ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) | FIRST TIME WATCHING | REACTION-REVIEW

[@garylee3685]

They gave him a lobotomy. The movie takes place in 1962, the same year the novel was written. The book is told from the chief's point of view.

[@Guitcad1]

And in the book, which Chief tells in the first person, Chief himself is as crazy as a bedbug! Chief in the book is a paranoid schizophrenic. He was a World War II veteran who served in the Signal Corps and was trained on radios. He became convinced that they were putting electrical circuits in everybody's heads and talks about how he could see them sticking out of the back of people's necks. He was convinced that pretending to be deaf and mute kept them from reading his thoughts. So while he thought he was fooling everybody by pretending to be crazy, in reality he was a full-blown nutter.

[@whoaman8616]

Nurse Ratched is a pop icon of evil. Louise Fletcher took home an academy award for her performance.

[@Dej24601]

Chinatown is not only one of Nicholson’s greatest performances but one of the greatest American films ever created. Its screenplay is used as a teaching tool for film students.

[@SheilaReactz]

Yes, it's coming up soon on my list! Thanks for watching!

[@EgbertWilliams]

Five Easy Pieces and The Last Detail are just a couple more of many great JN performances.

[@tedcole9936]

Agree, 5Easy Pieces was so strangely interesting, and the “sandwich” scene in the last detail is my favorite Nicholson scene bar none. Epic.

[@CherylHughes-ts9jz]

Yes, these older films are fantastic ☮️

[@raulguadalupe3489]

His first Academy Award, and an excellent supporting cast. He's reclusive, these days. R.I.P. Will Sampson, aka Chief. He left us WAY too soon .

[@PolferiferusII]

Now that you meantioned it, you're right. Hadn't heard anything about him in a while. I looked up his IMDB page. He hasn't acted since 2010, apparently done with acting. Has no credits of any kind since then, EXCEPT... He's producing a movie that's in post-production right now, called Blue Champagne. Was happy to see he's doing something, even if he is a recluse.

[@Fred-vy1hm]

Louise Fletcher (RIP) gave an incredible performance and was well deserving of her Academy Award for best actress. Her characterization of nurse Ratchet stood out back then in a similar manner to what Anthony Hopkins portrayal of Hannibal Lector did in The Silence Of The Lambs.

[@sca88]

I've always thought this was Jack's best acting performance.

[@vincentsaia6545]

Early on in the shoot Jack Nicholson asked Louise Fletcher if Nurse Rachet had a first name. She told him it was Mildred and Nicholson never brought it up until he calls her Mildred in the scene when he comes back from shock therapy so that her reaction to him calling her Mildred was genuine.

[@vincentsaia6545]

The movie was filmed at the Oregon State Mental Hospital. Dr. Spivey was played by the actual head doctor. The scene with him and Jack Nicholson was improvised with the doctor using a mock-up file on McMurphy made up for him.

[@rwaa6931]

That 1st actor you said you recognized was in "Ghost" as the ghost that teaches Patrick Swayze how to move things. He was also Mr. Vargas the science teacher in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". Another actor a lot of people miss in this is Danny DeVito.

[@whosound]

This is one of my all time favorites. I've watched it since I was a kid because it was one of my parent's favorites. Hilarious and Heartbreaking. Nuanced performances all around. Great choice, Sheila!

[@stevenmotchan2048]

At the end Chief realized McMurphy was given a labotomy and would live out his days at the hospital as a vegetable. Since he knew Mac was the one who always wanted to leave he decided to free his spirit and take his spirit with him in the escape.

[@stevedotwood]

I watched it a few times throughout the years and it's still great. Love your compassion and smiles

[@salsonny]

Ratchet is one Hollywood's biggest villain

[@BishopWalters12]

It's crazy how many great actors are in this movie; Jack is a legend and Brad's performance as Billy is great. Being a horror fan, I love that he is the voice of Chucky.

[@TTM9691]

Sheila, you are such a great reactor! So intelligent, you totally "got" this movie. I love how you got all the humor and comedy in this movie, and how funny Nicholson's performance is! Also appreciate all the "behind the scenes" stuff: never knew "martini" meant quittin' time! Nicholson has a string of iconic films/performances, he's like De Niro in that way: Easy Rider (1969), 5 Easy Pieces (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971- my favorite of his early work), The Last Detail (1973), Chinatown (1974 - definitely watch this!) and then this movie. After he did "The Shining" in 1980, he immediately followed it up with an incredibly understated performance in "Reds", and then totally re-invented himself with "Terms Of Endearment" and "Prizzi's Honor" in the 80s. All incredible performances, all incredible movies......all for your list! The cinematography in a lot of these movies is incredible as well (Carnal Knowledge, Chinatown, etc) Love this channel, love your movie choices, and love YOU!!!! You're great company, you're a great reactor, you're a great mind. THANKS, SHEILA!!!!

