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A Clockwork Orange (1971) Stanley Kubrick, filming locations

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A Clockwork Orange (1971) Stanley Kubrick, filming locations

In future Britain, charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society’s crime problem – but not all goes according to plan.

Director: Stanley Kubrick.
Writers: Stanley Kubrick (screenplay), Anthony Burgess (novel)
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates.

Set vaguely in the north of England, judging by the accents, A Clockwork Orange was made almost entirely on location around London and the Home Counties (the southeastern counties surrounding the capital), with notoriously travel-phobic director Stanley Kubrick choosing locations from architectural guides.

For many years, Kubrick’s refusal to allow the film to be shown in the UK gave his blackly comic version of Anthony Burgess’ novel about free will and control an undeserved reputation as a fearsome video nasty.

Virtually the only purpose-built set, the ‘Korova Milk Bar’, was constructed in a factory just off Borehamwood High Street near to the MGM Studios (where 2001: A Space Odyssey had been shot).

The grim housing estate of Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is part of the unspeakable concrete disaster that is Thamesmead South, a vast, dismal, windswept collection of tower blocks connected by intimidating walkways. The exterior of his glum home is the Tavy Bridge Centre.

The benighted subway, where the Droogs attack the old tramp, can be found over in West London. It’s a tough call – choosing between the four near-identical subways leading down beneath the traffic island dominated by the huge circular advertising installation on Trinity Road, Wandsworth, deserted, unswept and extremely unnerving. I’m finally convinced that it’s the southern underpass, between Trinity Road and Swandon Way.

The ‘Flat Block Marina’ is Thamesmead’s artificially created Southmere Lake. Alex reasserts his dominance over fellow Droogs here by dumping Dim in the water and slicing his outstretched hand at Binsey Walk on the Lake’s western shore overlooked by the tower blocks of Yarnton Way.

More futuristic cityscapes (subsequently cut from the film) filmed in the sixties concrete shopping centre of Friar’s Square in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Another urban disaster, the centre was closed down in 1990 and drastically remodelled as a much more friendly redbrick indoor mall.

The derelict casino in which the two gangs clash was on Taggs Island near Hampton Court. It was demolished shortly after filming.

The interior of Alex’s apartment in ‘Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North’ is a flat in the village of Elstree – not far from the Borehamwood location. Kubrick, ever the perfectionist, moved out the couple who lived here and spent £5,000 on redecoration. With filming over and the flat restored to its original state, they returned only to be moved out again so two close-ups could be shot.

‘Woodmere Health Farm’, home of Miss Weathers, the cat lady (Miriam Karlin), is Shenley Lodge, Rectory Lane, Shenley, in the Hertfordshire countryside.

Also in Hertfordshire is the interior used for ‘Home’, Patrick Magee’s futuristic pad and site of the notorious ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ rape of Adrienne Corri (when the two met in Hollywood, Gene Kelly allegedly snubbed Kubrick for the use of this number in the scene), why is Skybreak, tucked invisibly away in the tiny village of Warren Radlett, Hertfordshire. The exterior was a modernistic house in Oxfordshire.

Fast sex to fast food: the très Sixties chrome and glass Chelsea Drugstore, which stood on the Kings Road at the northwest corner of Royal Avenue, became record shop, where Alex picks up two girls for a spot of high speed ‘in and out’. The shop closed in the Seventies and is now a branch of McDonalds.

The bizarre ‘Duke of New York’ pub was the Old Leather Bottle, 76 Stonegrove, Edgware. It became The Bottle and Dragon, before being closed down in October 2002 and converted into flats.

The ‘Ludovico Medical Facility’, where Alex undergoes the gross aversion therapy, is the campus of Brunel University in Uxbridge, Greater London. The giant overhanging concrete monstrosity is the Lecture Centre in the middle of campus, opposite which Alex is received into the Art Centre. The campus is on Kingston Lane off Hillingdon Hill about a mile south of Uxbridge (tube: Uxbridge).

The newly defenceless Alex meets an earlier victim on the Chelsea Embankment at Oakley Street, Chelsea, SW3, and it’s here, under Albert Bridge that the tramps take their revenge.

