Midweek Mention... One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Sidey: One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm told

Pete: apparently. So

Sidey: Mm-hmm.

from

Reegs: From a nursery rhyme,

Pete: I

believe so. I, I've read a snippet of information that this was a nursery rhyme that is, that features in the book,

and it's one of the lines from that.

Sidey: that. The film features a very well known.

Villainous character. And

I believe Pete, you had not seen this before. Res and I had res has even gone as far as to read the book. Yeah. Source material. Yeah, right there.

Pete: so I no, I hadn't seen this film. I'd heard plenty about it quite a lot on this podcast. I'd only ever heard favorable things. I'd never heard anyone say that, oh, it's a bit of a Turkey, or it's forgettable, or whatever.

So, I was keen to see it. It was part of a, I guess a, a couple of films that featuring Jack Nicholson that until recently I hadn't seen at all. One. The other one was being The Shining, which we also reviewed. And I just thought, yeah, it was about time and it also, I wanted to do a themed week and it has the number one in the title and numbers was the theme.

So I thought, yeah, this, this this suit. So, yeah. We watched one flu of the Cookies Nest,

Reegs: We

Sidey: and I guess we can say that the, the plot of the film itself is fairly straightforward. I mean, the thing that we watched for the mid weeker was all over the shop, but this is, is a fairly straightforward story for me.

This is just all about the performances.

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Sidey: You know, and we'll, we'll get into whether we enjoyed it or not, but I've got a feeling that this might be a strong recommend

Reegs: Well, certainly when we did this the first time when we recorded this episode the

Sidey: our second stab at

Reegs: didn't

Pete: recorded the episode, the first

Sidey: when we spoke at length about this with no recording going on whatsoever.

Yeah. We seem to all go on quite well with it.

So the, the plot, the the, the lady that I was referring to before is Nurse Ratchet.

Pete: yes.

Reegs: She's

Sidey: well known of being one of the most awful. Screen characters. Yeah, we can get into that later. Yeah. The, the opening shot of the film though is just a kind of landscape.

Yeah. Some mounted, some hills or something and some dusk, something like that, I dunno. And then uh, it just moves into

Reegs: oh, it's Nurse Rat going about her day, sort of arriving on the ward and setting up at the nurse's station.

And you know, it's quite an inauspicious start for what, what you say is quite a well-known character.

Sidey: Mm-hmm.

Pete: Yeah. And when you say this, the wards you are referring to this psychiatric hospital, I guess a psychiatric ward within a hospital.

Reegs: We see the classical music go on and the medicine being served.

It's a scene that's been AED so many times in other things now,

Sidey: and we get, I think we get an intro before we meet Jack.

There's a, I think there's a, an intro of some, some of the characters playing a board game. The it Okay? They, they're just playing cards, something like that. They're playing something and, and one of the guys fuck, what's his name, Harding.

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: he's, he's partic, he seems to have a temper about stuff.

And then there's a, they, they've all got their little routines and stuff in it. They're all seem to be kind of at home here. I dunno, they're, they're kind of, well, we, we don't see the extent of like, how the control and everything that's going on.

Pete: fair to say that they're painting a picture of like, I guess relative serenity within a psychiatric ward.

Yeah. Until of course we meet our we meet our main guy and where we do meet Jack Nicholson, who is playing Randall

Sidey: p Murphy.

Pete: you gonna do your really shit RPM joke

Reegs: it's not, I think it's an observation. Rpm Right? It's cuz he's constant sense of movement. And

Pete: you think that's deliberate?

Reegs: Maybe? Yeah.

Pete: Okay. So it wasn't, I thought it was just a shit joke. Sorry.

We, yeah, we're introduced to him being I guess interviewed by

Dr.

Sidey: Well, he's brought in, he's shackled. He's, he's Biggie, Shackleton, he's got handcuffed and he's brought into the, the main office to, I, I dunno, I dunno if everyone gets brought in that way.

So, I don't think so. He's, he's obviously a, I'm gonna say petty criminal, but some of the stuff that he's done that they talk about in the office, obviously is like, It's real shit.

Reegs: Yeah. Well

Sidey: it's weird because we were, I met Pete for on Saturday for a party. We, we kind of talking about it and we were just talking about Jack and his charisma and it's like you are rooting for him even though he's a rapist.

He's assaulted people. You know, he's not, I mean,

Pete: it's worth saying statutory rape, not the, I mean, it's got rape right there in the title, but there's a, there's a, there is a distinction between those,

Sidey: I know, but even the way he justifies it is like, yeah. You know, and so, The goodie in conference of the film.

He's not like a, a good guy necessarily. He, he's technically got,

Pete: I I think that, you know, it's, it is also, so what, 19 did you say? 1975 or? Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's kind of, I, I don't wanna say it's, it's over time where if someone like had a few, like assaults and, and statutory rape where it, he, he explains the situation and was, oh, you know, she very much.