[@TTM9691]

PS: The actor who played Charlie Cheswick (Sidney Lassick) DID become unhinged from reality and the cast and crew were concerned for him!!! You can see this in "The Making of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" from the DVD; I'm sure it's here on You Tube. You can see actual footage of him sorta losing it.

[@SheilaReactz]

Thanks so much for watching! Chinatown reaction coming soon! 🙂

[@vincentsaia6545]

The doctor who made the rolling stone comment was an actual doctor at the institution who was killed by one of the patients shortly after the movie was filmed there.

[@PolferiferusII]

Wow, that is horrible!

[@williamjones6031]

1. Gold nuggets in the cast. 2. This movie snagged all of the top 5 Oscars.🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 3. Harding resembles my old barber/friend(RIP) WWII vet.😇 4. The author of the book was Ken Kesey, well known for LSD usage, was loaded when he wrote this. 5. Mac did more for those guys than Nurse Ratched and her crew. 6. Ratched uses Billy's mother as her weapon. They all have their weaknesses, and she uses whatever they are against them for control. 7. Scatman and Nicholson worked together in "The Shining". 8. They gave Mac a lobotomy and the Chief put him out of his misery. He knew Mac wouldn't want to live like that. 9. The book is written from Chief Bronden's POV. 10. RIP Louise Fletcher😇

[@samguberman2288]

The doctor who interviews McMurphy to see if he really is crazy was the actual head of the actual Oregon state hospital where it was filmed. Amazing film , Danny Devito is Marini in it.And the chief is actually an acclaimed artist.

[@vincentsaia6545]

NPR did a really good segment on the making of this movie a few years ago interviewing Louise Fletcher and the actor who played Billy.

[@vincentsaia6545]

The players Jack Nicholson mentions when he calls the imaginary ball game were the actual players in the 1962 World Series.

[@jwoodard29]

Scatman Crothers (RIP) was a friend of Jack Nicholson and appeared in several films with him, including "The Shining."

[@angelomaurizio1668]

@ 1:18, is Vincent Schiavelli. He was on many TV shows throughout the 70s and 80s. But I remember him well on Fast Times at Ridgemont High as Mr. Vargas (The Science teacher) and his stellar perfromance in Ghost (1990) as the subway ghost. @ 6:15, the character of Charley Cheswick, was casted a year later as Mr. Fromm (The English teacher) in one of John Travolta's first movies, Carrie (1976) which I believe he wears the same glasses in the movie. And @ 31:45, if you could recall the part of Turkle was also casted with Nicholson on The Shining where he played the head chef at the hotel. I'm guessing Louise Fletcher is used to getting casted as the heel in many movies. The part of her as Nurse Ratchet reminded me of her casted as the evil religious extremistic Grandmother in Flowes in the Attic (1987) If you are looking for another unhinged Jack Nicholson performance, I highly recommend watching Batman (1989) where he plays the part of Joker. Nicholson didnt want the part at first but money talked. In the end, he recieved almost $50 million for the role.

[@SheilaReactz]

I actually added that to my watchlist after watching this!! Thanks for the rec!

[@vincentsaia6545]

To keep the tension between their characters and Nurse Rachet, the actors playing the patients maintained an icy relationship towards Louise Fletcher off camera. She was so upset by this that at the end of every therapy session scene she flashed the actors.

[@Guitcad1]

Somebody already said that what they did to Mac was a frontal lobotomy, but for those who might not know, a frontal lobotomy was where they would cut the connections in the front part of the brain. From the 1940s to the 60s it was a common procedure used on patients who were violent or prone to emotional outbursts. Patients who were lobotomized became docile and easier to control and those were the ones considered "successful." But many lobotomies resulted in patients becoming virtual zombies, and a large percentage of them didn't survive the procedure, because HEY! They were cutting away part of their goddamn BRAIN! As if that wasn't bad enough, it was often done with an ordinary icepick from any hardware store! It was also often done without the patient's consent or even without their knowledge. It was finally banned later in the 1960s and it's use marks one of the darkest, most shameful chapters in modern mental healthcare.