A Clockwork Orange 1971 ( FILMING LOCATION ) Stanley Kubrick

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Film Facts

The snake, Basil, was introduced into the film by Stanley Kubrick when he found out Malcolm McDowell had a fear of reptiles.

Stanley Kubrick had his assistant destroy all unused footage.

According to Malcolm McDowell (on the commentary track from the 2007 DVD release), the sped-up sex scene was originally filmed as an unbroken take lasting 28 minutes.

When Malcolm McDowell met Gene Kelly at a party several years later, the older star turned and walked away in disgust. Kelly was deeply upset about the way his signature from Singin’ in the Rain (1952) had been portrayed in A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Stanley Kubrick’s first cut (before hiring several assistant editors) ran almost four hours.

Alex performing "Singing in the Rain" as he attacks the writer and his wife was not scripted. Stanley Kubrick spent four days experimenting with this scene, finding it too conventional. Eventually he approached Malcolm McDowell and asked him if he could dance. They tried the scene again, this time with McDowell dancing and singing the only song he could remember. Kubrick was so amused that he swiftly bought the rights to "Singing in the Rain" for ,000.

The doctor standing over Alex as he is being forced to watch violent films was a real doctor, ensuring that Malcolm McDowell’s eyes didn’t dry up.

Malcolm McDowell’s eyes were anesthetized for the torture scenes so that he would film for periods of time without too much discomfort. Nevertheless his corneas got repeatedly scratched by the metal lid locks.

Before filming the scene where he had to carry Patrick Magee’s wheelchair up the stairs, professional bodybuilder David Prowse went up to Stanley Kubrick and asked if he could make sure that (due to the difficulty of the task) he got the scene in as few takes as possible, saying, "You’re not exactly known as ‘one-take-Kubrick’, are you?" The rest of the crew was horrified at such a famous director being talked to like this, but Kubrick just laughed and promised to do his best. The scene was filmed in only three takes, an incredibly small amount for a perfectionist like Kubrick. Even so, Prowse was near exhaustion after the repeated takes of him carrying Frank and his wheelchair down the stairs.

During the filming of the Ludovico scene, star Malcolm McDowell scratched one of his corneas and was temporarily blinded. He suffered cracked ribs during filming of the humiliation stage show.

Although he is playing a 15-year-old (17 in the latter half), Malcolm McDowell was actually 27 at the time of filming.

In the scene after Alex talks with the priest about Ludovico therapy, we see the prisoners marching in a circle around the exercise yard, recreating an 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh, "Prisoners Exercising (after Gustave Doré)."

Before the rape scene was filmed, Adrienne Corri walked up to Malcolm McDowell and said, "Well, Malcolm, today you’re going to find out I’m a real redhead".

The final scene was done after 74 takes.

In the police station scene when Mr Deltoid (Aubrey Morris) spits in Alex’s face, it is actually Steven Berkoff doing the spitting. After several takes, Morris complained to Stanley Kubrick that he had run out of saliva, and Berkoff volunteered his services until Kubrick’s cameras captured the perfect ‘spit-shot’.

The first movie to make use of Dolby sound, it used Dolby noise reduction on all pre-mixes and masters, but a conventional optical sound track on release prints.

Contrary to popular claims, this was never banned in the UK. It originally received an "X" rating in 1971 and was withdrawn from distribution in 1973 by Stanley Kubrick himself. One of Kubrick’s reasons for withdrawing the movie in the UK was that, according to his wife Christiane Kubrick, he and his family received several death threats because of the film. In the 1980s and 1990s, British fans who wanted to see this movie would have to order it from video stores in other countries, usually France. In 1993 London’s popular Scala Film Club showed this movie without permission. At Kubrick’s insistence, Warner Brothers sued and won, causing the Scala to close in near bankruptcy. In 2000, the year after Kubrick’s death, the film was released again throughout Great Britain and received an "18" rating.