Like up for it or whatever it, I, I guess if you were to take the, this like, you know, charge card and stick it in today's society, he'd be deemed far more wronging than perhaps say

Sidey: he, just describes it as fighting and fucking

Pete: Exactly. That's, he says that, that that's his, his prop. So he's being interviewed by this Dr.

Reegs: Spy. Yeah.

Pete: Was fine. And, and what this Dr. SPI is, is trying to, I guess ascertain is, is whether or not MC Murphy is, is you know, a criminal who's trying to get, let's say, in what he believes to be an easier ride in a psych psychiatric unit as opposed to, you know, doing some actual proper stir. So, and that's alluded to in that scene and it's like, you know, do you think you're crazy or you know, Possibly Are you faking this cuz you, you think you're gonna get a, a better deal here?

Reegs: And that's when he says, oh, well, what's crazy? You know? Then he minds jerking off. He's like, well, should I shit on the floor?

Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: And, and he's already, and then, and then he get kind of like gets marched actually into the ward. And whilst he's doing that, he's kind of like, you know, laughing and, and doing dances and stuff.

Reegs: eye

Pete: play playing up to what he thinks kind of like someone with like, I guess psychiatric problems would, would be like although he is quite a full on intense, fairly manic kind of character anyway. As, as you'll see during, during the film. But then, yeah, his first kind of, Interaction is, is he plunks himself down at a table with some cards or something, a game going on.

And he's trying to make a bit of sense out of, of what, what, what's going on there. And, and you've already got like Harding as, as you mentioned this cheick and I've forgotten. DeVito's character, martini, Che, and Martini are in different ways, kind of like quite infantile, childish characters.

Harding is this kind of like, it seems to be,

I,

guess I. Constantly irritated or, or, you know,

Sidey: he seems like a few sentences away from just losing his temper

Pete: Yeah. But, but losing his tempert like verbally,

Sidey: he's, no, he's not gonna fight physical

Pete: like, you know, sort of, but yeah, he's got, he's got a short fuse.

He's very easily agitated and, and you, you, I guess you find out why

Sidey: why Randall's trying to teach him to play blackjack. Yeah. And Martin's trying to hit on 20 or something like that, and he's

Reegs: you're on 23.

Pete: And he's, he's just got this like childish grin on his face and, and he's, you know, anyone else I think would soon work out quickly. Like, okay, this guy's just happy playing the game.

He doesn't really give a shit. Yeah. What happens whether he loo wins or loses and they're kind of playing for cigarettes and so on. But soon after that is, is the first scene where you where you get introduced to the, the entire

Sidey: there is a bit, I, when we fuck this up, the first time he's got Nudie.

Deck of cards, which he like shows on. They're like, whoa, that's amazing. And when we get to the, the first group therapy session, it's the first. Indication that ratchet is not one to be fucked with. He, he kind of flicks the cards, you know, just that

Reegs: Yeah. While she's

Sidey: she fucking like, gives in this death stare.

She's like, don't do that during my fucking, like, group thing. And you're like, okay. And when we were watching this my miss said, oh, they're gonna get it on. I was like, no.

Fucking, I'm

Reegs: no. Fucking

Sidey: Like,

not a fucking cat and Hells Jazz. And so we get to see in this first group therapy session just how controlling.

And,

Reegs: Well, it's not really therapy. It's it's therapy, but it's de it's, it's designed by ratchet, I think. And it this be, this becomes increasingly clear, but the therapy sessions are designed to sort of exploit essentially the worst fears of the people and sort of, she uses it later to, to kind of condemn them or, or.

Bring them under her control. But yeah, they're talking about Harding his wife who attracts a lot of inviting stairs from other men, and it enrages him. And in the book he's much more flamboyantly homosexual, but in this, he's such sort of more repressed, I think. But there are some jives about that as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: Well, so, so, and, and what this, what this scene does is it, it sets the, the scene literally of, you know, nurse Ratchet who, who was a, a character or it was a name I'd heard, I'd heard people talk about it.

Oh. Like, yeah, she's like Nurse Ratchet or whatever. And I'd never seen the film, obviously, and didn't know exactly who, who that was, but this kind of

like,

brought it home. But you also get introduced to all of the other characters that are gonna be in this piece, which is you know, a young, a young lad called Billy with a, with a stammer.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: He's played

Reegs: Brad Jif,

Pete: Jif, but brother him.

Sidey: Worm to, yeah.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. You've got

Sidey: you got Tabor.

We've

Pete: already seen Charlie Cheick.

Sidey: You got Tabor, which is Christopher Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd, yeah.

Pete: DeVito who it was the third or fourth scene before I realized it was only DeVito. Cuz this was like an my sort of, you know, definitely the earliest film that I, I would've seen him in.

