A Clockwork Orange (1971)

UK, USA, 1971
137m
35mm film, colour, black and white, 1.33:1 (negative ratio), 1.66:1 (intended ratio)
mono, Dolby Stereo (re-issues), English

A British/American science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Plot Summary

In the near future, teenage thug Alex Delarge is brought to justice after an orgy of rape, murder and ultra-violence. His punishment is the Ludovici Treatment, government sanctioned brainwashing to make him a model citizen.

Credits

Crew
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
© MCMLXII by Warner Bros. Inc and Polaris Productions Inc.
Warner Bros., a Kinney company, presents a Stanley Kubrick production. Made by Hawk Films Limited. Distributed by Warner Bros. a Kinney company
Executive Producers: Max L. Raab and Si Litvinoff
Produced by: Stanley Kubrick
Associate Producer: Bernard Williams
Screenplay by: Stanley Kubrick
Based on the novel by: Anthony Burgess
Lighting Cameraman: John Alcott
Editor: Bill Butler
Music Composed and Realised by: Walter Carlos
Sound Recordist: John Jordan
Costume Designer: Milena Canonero
Make Up: Fred Williamson, George Partleton, Barbara Daly
Hairdresser: Olga Angelinetta
Production Designer: John Barry
Locations: Aylesbury, England, UK (tramp scene); Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, UK (Ludovici Centre); Festival Embankment, London, England, UK (last tramp scene); Joyden’s Wood, Bexley, Kent, England, UK (Alex being beaten by Dim and Georgie); Shenley Lodge, Shenley, Hertfordshire, England, UK; Thamesmead South Estate, London, England, UK
Made at Pinewood Studios, London, England, at EMI-MGM Studios, Borehamwood, Herts, England and on location in England

Cast
Malcolm McDowell (Alex DeLarge)
Patrick Magee (Frank Alexander)
Michael Bates (chief guard)
Warren Clarke (Dim)
John Clive (stage actor)
Adrienne Corri (Mrs Alexander)
Carl Duering (Dr Brodsky)
Paul Farrell (tramp)
Clive Francis (Joe, the lodger)
Michael Gover (prison governor)
Miriam Karlin (cat lady)
James Marcus (Georgie)
Aubrey Morris (Deltoid)
Godfrey Quigley (prison chaplain)
Sheila Raynor (mum)
Madge Ryan (Dr Branom)
John Savident (conspirator)
Anthony Sharp (minister)
Philip Stone (dad)
Pauline Taylor (psychiatrist)

Alternative Titles

Arancia meccanica – Italy
Uhrwerk Orange – Germany

Links

Extracts included in
Here’s Looking at You, Warner Bros. (1991)

See also
1984: A Personal View of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four (1983)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies (1998)
Animal Room (1995)
The Avengers (1998)
Batman and Robin (1997)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Bowfinger (1999)
Dark City (1998)
Deadbeat at Dawn (1988)
Dellamorte dellamore (1994)
Disturbed (1990)
Disturbing Behavior (1998)
Dogma (1999)
Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Due occhi diabolici (1990)
Fight Club (1999)
Funny Games (1997)
Hackers (1995)
Heavy Metal (1981)
M (1931)
Mad Max (1979)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
One Million Years B.C. (1966)
Precious Images (1986)
Singin’ in the Rain (1951)
Sleeper (1973)
Trainspotting (1996)

Production Notes

Release
Although the film opened in London on 19 December 1971, it didn’t go on general release (on the ABC cinema circuit) until 21 January 1973.

To celebrate the film’s first anniversary in British cinemas, Warner Bros. held a party at the Cafe Royal attended by Aubrey Morris, Miriam Karlin and Virginia Wetherell. It was, in part, to celebrate the film being Warner’s first ever release to run continuously for over a year in cinemas in the West End of London. That same week (beginning Saturday 13 January 1973) the film opened at two new screens, the ABCs in Edgware Road and Fulham Road where it continued to do well at the box office.