Anthony Burgess was raised a strict Roman Catholic and originally wrote his novel as a parable about Christian free will and forgiveness. His take on it was that to be a true Christian, one had to forgive the most horrifying of acts, something Burgess knew only too well, having seen his wife be assaulted and beaten by soldiers during World War II. This attack resulted in a miscarriage and a lifetime of gynecological troubles for his wife.

Malcolm McDowell chose to play Alex speaking in his normal Northern English accent instead of a Cockney accent. McDowell felt his softer accent would strike an interesting contrast with Alex’s menacing personality and also help him stand out amongst his friends.

The two copycat crimes that prompted Stanley Kubrick to have the film withdrawn in the United Kingdom were the rape of a Dutch girl in Lancashire in 1973 at the hands of men singing "Singin’ in the Rain" and the beating of a 16 year old boy who had beaten a younger child whilst wearing Alex’s uniform of white overalls, a black bowler hat and combat boots.

The Korova milk bar at the start was the only set built for the film.

The doorbell at the Alexander residence, "Home," plays the first four notes of Ludwig van Beethoven’s "Fifth Symphony" (but in a different key).

It is often claimed that Malcolm McDowell nearly drowned when his breathing apparatus failed during filming of the waterboarding scene. This is not true. Daily records indicate that the scene was filmed in repeated takes with no stoppage from equipment failure. McDowell has never reported a near drowning, while he does report many similar close calls in other scenes.

The language spoken by Alex and his droogs is author Anthony Burgess’s invention, "Nadsat": a mix of English, Russian and slang. Stanley Kubrick was afraid that they had used too much of it, and that the movie would not be accessible. The original edition of the novel suffered from similar criticisms, and a Nadsat glossary appendix was added to the second and subsequent editions.

The film was unavailable for public viewing in the UK from 1973 until 2000, the year after Stanley Kubrick’s death. British video stores were so inundated with requests for the movie that some took to putting up signs that read: ‘No, we do not have A Clockwork Orange (1971).’

While recording narration, Malcolm McDowell would often feel the need to stretch his legs. So to satisfy McDowell and quite possibly get better narration from him, Stanley Kubrick and McDowell would play table tennis (a sport featured in Kubrick’s own Lolita (1962)), and although they played many games, Kubrick never beat a rather skilled McDowell at table tennis. McDowell was later irritated to find that his salary had been docked for the hours spent playing the game. McDowell often kept Kubrick highly amused by his ability to belch on command (as illustrated at various points of the movie). They would play chess as well, and with Kubrick being the excellent chess player he was, McDowell never managed to beat him at Chess, something that was a regular thing with many actors in Kubrick’s films. He would regularly beat George C. Scott at Chess while making Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) , and also Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall on The Shining (1980).

The Car used by Alex and the droogs was the "Adams Probe 16," one of three ever made.

Korova Milk Bar is named after the Russian word for cow. Moloko (written on the wall) means milk. The bar’s sculptures were based on the work of sculptor Allen Jones. Stanley Kubrick had the milk dispensers emptied, washed and refilled every hour, as the milk curdled under the studio lights. A painting on the wall reappears in Kubrick’s The Shining (1980).

This film was shot almost entirely on real locations as opposed to sets and was lit almost entirely with a Lowell Kit, a staple for film students, perhaps as a reaction against the huge apparatus needed for Stanley Kubrick’s previous film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Anthony Burgess originally sold the movie rights to Mick Jagger for 0 when he needed quick cash. Jagger intended to make it with The Rolling Stones as the droogs, but then re-sold the rights for a much larger amount. Ken Russell was then nominated to direct because his style was considered well-suited for the material. He would have cast Oliver Reed as Alex. Tinto Brass was another possible director. At some point, someone suggested rewriting the droogs to be girls in miniskirts or old-age pensioners. Tim Curry and Jeremy Irons turned down the role of Alex. Stanley Kubrick once said "If Malcolm McDowell hadn’t been available I probably wouldn’t have made the film." Author Anthony Burgess initially distrusted Kubrick as a director, but was happy with the results. He felt the film later made the book, one of his least favorite books he had written, overshadow his other work.