Reegs: And, and my personal favorite, Banini the guy, he is just tired all the time. I've never empathized

Pete: Well he's, he's kind of like a, a secondary character. He doesn't participate in the group

Reegs: He just says, I'm tired.

Pete: just sits on the periphery saying he's tired and, and he'll be stood up by the window going, I'm tired. And the guy's like, okay, let's, let's sit you down then.

And then he sits down and he's still tired.

Sidey: Got a hand thing. And we've also got Vincent Shia, who's got a look like all of his own.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: he's kind of

Reegs: We came across him in Ghost.

Sidey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, he said the first. Fuck I ever heard of the cinema in Ghost.

Yeah. Wonder. Wow. Mm-hmm.

Pete: So yeah, it's, and, and what, what it's also kind of establishing as well is, is this order that, that we are talking about.

I mean, what, what I would say, like having, you know, I'm watching him experiencing this for the first time. None. None of what, what she was doing. It wasn't apparent to me. I mean, you've watched this a few times, read and read the book, so you, you already know. A lot about the character Nurse Ratchet, but this just seemed to me like a, she's leading a, a therapy session.

That is, I guess the, the, the worst case scenario for a professional in that environment is, is disorder. Because, you know, these are guys with, with, you know, mental health conditions and some could be particularly volatile. Some could kind of like get easily you know, I guess like triggered by others' behaviors and, and all of this.

And so I just thought that this was like a way of. Bringing everyone together and, and talking. But in a way where there, there, there were rules, there was like strict rules. It's at a certain time. It follows like a lot of routine and everything. And doesn't necessarily. Give many opportunities to put anyone in a bit of a tailspin, let's say.

But the introduction of MCM Murphy into this melting pot, and especially as you say, like he say, he just like ruffles the cards quickly and, and ratchet gives him the, the death glare straightaway. It sets up this, this, what you now know is, is gonna be like this kind of like, almost like head to head battle.

Reegs: and, well, there were constant little things for the power struggles going on.

There's one where he sort of talks about what would happen if I didn't take my medicine. And she's like, well, I'm sure we could find other ways to administer it. And you know,

Pete: well she, he said, yeah. She's like, you know, inferring the, the old suppository route, I guess.

And yeah.

Reegs: And then he, he sort of doesn't take his minute, he takes it and then when he goes back, they're all like, right.

Ah, you're not the big man now. And he spits it out in

Pete: face, who he constantly calls hard on. Yeah. Throughout the film, so, but yeah, I mean, he's establishing, I guess he's treating it a little bit like prison where he's establishing that he's like, he, you know,

Sidey: exactly like that.

Pete: Yeah. He, he's not to be messed with, he's a bit of an alpha, but he, he actually does show, so Harding is, is, you know, he's, he's wound up as tight as a pack of muffins, like right from the get-go. But the, the other ones who kind of like, are now kind of like looking up to him. But he does, you know, seemingly give a bit more time and, and he's less mean to them.

Sidey: Well, it's ratchets like order and. Dictatorial way of doing things against Randall's, just chaos and introducing a new way, new thought process.

And straight away he's challenging her. He's saying, right, this music's too loud. No one can fucking talk. We can't hear each other. Can you turn down the music's? Like, no, the music helps everyone. You know, blah, blah. Then it's like, oh, tonight's the World Series. You know? Even in fucking prison we get to watch the game, like let's put the game on.

Reegs: Well, they do a vote and none of them have got the balls. I think only him and he does get two others. I can't

Sidey: Tabor does and one other,

Reegs: but you know, nobody else wants to see the World Series. And then the next night there's an in between, he is sort of stir some stuff up. There's a character we haven't mentioned, a sort of giant native American called the Chief who is mute and.

Sidey: Yes.

Reegs: And MC Murphy's trying to get him to play basketball because later they're gonna have a scene when they're gonna challenge the guards to a game. But he does eventually sort of reach out and get the chief to interact with him and play basketball by getting on Ban Chin's shoulders.

I'm tired. I'm tired. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. I mean,

Pete: at, at, at this point I probably thought, I've seen, I've seen a couple of films that are not, Massively dissimilar to this in terms of premise or whatever, where some, when it's like someone goes into this environment but has an alternative way of, of almost like breaking through

Sidey: Well saw Brian mentioned the prison thing, like Sure.

Shank, when Jim Robbins just keeps doing stuff. He knows he's gonna get in shit, but who like plays the music over the pa Yeah. Yeah. Or he, you know, he does things to challenge the authority and, and it's kind of a little bit similar to that.

Pete: yeah, yeah. Yeah. So anyway,

we've got this you know, the scene is set and you sort of like know where, well not know exactly where it's gonna go, but you know what the, what the

Sidey: The, the,

the hijinks and the, the, the authorities change just escalates to the point where at one point he manages to sort of stow away in the, the, the van in the, the, the bus thing.