Censorship History
In the UK A Clockwork Orange was unavailable for legal public viewing throughout most of the 70s, 80s and 90s but this was not due the BBFC refusing it a certificate. It was Kubrick himself, disturbed by stories in the British press linking the film to ‘copycat’ killings, who removed it from circulation. It was issued again after Kubrick’s death.

Press

1972
CinemaTV Today no.9965 (29 January 1972) p.18
Perhaps it is because I have seen all three fairly recently that I was struck by the thought that A Clockwork Orange needs to be seen as one part of what you might think to be a very unlikely trilogy in which the other two are The French Connection and Ken Loach’s Family Life. The French Connection shows us the legalised violence that is arguably inevitable in crime prevention. Family Life reveals the well-intentioned assaults that the family and society may make on our minds under the banner of conformity. A Clockwork Orange displays the logical outcome when these two schools of thought unite. Stanley Kubrick has taken a very ingenious but rather meretricious novel and developed it in such a way that it is convincingly accurate as a forecast of what life could soon be like if trends in behaviour, art, architecture, entertainment and the more insensitive decisions of the planners continue unchecked. In this stylised yet wholly believable setting, the characters move like creatures in a nightmare performing actions that are horrific yet safely distanced from us by a gauze of unreality. A film about violence, both physical and mental, must necessarily include scenes which may distress and disgust. It is perhaps a measure of our own confusion that we may react against the sights and sounds of physical violence more immediately than we do against the more subtly disgusting onslaughts of mind on mind that are also portrayed. – from a review (The new films) by Marjorie Bilbow

The New Yorker January 1972
Stanley Kubrick has assumed the deformed, self-righteous perspective of a vicious young punk who says, “Everything’s rotten. Why shouldn’t I do what I want? They’re worse than I am.” In the new mood (perhaps movies in their cumulative effect are partly responsible for it), people want to believe the hyperbolic worst, want to believe in the degradation of the victims — that they are dupes and phonies and weaklings. I can’t accept that Kubrick is merely reflecting this post-assassinations, post-Manson mood; I think he’s catering to it. I think he wants to dig it. – from a review by Pauline Kael

2000
The Times 31 August 2000 p.19 (UK)
[B]ack from legend after decades away, looking brilliant, nasty, funny, dated and prophetic all at once. Not a film for repeated viewings, but worth a trip to the rental shop to see what the fuss was all about. – from a video review (by Geoff Brown)

References

Newspapers

• The Times 31 August 2000 p.19 – video review (by Geoff Brown)