One of the first films to employ radio mikes to record the sound. No post synching was required.

Rated #2 of the 25 most controversial movies of all time by Entertainment Weekly, 16 June 2006. Rated by Premiere as one of "The 25 Most Dangerous Movies." Rated as the #70 Greatest Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute, 2007. Rated #4 out of 10 by the American Film Institute’s "Sci-Fi" list, June 2008.

As he would go on to do in Barry Lyndon (1975) (to Oscar-winning effect), director of photography John Alcott lit most of the film using only natural light.

When Alex is being drowned, there is a barely perceptible micro-cut in which Malcolm McDowell was able to use the oxygen mask that was hidden in the water. The bath was muddied by using Bovril, a beef extract.

Patrick Magee kept asking Malcolm McDowell if Stanley Kubrick was all right with his performance as he felt that he was being far too over the top. Magee said that he "felt like he was taking a dump," so overwrought was his performance. McDowell assured him that this was exactly what Kubrick was after.

The first line of the novel is "What’s it going to be then, eh?" and this line is repeated frequently throughout the book. Another recurring phrase is "dressed in the heighth [sic] of [insert adjective here] fashion," which is how Alex describes every single set of clothes that he or anyone else is wearing. The movie omits all but one occurrence of each phrase. Prison Chaplain Godfrey Quigley is introduced with the line "What’s it going to be, eh?" In the next scene Alex imagines himself as a first-century executioner "dressed in the height of Roman fashion."

Malcolm McDowell is actually urinating in the toilet scene early in the film, when he goes home and prepares for bed. He drank a lot of coffee before filming the shot.

Stanley Kubrick’s first solo screenplay.

Stanley Kubrick handled the advertising campaign, including posters, commercials, the trailer, etc.

According to author Anthony Burgess, the title of the book (and the movie) came from East London slang, deriving from the phrase, "as queer as a clockwork orange." No independent references are known, however, and it is thought that Burgess invented the phrase himself.

Filming the rape scene was so difficult for the actress originally cast in the role. She quit and the part was recast to Adrienne Corri, who was said to have been furious with Stanley Kubrick for the scores of takes he required for this infamous scene, feeling it should have been done swiftly. Malcolm McDowell, however, has stated that Corri was very "game" about the brief but difficult role throughout filming.

One of only two movies rated X on its original release (the other being Midnight Cowboy (1969)) to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Unusually for a film of this period, all the credits are at the end.

The film was released just over a year after principal photography began, the fastest film shot, edited and released by Stanley Kubrick.

Of the 11 adaptations that Stanley Kubrick worked on in his career, this is the least modified from its source material.

Alexander, Peter, and Dimitri (which can be shortened to Dim) were common names of Russian kings and princes of the Empire of the Tsars (1462-1917). George (Gyorgi in Russian) was their patron saint.

One of the highest grossing films of 1971.

Because of the limited budget, various techniques had to be used such as dolly shots on wheelchairs, sound recorded live on set, the use of natural light and some scenes in handheld cameras. However, at that time the new camera zoom control was first used in the picture.

When Malcolm McDowell recorded his voiceover material, it was on a simple Nagra tape recorder operated by Stanley Kubrick himself. Unusually, he did not have to dub a single one of his other lines in the film, owing to the director’s use of then-advanced wireless microphones.

Malcolm McDowell found the strange language easy to deal with as he was used to playing William Shakespeare’s plays with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The futuristic turntable that appeared in the movie is a Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference turntable. ‘Stanley Kubrick’ found this turntable when visiting neighbouring Borehamwood company J.A. Michell Engineering, who made the spacecraft models for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). When shortly after Transcriptors moved to Ireland, J.A. Michell Engineering continued the production of the Hydraulic Reference turntable, as well as other new models. In 2005 Michell Engineering launched the limited-edition ‘Odyssey’ turntable.

Terry Southern recommended the novel to Stanley Kubrick when they were working on the screenplay to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Stanley Kubrick said in an interview that he considered the Prison Chaplain (Godfrey Quigley) to be the most sympathetic and morally admirable character in the film.