And then when the guys get on the bus, he just, they just, Get hijacked and he takes him out to the, up to the coast to go on a fishing trip.

Pete: Well, they, they, he, he goes and picks up a, a, a lady friend that is known to

Reegs: Candy. Candy. Mm-hmm.

Pete: Who's a, a young girl, maybe a prostitute. I'm not entirely sure if that's clear or not, but it's, it's definitely someone who he knows he can have some fun time with. So, and then they, they go down to, to the harbor, managed to black their way onto a

Reegs: Yeah. Masquerade masquerading is a, is a bunch of scientists, effectively, amazingly,

Pete: they go on this like, pretty impressive kind of like fishing. Drew's not even a fishing trawler or like, it's like a Sunseeker type of like deal. But they get on that, they go out into open waters. He gets Charlie Cheick, one of the kind of like more childlike characters in it and just says, look, you just hold this and point straightforward towards

Sidey: he wouldn't have been the one I denominated

Pete: No, not necessarily. No.

Sidey: control of the, of the vessel.

Pete: Yeah. But anyway, he puts him in charge, but he, he, because he wants to have a little bit of quiet time with with K but before he does that, he teaches, he gives all the guys, like, you know, he, he sets up their rods and, and teaches 'em how to like, you know, bake the hook and everything.

And they all. You know, they're, they're fishing overboard, albeit a few of them sneak off to try and have a peak of them having sex in, in, in the actual boat. But by this time, Charlie's kind of like lost interest in keeping the boat steady.

Reegs: he's abandoned the wheel to

Pete: abandoned the wheel to go and I think have a look at the, the sex that might be going on, and the boat starts going around in circles and then chaos and shoes.

And I think it's, I forget Tabor, is it? Ch Christopher Lloyd's character, he's like, landed a fish

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: so that, then they bring that in. So anyway, hilarity and Hughes, but it's a really, really good scene. It's, you know, lots of laughs

Reegs: and it's clear that the guys are getting an awful lot out of this experience of coming out of the psychiatric ward into the real world, and that even if it is this crazy, dangerous, chaotic, bad situation, you know, they're getting something out of it.

Pete: Yeah. So they, they get accosted as soon as they get back to, to shore, even though they've got, with it showing off a big fish that they've caught. And yeah, they get, they go back to the to the wards.

Reegs: They, the, the, the suits have a conversation about him. They can't ag they all agree he's dangerous, but they can't really come to a unanimous conclusion about whether he is sort of crazy or not.

And they're talking in highfalutin words, but Nurse Ratchet, who's there as a listener says, well, no, no. We'll, you know, they're saying, oh, we'll send him back to the, the jail. And she says, no, keep him on the ward. You know, somebody's gotta take some responsibility for this.

Problem.

Pete: for this guy and it, and it's around this time that he finds out that, you know, whilst he is on the ward the, the 68 days that he had left on his sentence or whatever actually means nothing.

He's, he's been committed and it's up to them to be able to, you know, release him from, from their control. So,

Reegs: So, yeah.

Pete: and that's put a bit of a spanner in the works in terms of his

Reegs: Yeah. Murphy didn't see this coming, I don't think. And he does confront her about this at the next therapy session.

Why didn't anyone tell him what was going on? You know, that he was there at their discretion and this is when it comes out that actually you know, he's, he's asking the other guys, why have you got nothing to lose? Why aren't you leaving? And all this, and they're all there voluntarily.

Sidey: Yeah. It's only him. Chief and Tabor are the only ones who are involuntary. Yeah. Patients.

Reegs: Yeah,

Pete: involuntary

Sidey: patients. As in, they're, they're, they're

Pete: right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry.

Reegs: Harding and Cheswick and Martini and Banini and Mr. Ellsworth who likes the dancing. And all of these guys Billy, yeah, especially crucially, Billy, who is, is really quite capable, obviously.

So, yeah, they're all there voluntarily.

Pete: And there's, there's already been a reference in one of the groups about to made to Billy about. From Nurse Ratchet who's, who says, oh, oh, wasn't that the first time you tried killing yourself? When he, when

Sidey: started talking

Pete: about the past or whatever. So,

Reegs: but MCM Murphy's insulin sort of does light a fire in the others martini, I think.

Oh, Noche starts saying, where are my cigarettes? You confiscated my cigarettes when I'm supposed to have my C. Where are my cigarettes and what my cigarettes? And then somebody else is saying, hang on a minute, why is the dorm locked? And you know, suddenly it's all rising up as a bit of crescendo. And this is when Mc Murphy does he punch through the thing to get the cigarettes.

Pete: yeah, he does. And then he has a fight with one of the, one of the orderlies. Yeah. And then the, the chief comes over to cuz the chief, you know, he doesn't give a lot away at all. As a, as deaf and mute guy um, wouldn't necessarily, but he comes over

Reegs: he doesn't say a lot. That's,

Pete: he's a huge.