[@SheilaReactz]

That is incredible.

[@CherylHughes-ts9jz]

Something else a lot of younger people don't realize; it used to be quite common for men, unsatisfied with their wives, to have them put in facilities like this one 😮 There's a great old novel that touches on this subject, called, The Women's Room. By, Marilyn French ☮️

[@will-x9c]

I forgot to mention that the guy who played Charles Cheswick - his name eludes me - deserved an Oscar. No, two Oscars. A searing performance

[@TheNeonRabbit]

Sydney Lassick

[@TTM9691]

He was FANTASTIC. So was the actor who played Harding. Those two are the most underrated cast members, by far. Sidney Lassick (Cheswick) and William Redfield played Harding. I know William Redfield was a friend of Brando's going back to the early 50s. Those guys get no respect or love!!!!

[@SheilaReactz]

Agreed, Jack Nicholson was indeed fantastic, but the film couldn’t have worked without the brilliant casting! So great!

[@shaneheff5244]

Another nice low key review. Great movie. The early scene where RP is assessed is mostly improvised. That's the real head doctor in the hospital they filmed in. The director gave him RPs file and told him to assess RP as he normally would a patient. Jack Nicholson as a result is reacting to the doctor.

[@vincentsaia6545]

As an actor I can say that we are not affected by the roles we play because like a musician we are in control of our instruments and can "take the character off" at the end of the day just as a musician puts down his instrument at the end of the piece, although we can be influenced by the characters we play.

[@FurbyPurrson]

my favorite JN movie. btw last i checked Nurse ratched was the 3rd most evil/ movie villain of all time picked by the american film institute.

[@PauloHernandezXD]

I personally love that it's set in my beautiful Pacific Northwest 🌲 lol

[@billmckee1123]

This one, The Shining, and As Good as it Gets are his best performances IMO.

[@billmckee1123]

It’s called a labotomy. They cut out part of his frontal lobe. It left him a vegetable. I think it’s outlawed now, but they used to do it in the 50s and early 60s

[@allyourmoney]

Nicholson was great in Easy Rider. His part is small, but he steals every scene he's in.

[@Charlesbaker3017]

What's worse than mental institutions? Not having mental institutions.. beautiful .. 👧

[@wwk68tig]

Hello Sheila......another outstanding reaction. Next Nicholson movie? Glad "Chinatown" is on your radar: one of my favorite movies. Jack won Best Actor Oscar for "Cuckoo's Nest" in 1975, following Best Actor nominations in 1973 (The Last Detail..........excellent!) and "Chinatown" in 1974.............helluva run! Enjoyed the post........Keep up the good work.

[@SheilaReactz]

Thanks for watching!

[@JaiOfficial2795]

You definitely have to have a lot of patience and compassion to work in these places, started working in wards back in 2019 and still enjoy it to this day 🔥

[@suicyconaut]

The bow ties are in an attempt to keep the charges in good humor.

[@zegh8578]

imo, mcmurphy sums up the meaning, when he says "you're no crazier than the average asshole walking the streets" - crazy is a word we put to an entire range of moods and feelings, some are bigger and more difficult to control, it's not a spectrum - its a whole web of spectrums Billy is probably *the* portrait of it - what in the world was going on with his mother? Why is he so terrified of her? Maybe if not for her, he would't be "crazy" at all!

[@PolferiferusII]

Given that Nurse Ratched is a "good friend" of hers, his mom must be conducive mental illness.

[@janne9502]

Great reaction! My all time favorite movie, it's just perfect in every single way: from the story, the music, the twists to the acting! Every single person plays their role so well even though Nicholson is the only true super-star in this movie. It manages to portray how mental institutions used to be (and in some countries still are) and how they view/treated mentally ill patients, to how oppressive authoritarianism is (portrayed excellently by L. Fletcher/Nurse Ratched) and how it can break down even the biggest of spirits (McMurphy).

[@ramontieso1208]

I got a kick out of you, saying nurse Ratched was an appropriate name for her. This movie is what made the name nurse Ratched, the common name for a mean nurse. After this movie, surgical lobotomy was discontinued as treatment. There were also domino effect that changed many things in psychiatric care. Less shock treatments. All the way to getting rid of the insane asylums.

