BEHIND THE SCENES MAKING A HISTORIC FILM
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a 1975 American psychological comedy-drama film directed by Milos Forman and produed by Saul Zaentz. It is based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey. The film stars Jack Nicholson as a new patient at a mental institution and Louise Fletcher as the abusive head nurse. Other key supporting actors were Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, Sydney Lassick, William Redfield, Christopher Lloyd and Brad Dourif. Lloyd and Dourif made their feature film debuts and Sampson had never acted before.
Originally announced in 1962 with with Kirk Douglas starring in a play of the same name, the film took 13 years to develop. Filming finally began in January 1975 and lasted three months, on location in Salem, Oregon and the surrounding area, and in Depoe Bay on the north Oregon coast. The producers shot the film in the Oregon State Hospital, an actual psychiatric hospital, which is also the novel’s setting. The hospital is still in operation, though the original buildings in the film have been demolished. The film was released on November 19, 1975.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest received critical acclaim and is considered by critics and audiences to be one of the greatest films ever made. It is the second of three films to win all five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 1993, the film was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Additionally, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was ranked number 33 on the American Film Institutes 100 Movies of 2007 list.
(Thanks to my old friend Bushido for sending the above link to me.)