Sidey: huge,

Pete: Huge hulking guy that then a load of orderlies come in and, and break up the fight. And then because of them being involved in the fight and, and Charlie Cheick, I guess kind of almost like in instigating the, the chaos through, you know, going on about his cigarettes, they'll get taken up to the disturbed ward.

Where Charlie is the, is the first to kind of like get wheeled off into a room and, and MC Murphy and, and the chief are left on a bench. And it's at this point that you, you get the reveal that the chief can actually talk. MCM Murphy hands him a piece of chewing gum and he just says Thanks.

And then the, the second thing he says is, Hmm, juicy fruit. Which, which was a surprise I guess.

Sidey: But Chisik benefits from some alternative therapy in the Duad board. Yes. It's fairly grim,

Reegs: Well, he's wheeled out on, sort of on a stretcher after his treatment. And then Mc Murphy is taken in for his ect. He's kind of cocky to the end, chewing gum, but it looks pretty painful.

Sidey: they put the stuff on his, his temples conduct the conductive. You're like, oh, Jesus. And bite down on this. That'll stop you like biting your tongue off and you're like, oh, this grim. And then at some point after the, that he's had this electrode fucking shock therapy, whatever it's called, he, he comes back to the ward and.

Sort of zombie walks in. Yeah. But that's all a prank. He's like, la la, la, la on sound. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. And then they're like, yeah,

Reegs: yeah. The next girl who's going, she's gonna light up like a pimball machine, he says to them. Yeah.

Pete: So he but then, yeah, he immediately get, comes back and engages in, in the group therapy and ratchet even gives him the opportunity to go and rest or whatever.

And he was, it's almost like he wants to show, look, you've done this to me, but I'm, if anything I'm, I'm sort of like more invigorated to, to, to cause some, some carnage in here. So

Reegs: I think this, the, the EC T though is the last straw for, for MCM Murphy Really, isn't it? Yeah. And this is when he decides that he needs to leave.

And,

Pete: and he's, he's, he's made a plan with the chief to to escape as well, the chief's up for, to, you know, getting out of there as well. So, yeah, he calls up Kandy again and asks her to bring one of one of her friends along and, and pick up some booze on the way around. And when it cuts to, I guess, evening time and, and the night warden is, is there

Reegs: Ska man?

Carruthers?

Yeah.

Pete: I think it's Ska man.

Reegs: Crothers. Yeah.

Scat Man. Crothers. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. Turkel, I think is his name

Pete: Yeah. So he, he gets bribed with I guess with, with cash, booze and the, the opportunity to have some sexy time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sidey: I'll do it.

Pete: Yeah. That'll do it for me.

Sidey: So, and the plan is throw a Christmas party.

Everyone's gonna have a good time, but while this is going on, he's gonna

Reegs: steal the keys,

Sidey: gonna steal the keys,

Reegs: gonna leave via the window and all that sort of stuff. And it's, the party's a great party. It looks like a lot of fun.

Sidey: It's absolute carnage.

Pete: There is, there's dancing, there's music, there's you know,

Sidey: a lot of

Pete: lot of boos being consumed. Yep.

Reegs: Yeah. At

Sidey: one point they, they nearly get rumbled and they hide in Turk's office, or is it just a cupboard or? No,

Pete: No, it's, it is an office.

Cuz there's all also, there's a fridge in there. Everything. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. And then they're making a fucking shitload of noise.

Reegs: noise. There's about 20 of them in there.

Sidey: And it's an old lady, kind of, you know, like the old matron sort of thing.

And she's like, what's going on? And candy I think pops her head out and it, it would appear that it's just tur and her. Yeah. And she's like, get her out here. But, but

Pete: He

Sidey: she bugs off and they just carry on the party.

Reegs: So there's the big party and then the

Pete: tur passes out and this is when MC Murphy gets the key Yeah. For the windows that are locked. He, he gets hold of that

Reegs: and he tries to convince Billy to come with him. Yeah. You know, and Billy's not ready. And he, he says, I'll send you my address.

Come out there. You can come out. And he says, oh, will Kandy be there? And they've already had a little slow

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reegs: And when he realizes how keen Billy is on Kandy, basically gets her to. It's weird that, isn't it? I mean, because they're sort of implied to be in a relationship and, and he's like, will he just fuck my mate pity,

Pete: that's right.

Sidey: I think she's a

Pete: She's

a lady of the night. So I guess it's her trade. So he knows that she's go, because at first I, I was kind of thinking

Reegs: but is that a freebie? Or, because like somebody's gonna go to, oh, just go and do their book. Say

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reegs: just

Sidey: you know. Yeah. Well, in any case, they they have sex.

Reegs: They do have some sexy time.