[@will-x9c]

Marlon Brando was unimpressed with Nicholson, said he played the same character in every movie. They did a movie together, The Missouri Breaks, now long forgotten. It was so bad that it was good. Brando at his most eccentric. Worth a watch. You'll be like, WTF? They gave Mac a lobotomy at the end. It was the "treatment" of choice until 1954 when Thorazine was developed. Thorazine did the same thing, destroyed the frontal lobes and the persons sense of self but without all the mess of surgery. "Science" marches on. Turning people into vegetables was considered "therapeutic". They gave him ECT - shock - also. It is still used, especially with the elderly. It erases memory and causes dementia. Barbaric. Psychiatry has less medical validity than voodoo. Another fine reaction BTW

[@tedcole9936]

Aha! Yes, I remember Missouri Breaks… it was quite interesting. No idea what cultural pressures cause such a film to be relegated to the trash bin. Maybe in a different decade it would have been a hit, or a critical success. Brando and Nicholson - I suppose it was bound to be crazy and hated by some Venn Diagram set of critics. Lol.

[@will-x9c]

@@tedcole9936 It was a critical success with me, I loved it. My reaction is all that matters to me. But then where would we be without critics? In a better world

[@shaneheff5244]

@user-mk5xc4ye9t Brando may have had a point about some similarities between Jack's roles in differently movies. But I also think he brought something new to each role. Unlike Brando, Jack was said to be very easy to work with - very professional and disciplined with no big ego or demands.

[@classiclife7204]

Given Brando's performance in that movie, I'm not sure his critique of Nicholson is entirely persuasive. In any case, by that point, Brando had seen better days; "The Godfather" and "Last Tango in Paris" were his last hurrahs, and they came earlier in the decade.

[@TTM9691]

Brando loved Nicholson, they were close friends and next door neighbors, what are you talking about? Marlon famously hardly EVER talked about acting in interviews, definitely not in the 1970s, so where could you possibly get this information from? Brando has nothing but nice things to say about Nicholson in his autobiography, they had a blast making that movie together, and Jack ended up BUYING (and razing) Marlon's house after he passed away! So no one could say they were living in Marlon Brando's house! Do people just make this crap up? The whole reason they made Missouri Breaks was because they were friends and wanted to work together!

[@bonchbonch]

They lobotomized him.

[@alanfeldstein9761]

When you said, "I remember those", I thought you meant stares from men on the street that you used to get.

[@vincentsaia6545]

The meaning of the piece is that the system crushes non-conformity even when it is beneficial and Nurse Rachet represents the system.

[@flibber123]

The nurse wasn't helping them. I think she is a control freak. What she gets out of it is the power to control that ward. I think that's why she clashes with McMurphy. He's completely anti-authoritarian. He disrupts her control and causes the other patients to be more assertive. I think the ending is not sad but bittersweet. McMurphy wins. The chief escapes using his plan, the other patients are in high spirits. It's just that in the process of rebelling, he died. The system grinds on but it's possible for people to escape it as long as they don't give up their autonomy. I think that's the point of it.

[@hongfang2348]

One of the greatest films since Hollywood began to make them in color.

[@salsonny]

Every actor brought their A game on this one.

[@tec52]

I'm glad you finally recognized Christopher Lloyd ("Doc Brown" from Back to the Future trilogy and "Rev Jim" from Taxi) but how could you not recognize a young Danny Devito ("Twins", "Romancing the Stone", "Taxi", "Hoffa" and many others)?

[@SheilaReactz]

I did, said it in the video..

[@TTM9691]

She DID!

[@tec52]

@@SheilaReactz I don't know how I missed it. Sorry

[@62salv]

One of the few perfect movies ever made!

[@stevieb3077]

I love how at the marina, McMurphy introduced everyone as doctor except for "Mr. Harding." By the way, you are commenting much more than you did in the first reaction of yours I watched months ago. You've found a nice balance.

[@TTM9691]

That ALWAYS cracks me up! 🤣

[@terryhughes7349]

great reaction. This is a wonderful movie.

[@tedcole9936]

Besides Star Wars, this is the only film I’ve seen in theatre for which there was a huge crowd outside the theatre, with everyone just hoping to get a ticket before the place sold out. In that decade there was a big change in mental hospitals, vast numbers of patients were let out, and mostly left to fend for themselves in the US. Not likely a logical choice based on ‘what’s best’ -but more (I think) as a cost-saving move. Ie if these institutions aren’t really helping anyone, why are we wasting money on them? Certainly this film questions the definition of sanity. There is no objective standard, but sanity is seen as an ‘ability to fit in’ to adapt to society. But if the society itself is sick… then what? Where does that leave our definition of sanity?

[@kevinc3427]

A great movie.

