One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A
struggle
for
power
in
a
mental
asylum
becomes
a
cinematic
paean
to
the
human
spirit.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is voted as one of the greatest American Movies of all time. Not only has the film swept the Academy Awards in 1975, winning Best Actor, Actress, Director, and Picture, but it is ranked number twenty on the AFI's list of the One Hundred Greatest Movies of all time. The film stars Hollywood's GREATEST actor, Jack Nicholson. Louise Fletcher also stars as Nurse Ratched, the most hated of all movie villains. Milos Forman directs and Michael Douglas produces the film.
FILM SUMMARY
The story of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is about a
free-spirited rebel and his adventures in a mental asylum. While serving a recent prison sentence, Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) makes a plan. His plan? Pretend that he is insane so that he can get out of doing the standard prison work. Apparently, though, his performance is a little too convincing. He is sent to a much more hateful system, a mental hospital. He is admitted as a patient. The head doctors of the institution examine and question him. He admits that he may do things that seem crazy, but he definitely does not belong in the mental institution. The doctors feel that he does, indeed, belong as a patient. Once inside, he is subjected to the life that the inmates live. The rules are strictly followed and the type of actives that McMurphy enjoys are condemned.
McMurphy cannot bear to live his life this way, and he bends the rules every way he can. In order to bring life into the dead atmosphere in the asylum, McMurphy introduces card games, organizes basketball games, and even conducts a field trip for the inmates, but at every turn the head nurse, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), is there to stop McMurphy, attempting to break his spirit. McMurphy also attempts to befriend Chief, a very large Indian who is a patient at the hospital. Chief is "a deaf and dumb Indian who can’t say a word" according to the other inmates; McMurphy is intent on teaching him how to be himself.
McMurphy gets his second strike against him when he gets into a rumble with a few of the attendants, and he then receives Electro-Shcock Therapy. But, the third, and most devastating strike occurs when McMurphy decides to host a little "get together" inside the hospital one night. The consequences of this are tragic and lead to a very emotional ending, McMurphy is lobotomized and the Chief mercy kills him in order to end to end his misery. Chief then escapes the grounds of the ward, feeling that he is escaping for all the patients including McMurphy.
WINNER OF 5 MAJOR ACADEMY AWARDS
BEST PICTURE
BEST ACTOR (Jack Nicholson)
BEST ACTRESS (Louise Fletcher)
BEST DIRECTOR (Milos Forman)
BEST SCREENPLAY (Lawrence Hauben & Bo Goldman)
FAMOUS LINES
"How about it you creeps, you lunatics, mental defectives. Let's hear if for bull goose Randle back in action...The Mental Defective League in formation." ~ McMurphy
"Play the game Harding!" ~ Taber
"That's okay, Nurse Pillbow, if Mr. McMurphy chooses not to take his medication orally than I'm sure we can arrange for him to have it some other way. But, I don't think you would like it, Mr. McMurphy." ~ Nurse Ratched
"Ah, juicy fruit." ~ Chief
"Anybody want to watch the World Series?" ~ McMurphy
"She only counts nine votes, only nine. It's a landslide!" ~ McMurphy
"By the time you get out of here, you'll be too old to even get it up." ~ Washington
"Hit me. Hit me. Hit me." ~ Martini
"How are you Nurse Ratched? I'm happy to be back." ~ McMurphy
"Hit me Chief. Hit me baby! I got the moves!" ~ McMurphy
"Well, we're happy to have you back Randle." ~ Nurse Ratched
"You and me Chief." ~ McMurphy
"Nurse Ratched? May I please have my cigarettes? ~ Cheswick
"Cheswick and I are going out through the window, downtown, sit down at a bar, wet our whistles and watch the ball game. And that's the bet! Now does anybody want any of it? Huh?" ~ McMurphy
"You all crazy?" ~ Candy
"You fooled 'em Chief! You fooled 'em! You fooled 'em all! Goddamn!" ~ McMurphy
"A little change never hurt, huh? A little variety?" ~ McMurphy
"Get out of my way son, you're using my oxygen, know what I mean?" ~ McMurphy
"What do you think you are for Christ's sake, crazy or something? Well, you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walking the streets and that's it." ~ McMurphy
" I'm not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they're working on you." ~ Chief
"Old Indian game. It's called put the ball in the hole." ~ McMurphy
"Five fights huh? Rocky Marciano's got forty and he's a millionaire." ~ McMurphy
"A little dab'll do ya." ~ McMurphy
"I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this." ~ McMurphy
"Ummmm Yummy!" ~ McMurphy
"But I tried didn't I, goddamn it! At least I did that." ~ McMurphy
"Aw, come on, you're not going to say that now. You're not going to say that now! You're going to pull that hen house shit now when the vote....the Chief just voted. It was ten to nine! Now I want that television set turned on right now!" ~ McMurphy
"I don't like the idea of taking something if I don't know what it is. I don't want anyone to try and slip me saltpeter. Know what I mean?" ~ McMurphy
"Chewing gum in class?" ~ McMurphy
"I think we can help him." ~ Nurse Ratched
"He can't hear you. He's just a deaf, dumb Indian." ~ Billy
"You'd like it wouldn't you Harding?" ~ McMurphy
"I'm a goddamn marble of modern science." ~ McMurphy
"You're not an idiot. Huh! You're not a goddamn loony now, boy. You're a fisherman! ~ McMurphy
"Well, what do you want me to do, I mean. Is that it? Is that crazy enough for you? You want me to take a shit on the floor? Ha, Christ!" ~ McMurphy
"I'm here to cooperate with ya a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I"ll be just right down the line with ya, you watch. Cause I think we ought to get to the bottom of R.P. McMurphy." ~ McMurphy
Pictures from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Going Crazy:
The World Series:
Getting Out the Vote:
Crazy: No More, No Less:
Blackjack of a Sort:
Challenging Observations:
Dimes the Limit:
McMurphy's Here:
Here to cocperate with you a hundred percent:
Basketball Lesson:
What was that?:
Getting used to the Group :
Electro-Shock Treatment:
Billy Bibbit:
Nurse Ratched:
Nurse Pillbow:
Frederickson and Sefelt:
Dr. Spivey:
Scanlon:
Chief:
Cheswick:
Harding:
Taber:
Hot to Trot:
Getting to Know Chief:
The State Mental Hospital:
Thinking About McMurphy:
Cracking Up:
Sounds from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Medication Time:(Nurse Ratched) " Medication time"
Some other way (Nurse Ratched) "If Mr. McMurphy doesn't want to take his medication orally, I'm sure we can arrange for him to have it some other way."
Crazy (McMurphy) "Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone down the road wacko, but no more no less"
The Can (Candy) "They'll throw you in the can again, ya know" (McMurphy) "No they won't, we're nuts, ha ha ha. They'll just take us back to the feed farm, see?"
The Mental Defective League (McMurphy) "Ha! The mental defective league, in formation. Ha!"
10,000 Watts a day (McMurphy) "They, ah, was givin' me 10,000 watts a day, and I'm hot to trot. Next woman takes me on is gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars"
Jack Nicholson gives a performance that is nothing less than great; in fact, this was his greatest role to date. Misread as humorous in spots, the entire utterly depressing and drab film is a juggernaut indictment of an uncaring, destructive medical system that makes prisoners of the mentally disturbed, rather than working toward their health and happiness.
Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a film so good in so many of its parts. There are those moments of brilliance. The movie shows you what it was like behind the closed doors of a mental institution. It is a film about freedom, the effects of authority, and most of all, it is a film about the human spirit.
You are the 
patient to enter the "Cuckoo's Nest"
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