Pete: they get put in one of the, in one of the rooms, like one of the cells I guess you could, like, you call it one of the patients, maybe it's Billy's room

Reegs: and he must have done a lot better than me on his first time because everybody kind of falls asleep cuz it takes that long that

Pete: Yeah. Well they do. They do fall suit, not before. Murphy's had a conversation with the chief where it's Rev, the chief reveals that. His, his father's alcoholism had a pretty profound effect on, on him. I guess, you know, obviously emotionally especially because he's, he's now sort of, not only has he been committed, but he, he's, he's taken to, to pretending, to being like deaf and mute to, to avoid having to engage with, with anyone.

But Murphy's clearly sort of stirred something within him to. You know, get, give him a a, I guess like a, a, a new lease of life to, to want to, you know, get out of there and, and actually go and, and, and live

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, fate are black because the parties got out hand and everyone's fucking, you know, coma.

Yeah. Drunken stupid. And then the morning after couple of orderlies arrive, And we see the scene. It's absolute fucking wreck.

yeah. It's, okay. Smash things everywhere. Booze, the fucking, just asleep on the floor or in chairs or this, that and the other. And then ratchet arrives. And she's none too pleased with what she

Reegs: Yeah,

But she doesn't. She doesn't blow her top. She's icy seething rage, like it's in her eyes and nothing else really

Pete: Well, the, the, the first thing, the first thing she does is, you know, she's nothing if not professional. So she makes sure that there's, there's a roll call and all the, she, she, there's one of the girls rose or whatever is, is spotted and is like Right.

You sl your hook. Right. Do a, do a roll call. Make sure everybody's here. Turns out Billy is, is unaccounted for before one of the. You know, assistance finds Billy in his room with, with candy like naked still. Billy's like called into the, into the main room and as he's, he's pulling up his pajamas as he's, as he's running in.

And and this scene here was, was incredible because straight away, the noticeable thing with about Billy is that his stammer is gone. And not just that, but his confidence is, is, you know, fully renewed and, and when ratchet starts asking him questions about how he feels about what's just ha taken place and, and so on.

He's, he's very sort of like confidently saying like, yeah, yeah, let's talk about it. And like, looking around for like, you know. Yeah.

Sidey: They're all backing him up. Like

Pete: from, from Yeah. And they're all like clapping and, and you know, during him on, he's, he's basically like standing, standing up to her. Yeah.

Effectively,

Reegs: he's standing up for himself.

Pete: Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Standing up for himself. She immediately then place what is clearly the Trump card with him, which was to say like, oh, well I, as you know, I know your mother, and, and let's see what she thinks about that. And he immediately, the stammer returns.

Reegs: Yeah. He's an instant quivering mess, basically, isn't he?

Pete: like, is reduced to rubble and, and starts pleading desperately for, for that not to take place. And because he's become, you know, a bit manic or whatever he gets, he gets carted off to, to another room. All the while Murphy has, has managed to, he's, he's opened one of the windows and he, he's ready to, to, you know, abscond.

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: And just as he's about to do that, this, this is like a serious commotion coming from down the corridor

Sidey: Yeah. It's still the nurse, isn't it?

Pete: in the room that, that Billy was in And somebody, you know, there's a whole like jo load of jostling trying to get in the room to see what's happened. And then you, you get this pretty gruesome scene of, of Billy has, has found some glass, smashed it and, and slit his own throat and taken his own life.

And what did take me out of this scene, which is amazing the, the scene's amazing, but what took me out of it is, is the really, sort of like fairly amateurish fake blood that looks like ketchup just sprayed all over the place, but it doesn't detract from, from how powerful that scene

Sidey: is.

Yeah.

Pete: Ratchet is, is, you could see she's like, you know, pH obviously physically jarred by it, but tries just immediately

restoring the order.

Again, by, by kind of like saying, right, okay. Everyone, everyone back to their rooms and so on. And Mc Murphy, by this time has, has seen the scene and,

Sidey: he's fucking enraged staring

Pete: at her and, and I guess the fact that she's been the catalyst for Billy taking his own life and the fact that she's now just almost like really calmly, just shooing people away and so on.

He can't contain his anger and, and grabs her by the throat, pins her to the floor and he's just strangling the life out of her.

Reegs: Well, he sees that. He sees it, that she's killed him.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

yeah.

Sidey: And he was 100% gonna kill her.

No doubt.

Pete: he was not letting up at all. But,

Sidey: he gets, he gets a whack from an oddly, and that's that,

Pete: then that, that's the end, the end of the scene. And then it sort of like cuts to some time. In the future could be days, weeks not entirely sure. And there, there's a lot of like chat going on in, in the wards about what's happened to Mc Murphy. A couple of them are saying that he's he's escaped.

He managed to escape. Another couple are suggesting that maybe he's been taken up to the disturbed ward.