[@formatique_arschloch]

You are going to go far on this KZbin journey. You seem like an outstandingly smart person, good editing and a real joy to ears and eyes. Obviously you have both, heart and brains. Ability to deep thinking and amazing CLASS, it shines from you. Greetings from Finland, wishing nothing but good to your life😊

[@SheilaReactz]

Much appreciated! Thank you for watching!

[@jacqueline23788]

chief (smile ) yes mum he is an indian chief

[@Chase-eq2mg]

Martini is a young Danny Devito

[@juantijerino6790]

You are an old soul, and a beautiful one.

[@Blue-qr7qe]

This film is not a comedy. Maybe that needs repeating: This film is not a comedy. Although there are humorous moments dispersed throughout, This is an expose of the conditions and abuses that were going on in the mental institutions in the early 60's: Patients kept a fog of drugs for ease of handling. EST (Electro Shock Therapy) used as punishment, and even lobotomies administered for special cases who threatened the control of administrators. Control was the theme, that and the loss of freedom and independent thought. Ratshed was a full-blown, sadistic psychopath, and she murdered McMurphy for threatening her control. She was the kind of heavy hand in the guise of "helping" the patients, needed to keep the business running smoothly. The novel by Ken Kesey brought the mental institution industry and it's abuses out into the light, and led to Congressional oversight and many legislative protections for the inmates being put in place. The Chief saw that they had turned McMurphy into a vegetable, and refused to leave him there as a trophy for Ratshed. He took his spirit with him and immediately headed for the fountain. With the strength of two men he was able to lift it from it's foundation.

[@Joe-hh8gd]

Now you know why he was picked to play The Joker in Batman. You don't know what a lobotomy is?

[@HenriLaporte-kv6qq]

You never caught the racism in this movie?

[@timd.3837]

The last lobotomy performed in the U.S. was in 1967, and the patient died. The novel was released in 1962, and was exposing the issue of Institutionalization where people were basically allowed to be placed in a psychiatric institution against their will, indefinitely. Institutions had no incentive for releasing patients as they receive state and federal funding for every patient they had..... thus even people who didn't have any psychiatric issues were kept institutionalized without any recourse. Anyone could seek a court order to have someone institutionalized, and so the system was ripe with abuse from inside and out. Patients were essentially lab rats that researchers, doctors, and nurses could pretty much do whatever they wanted to on the patients. In addition, when patients were being abused, it was the medical professionals' word versus the word of psychiatric patients.... and so nothing was done. Between the 1960's and 1980 a number of laws were passed through congress in an effort to end institutionalization..... and it finally came to an end when Congress and President Reagan cut federal funding once and for all in 1981. The downside of that hard stop was that during the 1980's many people suddenly found themselves out on the street after having been institutionalized for decades and (since many of them were institutionalized by their families - who didn't want them) had no ability nor means to support themselves and the number of homeless people skyrocketed. After nearly two centuries of institutionalization, it was pretty much a catch-22 on putting an end to the practice, and so Reagan gets a lot of blame for doing it ~ but in reality, good riddance to it, altogether. Sadly, jails have ended up be a surrogate for it, as jail populations have quadrupled since 1980 ~ only starting to come down slightly just recently. States and congress have never fully funded the community outpatient centers that were planned to replace the institutions. So, it really isn't a matter of political affiliation, as both parties have had amble opportunities to address the issues over the past 44 years, and both have ignored it. They pay lip service to it, but once elected they just keep it shoved under the rug.

[@pa77]

💕🌹

[@LePhil79]

3:20 interesting question you asked there! American actors are known to keep their "character" for the whole length of the production ( I can't remember the name of the technique...) while it's not a thing in Europe. This movie was directed by an European director (Milos Foreman, Czechoslovakia). You also mentioned Chinatown - also with Jack Nicholson - which was also directed by an east European director, Roman Polanski. There's a famous anecdote about the production of that movie in which Faye Dunaway, one of the main actress, was keep asking Polanski about her "motivations" while playing the role, to which Polanski answered "your salary is your motivation, just say the f*cking words !!" 50s and 60s European cinema was heavily influenced by American movies, but they didn't have the budget, create their own rules ( or non-rules, like in the french new-wave ) which greatly influenced 70s American cinema. When both world worked together, it sometimes created the most peculiar and interesting movies in history, because they were not set on common techniques or rules.

[@jamesellis701]

Hey pretty lady

[@thombat999]

Nurse Ratched is the 5th top villaon of all tome according to AFI.