently for the film compared to the book. Screenwriter Bo Goldman had based Nurse Ratched on his mother in law because she acted pushy. Jack Nicholson was curious to know what Nursed Ratched’s first name was and the thing was she didn’t have a first name. Louise Fletcher and quickly thought of the name Mildred and Jack thought that was great. Jack had said the name “Mildred” in one of the scenes and Louise was blushing while they were shooting that scene. Milos wanted to take out the fishing trip scene because he felt the whole story should be about being inside the mental institution and what it is like behind those walls. He felt it would feel stronger for when the Chief breaks out in the end. Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz wanted to keep the fishing trip in the film and they convinced Milos to keep the scene. Milos had decided to shoot the scene and if the scene didn’t feel good enough then it wouldn’t be added to the film. Fortunately the fishing scene looked great and it got added to the movie. Everyone, but Jack, got sea sick while shooting that scene. They only did one take of pushing the boat away from the dock and Christopher Lloyd thought he was going to fall into the water after he unties the boat from the dock, grabs onto the boat and tries to climb aboard. The cast and crew were out on sea level for ten hours.
Louise Fletcher’s jealousy for the boys having fun kept growing and one day it was too much for her so she took off her clothes and to her that was saying she is a real woman who can have fun. The party in the institution took three nights to shoot and all the actors had to do was have a good time. The last scene of “Cuckoo’s Nest” shows Randle and the Chief and Randle has had a lobotomy (cutting out a piece of the brain). Bo Goldman thought it would be moving if Chief hugged Randle because he is sad that Randle will never be the same again. Bo had to figure out what the Chief was going to say at the end and then “let’s go” came up and Bo thought that was perfect. Bo said it was the best line he had ever written. Chief puts a pillow over Randle’s face so that way he can’t breath. Killing Randle is what sets him free. The Chief uses all his muscle to pick up a hydrotherapy, throws it through the window and escapes. The only did one take of that ending and there were four cameras rolling. The other patients waking up to the sound of the window breaking wasn’t in the script, but Milos wanted it because he felt it went great with the ending. So he asked for an extra day of shooting and that’s what he got because he felt it was important.
My rating on “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is five out of five stars
“Simpsons” parodies
Blaine: Homer is sent to a mental institution after wearing a pink shirt at work. In there he meets a big guy who believes he is Michael Jackson. Most of the background characters are made to look like the characters from “Cuckoo’s Nest”.