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Pete: But finally that evening it's, you know, as it as it's getting a bit dark, it's, it's revealed. He, he comes in with a couple of people either side of him and he's almost like shuffling in.

Sidey: Mirroring what he did when he came back. Far less, yeah.

Pete: yeah.

But far less animated than, than he's previously been in the film. And they just kind of like lie him down in the bed. And when, when there's a, an opportune time, the chief goes over and, and, and sort of just says, listen, you know, we're still planning on escaping. I'm, I'm bang up

Reegs: Tonight's the night we going's

Pete: night and he gets no. Sort of response whatsoever from MCM Murphy. And this was like really jarring. This actually for me, I was like watching him because like you say, it's, he, you know, he's a very kind of like conflicting or you feel conflicted about him as a character. Cuz he's, he's a wrongin, but he's, he's also, you know, brought quite a lot of like, Fun and joy and, and hope to, to a lot of these like other patients.

And, and you kind of want him to escape. You want happy endings for all of these guys most of them anyway. But it's, it's revealed that he's been the bottom eyes. He's got

Sidey: yeah. You just see the two scars.

Yeah. The two like diagonal scars across like forehead frontal lobes.

Reegs: So she has had the last laugh.

Sidey: Yeah. um, That

Pete: that again, this fucking,

Sidey: misery doesn't end there because

Pete: That this startled me because he said, he says something to him. I can't remember exactly what he says, but it's almost like reassuring to him.

Sidey: He hugs him, doesn't

Pete: Yeah. He like, gives him a hug,

Sidey: Hug, and then

he gets a pillow. And does a meer killing. Yeah. Just takes him

Pete: Yeah. Again, like quite drawn out, you know, you see his arms and legs flailing up and down, but the chief's such a big guy.

Reegs: He's enormous, isn't he? Yeah.

Pete: take him long to, to smother him to death.

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: And then a scene that we didn't mention earlier, which there was, there was in the showers, there was a,

Reegs: a,

we didn't mention it the first time.

Pete: No, we didn't mention it.

Reegs: it and we didn't mention it this time either. It was amazing.

Pete: we recorded it this time side. Right.

Sidey: Yes,

Pete: Yes. Yeah, this is like plinth, I guess in the middle of the shower room that has a lot of the, it's like a hydrotherapy Yeah. Room and it's got a lot of nozzles and everything coming out of it. And Mc Murphy had bet all the guys that he could rip it out the floor and throw it through the window, and that is gonna be his means of escape.

But he, he proven, proven that he, he wasn't strong enough. But if there's one guy that's gonna be strong enough, it's, it's your man, the

Reegs: mm-hmm.

Pete: Who rips it out of the floor and all the water starts going everywhere. And he, he walks it through a room, a couple of rooms, chucks it through the window and then literally like hops out of the window.

Yeah. To a chorus of like a applause and cheers from the, from the other, from the other patients and, and runs off into the,

Sidey: into the night.

Pete: Into the night.

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: And the credits come up. And that's the end. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Yes. Good, isn't it?

Reegs: Yeah. This was good. Really good.

Pete: as I said right at the beginning, I'd heard

Quite a

lot about this without, actually, without much detail about the film itself, but just that, oh, this is a good film and everything.

I honestly, the, it is been a long time since I've been, as you know, surpri, I, I was. Really shocked and surprised by how fucking good this is. I wasn't expecting it at all. I thought it'd be, you know,

Reegs: and still pretty relevant when you think about, it's based on a book that was written in 1962 and a movie that came out in 1975 and all its themes about institutionalized, you know, problems with inmates and all that sort of stuff.

Still depressingly relevant.

Pete: Yeah, absolutely. And, and this,

Reegs: I mean, not that they go around the izing loads of people these days, but it's more the, the institutionalized nature

Pete: yeah. This, this theme of, of, you know, this, this, of, of how you deal with it, how they deal with it is like there's all these different people that got different problems, very, like a whole varying sort of like raft of reasons why they're in there.

And quite a lot of it, they're, they're in there voluntarily, but they're all dealt with in exactly the same way it is seemingly, they all have the same medicine seem, and, and they're definitely, you know, asked to conform in exactly the same way. And so it's just kind of like, I guess just keeping them, you know, under control rather than actually trying to treat them or, or help them

Sidey: no, it's, it's just get them through a day without any,

Pete: Yeah. Which, which let, let's be honest, they're doing a pretty good job of it. See, there's a, it's almost like there's a picture of Serenity before. You know, Nicholson rocks up.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, she's actively using her knowledge and power to exploit these people and keep

Pete: and their vulnerabilities.

Yeah, absolutely. And so it, it's clearly not that, not the always go, there's no kind of like bespoke treatment for, for any individual or, or, or whatever. And then the, the whole, you know, the, the whole, the centerpiece of the film is, is the conflict between Mc Murphy and, and Ratchet, which. I've heard it like tonight and, and obviously now understanding a bit more about that character and so on, and like in terms of being like the antagonist of the piece.