Periodicals

• Adaptation vol.8 no.3 (2015) pp.321-329 – article (The end of family in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange by Joy McEntee)
• American Cinematographer vol.80 no.10 (October 1999) pp.52-61 – illustrated credits, article
• Cahiers du Cinéma no.293 (October 1978) pp.55-60
• Castle of Frankenstein no.19 pp.28-31
• Cinema vol.7 no.3 (Winter 1972/1973) pp.48-57 – article
• Cinema e Cinema vol.10 no.35/36 (April/September 1983) pp.128-130
• CinemaTV Today no.9963 (15 January 1972) pp.8; 31 – illustrated interview with Stanley Kubrick (Sex, ultra violence, Beethoven and Stanley Kubrick by David Lewin); trade show details
• CinemaTV Today no.9965 (29 January 1972) p.18 – review (The new films by Marjorie Bilbow)
• Cinema TV Today no.9982 (27 May 1972) p.12
• CinemaTV Today no.10014 (13 January 1973) p.5 – note (General releases)
• CinemaTV Today no.10015 (20 January 1973) p.21 – note (General releases)
• CinemaTV Today no.10017 (3 February 1973) p.4 – note
• CinemaTV Today no.10026 (7 April 1973) p.32 – note (‘Tango’, ‘Orange’ pack them in – at 9 a.m.!)
• Creative Screenwriting vol.6 no.4 (July /August 1999) pp.38-41 – illustrated article
• DGA Quarterly vol.5 no.3 (Autumn 2009) pp.56-59 – interview with Rob Zombie (Rob Zombie/In the Screening Room: The Old Ultra-Violence by Steve Pond)
• Ecran no.6 (June 1972) pp.58-9
• Electronic Sound no.47 (2018) pp.38-41 – illustrated article (Wendy Carlos, Stanley Kubrick, and A Clockwork Orange by Mark Roland; 42-45 – illustrated interview with Wendy Carlos (Keeping your composer by Joe Silva); 46-47 – illustrated interview with Martin Ware (“Who you getten, bratty? Goggly Gogol? Johnny Zhivago? The Heaven Seventeen?” by Mark Roland)
• Empire no.43 (January 1993) p.7 – illustrated article (It’s My Movie…)
• Empire no.54 (December 1993) pp.64-71 – illustrated article (Alex through the looking glass by Tony Parsons); interviews with Malcolm McDowell, Anthony Burgess, Alexander Walker and Ron Scammel
• Empire no.128 (February 2000) p.42 – illustrated article (Reel news: The future’s orange! by Adam Smith)
• Empire no.130 (April 2000) p.24 – illustrated review (New films by Kim Newman)
• Empire no.194 (August 2005) pp.112-114, 116, 118, 121 – illustrated article (The greatest teen movies of all time)
• Empire no.201 (March 2006) pp.77-88, 90-101 – illustrated article (201 Greatest movies of all time)
• Empire no.216 (June 2007) pp.152-153 – illustrated article (At Home/Masterpiece: Masterpiece #45: A Clockwork Orange by Chris Hewitt)
• Fangoria no.205 (August 2001) p.62 – illustrated DVD review (DVD Dungeon by Michael Gingold)
• Film (BFFS) no.66 (Summer 1972) p.28
• Film Heritage vol.7 no.4 (Summer 1972) pp.1-6, 7-18, 28
• Film Ireland no.75 (April/May 2000) p.46 – illustrated review (Reviews by Donald Clarke)
• Film Quarterly vol.25 no.3 (Spring 1972) pp.33-36
• Film Review no.593 (May 2000) p.38 – illustrated credits, review (A Clockwork Orange by Alan Jones); 88-89 – illustrated article (The future’s bright the future’s orange by Anwar Brett)
• Film Review no.597 (September 2000) p.45 – illustrated video review (A Clockwork Orange by Grant Kempster)
• Film Review Special no.25: Sci-Fi (1998) pp.22-23 – illustrated article
• Film Review Special no.42 (Psycho) pp.27-57 – illustrated article (The top 30 psychos)
• Film Review Special no.59 (August 2005) pp.58-59 – illustrated note (The best films of the ’70s by Tom Fox)
• Film Score Monthly vol.4 no.3 (March 1999) pp.18-23 – illustrated interview with Wendy Carlos (A clockwork composer by Jeff Bond)
• Film World vol.8 no.3 (April/May 1972) pp.50-51
• Filmfacts vol.14 no.24 (1971) p.649
• Filmfax no.74 (August/September 1999) p.32 – illustrated soundtrack review (A Clockwork Orange by Jeff Berkwits)
• Films and Filming vol.18 no.5 (February 1972) pp.12, 49 – review