In the music shop scene there is a list of Top Ten music bands up on the wall. One of the bands listed is Heaven 17, which one of the girls mentions to Alex. This name was used by a real band in the 1980s.

After Malcolm McDowell’s cornea was scratched during the filming of the Ludovico treatment scene, he insisted to Stanley Kubrick that the extreme closeup of his eye in lid-locks be postponed until the last day of production.

Fashion designer and publisher of fetish magazine AtomAge John Sutcliffe, with artist Allen Jones, designed some explicit waitresses’ uniforms for the film which were ultimately unused. The sexualised Korova Milkbar sculptures were inspired – but not created – by Jones, who had been asked by Stanley Kubrick to contribute to the film. Jones refused as there would only be a credit, not a fee, for this work.

It is said that Stanley Kubrick made this movie because of the failure of Waterloo (1970). After he completed 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), he had planned to film a movie about Napoléon Bonaparte’s life. After many years of research, he sent location scouts to various Eastern European locations, and even had an agreement with the Yugoslav army to supply troops for the vast battle scenes. However, after "Waterloo" tanked, Kubrick’s financial backers pulled out. He thus decided to adapt the American version of "Clockwork", which had been given to him by Terry Southern (co-writer of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)).

The title was translated into Serbo-Croatian as "The Orange From Hell" ("Paklena Naranca" – Croatian, "Paklena Pomorandza" – Serbian). This comes from the term for clockwork bombs – "Paklena Masina" – "Machine from hell." The Italian title was Arancia Meccanica, and the French title was Une orange mecanique. Anthony Burgess felt that these translations were misleading as they suggested a hand grenade, whereas his title meant a natural creature transformed into a machine.

Stanley Kubrick asked Pink Floyd if he could use their "Atom Heart Mother Suite" in the soundtrack. However, because Kubrick wanted unlimited license to determine what portions or edits of the song he used, the band turned him down. When Alex is in the record store, we can see the soundtrack of Kubrick’s own movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on a lower shelf with "Atom Heart Mother" above it (look for the cow in the field). Other records visible in the shop are Tim Buckley’s "Lorca" (1970), on the Island shelf when Alex enters the shop. "Atom Heart Mother" is visible on this shelf as well as behind the counter. Also on this shelf is Rare Bird’s "As Your Mind Flies By." Two records to the left of the "2001" in front of the counter is Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s "Deja Vu" (1970). To the right of "2001" is "The Transfiguration Of Blind Joe Death" by John Fahey. Between The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Atom Heart Mother" on the wall behind the counter is Neil Young’s "After The Goldrush" (1970). The first Chicago album "The Chicago Transit Authority" (1969) can also be seen. The blonde girl with the lollipop can be seen looking at a Mungo Jerry album, "In the Summertime" (1970).

Billy Russell was cast as the Librarian (Crystallography expert), but became ill in January 1971 during production. He died in December of the same year. This character was removed from the film, with some of his lines transferred to the Tramp (Paul Farrell).

Wendy Carlos’s (born Walter) synthesized score features the first ever use of a vocoder. The two pieces featuring Carlos’s custom-built vocoder, "Timesteps" (an original composition, heard during the Ludovico sequence) and Beethoven’s "Ode To Joy" from his Ninth Symphony (heard in the record shop) were recorded long before the film was made. The vocoder, according to Carlos, was a development from an earlier, unsuccessful voice synthesis method she’d used on her 1969 album "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer", and she’d implored synthesizer inventor Robert Moog to come up with something better using standard Moog Synthesizer modules. "Timesteps" and Beethoven’s Ninth were recorded as test/demonstrations of the new device, and she brought them to "A Clockwork Orange" when Kubrick hired her to score the film.

Most of the early scenes were filmed on the then under construction Thamesmead New Town project in South East London, Stage One. The flat used in the scene was the show home for the first block completed. Viewers will notice the area around the lake and beyond was under construction at the time and had two more years of building ahead. The scenes on Stage One are still present.

The tape that Alex removes from his stereo in order to play Ludwig van Beethoven bears the name of fictitious artist Goggly Gogol, mentioned later by one of the girls in the music store.