So passively though, like, so passively, like she doesn't, it's just words and demeanor rather than any kind of like actions. She, there's.

Sidey: Well, she's not gonna, she's not gonna do anything with

Pete: No, no, no. I understand that. But she's not, like,

there's, no

Sidey: her temper.

Pete: yeah, she's not like, you know, she doesn't, she's not doing

Sidey: all about

Pete: overtly demeaning way, like where she's like, like, you know, putting people, like shaming people and stuff like that.

She's doing it in a very calculated, passive

Sidey: yeah.

Pete: way, which maybe, and, and this is why I don't necessarily think, you know, if, if she's up there, it sounds like she's up there with like, you know, H hideous characters from, from, you know, films and and so on. But I, I don't know if it's, if it's all completely vindictive or, or if it's something that she just feels she needs to do in order to maintain order and control in that environment.

Whether she maybe thinks she's doing the right thing.

Sidey: I think yes, up to point.

And then she's just taken it far and beyond, like,

Pete: listen, a, a kid is, has basically killed himself because of her words and her threats with, with those words. So yeah, of course. You know, not, I'm not saying I was siding with her, but

Sidey: it's a brilliant, like all the performances in this are, are like fucking incredible.

Pete: They are, they are incredible.

Sidey: amazing. She never watched, she wouldn't watch the film. She, sorry. Louise Fletcher who played Nurse Ratchet. She wouldn't watch the film cuz she was so like, horrified about how awful she was. She didn't wanna see it. I read something else that was really odd. I dunno if this is true, but this is, this is on the internet, so it must be true. Louise Fletcher was so upset with the fact that other cast members could laugh and be happy while she had to be so cold and heartless. Near the end of production, she removed her dress and stood in only her underwear to prove to the cast members that she was not a coldhearted.

Reegs: All right.

Sidey: And she was pretty horny over like

Reegs: I would've quite liked to have been there

Sidey: like should've seen that. Yeah.

Pete: You never had a bit of ratchet. Yeah, but I guess that's the thing that the, the performances are so fucking powerful. Like from like all of the cast, I, I just can't even, you know, like the, the chief who isn't saying anything or really doing anything.

It's like a, a, a strong phy, really physical, like you say. Yeah. His, his just, his, his presence and so on. I mean, like Brad dif I, I think that was his breakthrough

Sidey: This was his

debut. Yeah.

Pete: It kind of like begs the question for me, and I've not seen, the only other thing I've seen him in his, his Lord of the Rings where he was, most of his scenes were cut out.

Reegs: child's play.

He was in that as well.

Pete: Yeah. I mean he just does the voice of the, the doll, doesn't he?

Sidey: But Jack, so you talk about, so if you wanna talk about the, there's people who are always in the conversation of like the Greats De Niro, Pacino, Sandler Ferrell,

Pete: did you just throw Sandler in

Reegs: Yeah. Amazing

Sidey: but Jack's,

Pete: yeah,

Reegs: as well.

Will ferrell's

Pete: a complete dub.

Sidey: Jack's gotta be up there.

Pete: Absolutely. And and it wasn't until we had this conversation on, on, on Saturday side where it was like you say like, you know, greatest acts of all time. You listed off a few there. It's like you don't necessarily consider Nicholson immediately

Sidey: He's got, I think when you talk about Pacino and Janeiro, Maybe more so you don't really hear that much about them other than acting.

Whereas Nicholson's this larger life per, you know, guy who's like a, a fucking womanizer and he is always caught side the Lakers and all this sort of stuff. And maybe that's, you think of all that other stuff, right? And, but you forget that, fuck me. This guy was like, all time and this is like right up there.

Yeah.

Pete: It it is, absolutely. I mean, the, I've seen him in, in, in other things that he was brilliant in as well, but because he's, he's done some sort of comedy role or, or like he did, you know, the, the Batman film, which is a brilliant performance, but it's like from a comic book and so on, like this is like serious, serious subject matter.

He still manages to like, Make you laugh. You, you are wary of him the whole time because, you know, he's a loose cannon. It's just a fucking like, absolute

Reegs: Well, and also the movie does treat his crimes pretty glibly as well. Like, yeah. But. Yeah, he's great. He is great in this

Pete: and, and they all are as, as the car.

This, this was such a massive, massive, pleasant

Sidey: It's bigger than that Pete is, this is the second of only three movies. The others being, it happened one night and Science The Lambs to have won all the Big Five Academy Awards.

Pete: again, absolutely like news to me, I didn't realize it was, it was that highly revered in the, you know, sort of in terms of accolades and everything.

And, and I can see absolutely understand why it's, it's a fucking seriously stellar film.

Sidey: Moderate recommend for me.

Pete: Yeah. It's a mere from me.