• Films in Review vol.46 no.1/2 (January/February 1995) pp.40-43 – illustrated article (The new violence or twenty years of violence in films: An appreciation by Michael Eric Stein)
• Flicks September 2000 p.85 – illustrated video review (by Phil Hoad)
• Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television vol.32 no.4 (December 2012) pp.633-635 – book review (Book reviews by Daniel Biltereyst)
• Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television vol.42 no.1 (March 2022) pp.1-7 – article (Introduction: 50 years of A Clockwork Orange (1971) by Matthew Melia, Georgina Orgill and James Fenwick); 8-23 – article (Shared history of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) by Matthew Melia); 24-42 – article (Labouring on A Clockwork Orange (1971): Finding the voices of creative, technical, and administrative workers in the Stanley Kubrick Archive by James Fenwick); 43-59 – article (Marketing the A Clockwork Orange myth by Manca Perko); pp.60-74 – article (From Alex to Riefenstahl: Nazism, propaganda, and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) by Vincent Jaunas); 75-86 – article (legacy of A Clockwork Orange in The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael (Thomas Clay, 2005) and Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009): ‘All form and no content’? by Jean-François Baillon; 87-102 – article (Kubrick’s clockwork psychopath by Lawrence Ratna); 103-116 – article (Utopia gone wrong: Mirages of Communist totalitarianism in the Clockwork mirror by Mateja Đedović); 117-131 – article (Clockwork Orange on stage by Will Carr)
• The Hollywood Reporter vol.213 no.37 (13 November 1970) p.8 – credits
• The Hollywood Reporter vol.219 no.9 (14 December 1971) p.3
• Index on Censorship vol.24 no.6 (November/December 1995) pp.48-52 – illustrated article (Clockwork Crimes: Chronicle of a cause célèbre by Julian Petley)
• International Media Law vol.13 no.8 (August 1995) pp.63-64 – article
• Interzone no.154 (April 2000) p.41 – review (by Kim Newman)
• Interzone no.156 (June 2000) p.45 – review (by Nick Lowe)
• Invasion no.11 (1995) pp.42-44 – illustrated review (Clockwork Orange by Heidi Cyr)
• Journal of British Cinema and Television vol.10 no.4 (2013) pp.802-810 – review (Review article by Martin Barker)
• The Journal of the Producers Guild of America vol.14 no.3 September 1972) p.14,16
• Kine Weekly no.3252 (7 February 1970) p.3
• Kinema no.5 (Spring 1996) pp.57-66 – article (A Clockwork Orange: The first 25 years by Yvonne Ng)
• Literature/Film Quarterly vol.1 no.2 (April 1973) pp.122-131 – article
• Literature/Film Quarterly vol.9 no.2 (1981) pp.92-102
• Literature/Film Quarterly vol.29 no.4 (2001) pp.279-289 – illustrated article (My dinner with Stanley: Kubrick, food, and the logic of images by Mervyn Nicholson)
• Making Films in New York vol.6 no.1 (February 1972) p.37 – review
• Metro no.159 (2008) pp.82-85 – illustrated article (Punk aesthetics: The filth and the movies by Michael Kitson)
• The Movie p.1560 – credits, review
• Monthly Film Bulletin vol.39 no.457 (February 1972) pp.28-29 – credits, synopsis, review
• Music from the Movies no.47 (2005) pp.36-45 – illustrated interview with Wendy Carlos (Wendy Carlos: Rediscovering Lost Scores by Rudy Koppl); 57-58 – illustrated soundtrack review (Film Music Review: Label Profile: East Side Digital by Andrew Keech)
• New Review of Film and Television Studies vol.7 no.1 (March 2009) pp.51-65 – article (Research article: Spielberg, iconophobia, and the mimetic uncanny by David Sterritt)
• The New Yorker January 1972 – review (by Pauline Kael) [full review online here]
• PACT Magazine no.26 (December 1993) p.12 – article (Legal Advice: A Clockwork Orange by Dinah Nissen)
• Positif no.136 (March 1972) pp.22-27 – illustrated article
• Positif no.139 June 1972) p.23-44 – interview with Stanley Kubrick