The book’s writer, Anthony Burgess, lived for a time in Malaysia during WWII. After returning to London his wife was assaulted by four American GIs during the blackout, inspiring this story. Burgess claimed that "clockwork orange" was a Cockney phrase, but most philologists agree that he made it up. The Malay word for man is "orang," as in "orangutan" (man of the jungle), and a clockwork orang would be a clockwork man. However, a UK slang expression for a gambling device is a "clockwork fruit" or "fruit machine," due to the depictions on its dials. The anthropomorphic look of a "fruit machine" (thus, its name "one-armed bandit" in the USA for its roughly man-sized shape and "arm" giving it a humanoid appearance) may well have given rise to the term "clockwork orange" in Burgess’ fertile mind as Alex, through conditioning, is turned into a robotic clockwork man, which a fruit machine resembles. Gambling also is a game of chance, and Alex literally is gambling with his soul. Dr. Brodsky tells Alex to take his chance and be free in a fortnight, as long as a vacation in Blackpool, the most popular slot machine resort in Britain.

Malcolm McDowell based aspects of his performance as Alex on the mannerisms and vocal tics of the British comedian Eric Morecambe, particularly during the dinner scene with Patrick Magee and David Prowse.

The first film to use Dolby noise reduction in the mixing of the soundtrack.

In the music shop scene where Alex asks the shopkeeper about an order he’d placed, there is a record cover clearly visible at the front that says 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Stanley Kubrick’s previous film.

Stanley Kubrick was afraid theatre owners would edit the movie. So every week, the reels would be exchanged for a clean, inspected copy.

The large yellow book in the tray on the prison governor’s desk is actually a "Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack."

A year after the film’s release, composer Walter Carlos became Wendy Carlos via a sex-change operation.

First cinema film of Pat Roach, in the non-speaking role of Korova Milkbar bouncer.

The film prominently features a sculpture by Dutch artist Herman Makkink (the phallic-shaped "Rocking Machine") and nine paintings and a sculpture (called "Christ Unlimited") by his brother Cornelis Makkink, all of which had been featured in Tinto Brass’ film Dropout (1970) a year before.

The song "I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper" by Erika Eigen is heard playing on the radio when Alex returns home after being released. However, the second verse is not the same as that on the soundtrack album.

Both Stanley Kubrick and Malcolm McDowell regretted making this film. Kubrick found out that this film was causing gangs to form in the UK and the US, and even tried to stop the film’s distribution. This caused confusion, because he use to defend the original cut of the film being played in theaters. McDowell saw the film and was so disgusted by the character he created, he swore to never do anything like his character in this film again.

In the book, the girl whom Billy Boy’s gang is raping, as well as Marty and Sonietta (the girls Alex picks up) are described as being approximately 10 years old, and Alex rapes the two girls while they are drunk and drugged. Stanley Kubrick explained that in addition to ruling the scenes too distasteful to film, using adult actors to play the "teenage" gang members would have made Alex seem like a pedophile (rather than also being underage himself).

Despite the controversy, and the unsettling content, this film is on the America’s Film Institution’s list of the 100 greatest movies of all time.

This film is rated #1 in Watch Mojo’s Top 10: Most controversial movies

At the beginning of the rape scene (at around 10 mins), Mrs. Alexander is seated in the infamous Retreat Pod by Roger Dean, best known for his designs for the covers of Yes albums.

Author Anthony Burgess originally wrote the book with only 176 pages. The publisher, William Heinemann told Anthony that 172 pages was too short to make it into a novel. So, Anthony wrote another chapter at the end of the book that’s 24 pages longer. Stanley did not put in the last 24 pages at the end of the movie out of respect.

Anthony Burgess has expressed sorrow and bemusement at A Clockwork Orange being his most famous book. This is because he wanted the book to do well due to its own merit as opposed to the film.