• Positif no.379 (September 1992) pp.96-101 – illustrated credits, article (Films by Thomas Bourguignon)
• Positif no.439 (September 1997) pp.94-95 – article (Orange mécanique – les fruits de la civilisation by Vincent Amiel); 96-98 – illustrated article (Orange mécanique – ou l’éternel retour du docteur Folamour by Christophe Auduraud)
• Samhain no.8 p.23 – illustrated review (by John Martin)
• Science Fiction Film and Television vol.5 no.2 (Autumn 2012) pp.221-241 – article (Adapting to language: Anthony Burgess’s and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange by Sean McQueen)
• Screen vol.13 no.2 (Summer 1972) pp.17-31
• Screen vol.59 no.2 (Summer 2018) pp.197-212 – article (‘A Place in London’s future’: A Clockwork Orange, Thamesmead and the urban dystopia of the modernist large-scale plan by Stephen Babish)
• Screen International no.227 (9-16 February 1980) p.7 – illustrated interview with James Ferman (The censor’s role in the ’80s by Colin Vaines)
• Screen International no.894 (12 February 1993) p.7 – illustrated note
• Screen International no.1251 (24 March 2000) p.7 – illustrated article (Going like Clockwork by Tom O’Sullivan)
• Sight and Sound vol.41 no.1 (Winter 1971/72) pp.45-46
• Sight and Sound vol.41 no.2 (Spring 1972) pp.62-66 – illustrated interview with Stanley Kubrick (by Philip Strick and Penelope Houston)
• Sight and Sound vol.42 no.1 (Winter 1972/1973) pp.44-46 – illustrated article (A Clockwork Orange by Don Daniels)
• Sight and Sound vol.59 no.2 (Spring 1990) pp.84-87 – illustrated article (A Clockwork Orange)
• Sight and Sound vol.9 no.9 (September 1999) pp.24-27 – illustrated article (Real horror show by Kevin Jackson)
• Sight and Sound vol.10 no.5 (May 2000) pp.22-24 – illustrated article (Sick city boy by Nick James)
• Sight and Sound vol.10 no.10 (October 2000) p.64 – video review (Video reviews: rental by Danny Leigh)
• Sight and Sound vol.10 no.12 (December 2000) p.61 – note (Video reviews: retail by Geoffrey Macnab)
• Sight and Sound vol.15 no.5 (May 2005) pp.34-36 – illustrated article (Body rampant by Mark Kermode)
• Sight and Sound vol.18 no.4 (April 2008) pp.85-86 – DVD review (Reviews: DVDs: Stanley Kubrick Collection by Geoffrey Macnab)
• Starburst no.178 (June 1993) p.8 – note (Like Clockwork by Larry Niven)
• Starburst no.258 (February 2000) p.4 – illustrated article (Things to come: Clocking back in)
• Starburst no.260 (April 2000) pp.14-16 – illustrated note (Movie releases
• Starburst no.263 (July 2000) pp.44-53 – illustrated article (The science-fiction films of Stanley Kubrick by Howard Maxford)
• Starburst no.265 (September 2000) p.82 – illustrated video review (Reviews: Videofile)
• Starburst no.307 (February 2004) pp.18-30 – illustrated article (Top 50 sci-fi movies, books and tv series ever!)
• Starburst Special no.44 Summer Sci-Fi Film) pp.104-108, 110-120, 122-130 – illustrated DVD review (The future is shiny by David Richardson)
• Take One vol.3 no.3 (January/February 1971) pp.20-21
• Time Out no.99 (7 January 1972) p.35
• Time Out no.100 (14 January 1972) p.42
• Time Out no.1007 (6 December 1989) pp.16-20 – illustrated article
• Today’s Cinema no.9776 (3 February 1970) p.8
• Today’s Cinema no.9803 (12 May 1970) p.33 – note (McDowell in ‘Orange’)
• Total Film no.39 (April 2000) pp.73-77 – illustrated article (Droogie Nights: A Clockwork Orange by Andy Lowe)
• TV World April 1998 p.12 – article (Clockwork Orange row by Mary Flanagan)
• Variety 15 December 1971 p.14
• Velvet Light Trap no.13 (Autumn 1974) pp.11-12 – illustrated article (Violence and film: The thesis of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange by Walter Evans)
• Velvet Light Trap no.16 (Autumn 1976) pp.28-31 – illustrated article (A Clockwork Orange by Kenneth Moshowitz)
• Women and Film vol.1 no.2 (1972) pp.4-10