Malcolm McDowell claimed that for the scene in which Mr. Deltoid spits on Alex, Aubrey Morris eventually protested having to repeat the action of spitting in McDowell’s face over many takes (as usual for Stanley Kubrick’s direction). At that point Steven Berkoff, who was present in the scene, cheerfully volunteered to do the spitting, and it is his take that was used in the film.

Alex’s prison number is 655321 (Six, double five, three, two, one), truncated from the book’s 6655321. The combination to Alex’s bedroom door is 17-34-89. When the Dim and Georgie as police are dragging Alex between them, their numbers are 665 and 667, implying that Alex is 666.

The book never tells us Alex’s last name. He nicknames himself Alexander the Large while raping the music-loving girls. Malcolm McDowell ad libbed the name "DeLarge," a pun on "the Large," in "Scene 15," registry into prison, which is original to Stanley Kubrick and not in the novel. A continuity error occurs when a caption in "Scene 31," hospital, perhaps filmed earlier, gives Alex’s last name as Burgess after Anthony Burgess. His full name is given as Alex Burgess in a number of the newspaper articles seen after his (coerced) suicide attempt.

In adapting the Anthony Burgess, book, minor incidents and characters were omitted or conflated. Some of their dialogue was reassigned to other characters, including a nameless court official’s line "I hope to God it’ll torture you to madness," reassigned to PR Deltoid. Characters not in the film include a librarian harmed by Alex who gets revenge 2 years later, prison friends (including a kindly abortionist who helps fellow prisoners injured in brawls) and prison enemies (including a man who dies of a heart attack after Alex strikes him in self-defense). A more drastic change is a scene of Alex drugging and raping two 10-year-old girls from the record shop, filmed as a consensual encounter with girls his own age. The film omits the 21st chapter of the book, which wasn’t in the US edition. In this, Alex (no longer ‘cured’) has recruited a new gang and continues his mayhem. Later, he runs into Pete, who now has a job and a family. Alex, having grown older and bored with mayhem, chooses to follow suit. He decides it is more challenging and pleasurable to build and create rather than destroy, and that he would like to build a future for himself. Stanley Kubrick only discovered this additional chapter when the screenplay was "virtually finished," and never gave any serious consideration to using it, as he felt it was inconsistent with the style and tone of the rest of the novel. It is often erroneously reported that he was unaware of the final chapter during the making of the film.

In the novel: It was not a hobo who Alex and his droogies beat up, it is a librarian. The revenge sequence for both the hobo and librarian is very similar.

Miss Weathers the cat woman was weak and helpless in the novel. She was made strong and proud in the film so she could hold her own against Alex’ attack, therefore the audience won’t lose all sympathy for him when he kills her. Miss Weathers uses a bust of Ludwig van Beethoven, Alex’s favorite composer, as a weapon against him, but he soon gets the upper hand and clobbers her. To spare us the violence of her demise, Kubrick cuts to a montage of paintings hanging in the same room.

The ending between the film and novel are Vastly different. The theme in the film is dark and evil as Alex goes back to his old ultra violent ways. As in the novel, the movie ending is indeed in it, but it is not the last chapter. The ending leave off Alex genuinely not wanting to be a menace to society and get a wife and live like a good civilian.

Many phallic references: snake crawling between the legs of the woman in the poster, the popsicles held by the girls in the record store, the tip of Alex’s walking stick, the object used by Alex to kill the woman.

When Alex returns home from prison one of the smaller headlines in the newspaper his father is reading says: "Marty Feldman’s Wife Banned."

In the novel, Georgie and Dim don’t beat Alex as police men; the beating is carried out by Dim along with Billy Boy, their former rival gang leader.

The Life of Paper: Dragon construction

Image by Joseph Wu Origami
I’m currently working on a play called The Life of Paper. It’s about the history of origami, and will open on May 23, 2008, at the Roundhouse Theatre in Vancouver. More information can be found at The Life of Paper website.

Set assistant Naoko Shimada helps to provide scale for the dragon.

dragon boat festival

Image by *highlimitzz
now i am carrying 2 cameras! 5D was inside my bag and Mark III was hanging on my neck! did not bring my tripod! i’d be crippled! i need an assistant to carry these cameras for me! LOL!