Books

• 1971: 100 Films from Cinema’s Greatest Year by Robert Sellers pp.234-237
• 500 Essential Cult Movies: The Ultimate Guide by Jennifer Eiss with J.P. Rutter and Steve White p.238 – illustrated credits, synopsis, review
• Armchair Cinema: A History of Feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981 by Sheldon Hall pp.151, 324, 327
• Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction by Phil Hardy (ed) p.297-298 – illustrated credits, review
• The BFI Companion to Crime pp.84-85 – short review
• BFI Screen Guides: 100 Science Fiction Films by Barry Keith Grant pp.31-32 – illustrated credits, review
• British Gothic Cinema by Barry Forshaw pp.146, 152
• Chopped Meat: British Horror of the 1970s by Eric McNaughton and Darrell Buxton (eds) p.75 – illustrated review (by Simon J. Ballard)
• The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick by Norman Kagan pp.167-187; 204 – illustrated chapter; credits
• Critical Insights: Stanley Kubrick by Peter J. Bailey (ed.) pp.x, xi, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 22, 28, 38, 39, 40, 51, 52, 56, 59, 85, 98, 131, 155, 158, 159, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 180, 183, 184, 188, 193, 194, 195, 199, 204, 207, 210, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 226, 249, 254, 257, 259
• Cult Movies 2: 50 More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful by Danny Peary pp.46-49 – illustrated credits, review
• The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Films second edition by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh pp.62-63 – illustrated credits, review (by V.P.H. [Victor Paul Hitchcock] and J.C.T. [John C. Tibbetts])
• English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby pp.197, 206, 221, 272
• Escape Velocity by Bradley Schauer pp.127, 168, 169, 171, 172
• Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby pp.238, 239, 330
• Film Review 1972-73 by F. Maurice Speed p.215 – credits
• Heroes, Monsters and Values: Science Fiction Films of the 1970sby Michael Berman and R.S. Dalviu (eds.) pp.1, 7, 9, 34, 68, 123-137
• Hoffman’s Guide to SF, Horror and Fantasy Movies 1991-1992 p.74 – credits, short review
• Horror and Science Fiction Films II by Donald C. Willis p.60-61 – credits
• Horror Films of the 1970s by John Kenneth Muir pp.96-101 – illustrated credits, synopsis, review
• Horrorshows: The A-Z of Horror in Film, TV, Radio and Theatre by Gene Wright pp.112-113 – credits, review
• The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide by Stephen Jones p.68 – credits, short review
• Psychedelic Celluloid: British Pop Music in Film and TV 1965-1974 by Simon Matthews pp.157-158 – illustrated review
• Reference Guide to Fantastic Films by Walt Lee p.69 – credits
• Sci-fi Chronicles by Guy Haley (ed.) p.204
• Science Fiction Films of the Seventies by Craig W. Anderson pp.41-46 – credits, review
• Science Fiction in the Movies: An A-Z by Roy Pickard p.14 – credits, note
• Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey by Gene D. Phillips pp.154-170; 186-187 – illustrated chapter; credits
• The Stanley Kubrick Companion by James Howard pp.117-132 – illustrated credits, chapter
• Stanley Kubrick Directs by Alexander Walker pp.268-299; 304 – illustrated chapter; credits
• Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual by Nathan Abrams pp.14, 21, 33, 124, 142-164, 165, 168, 171, 181, 183, 186, 217, 219-230, 221, 232, 237, 241, 262, 266
• The World of Fantasy Films by Richard Myers pp.35, 112, 125

Other sources

• BFI Southbank Guide August 2019 p.40 – illustrated listing