Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



A Clockwork Orange (1971)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
Screenshots

A Clockwork Orange (1971, UK)

In Stanley Kubrick's futuristic film adapted from Anthony Burgess' novel:

  • the opening close-up of slyly grinning hoodlum Alex (Malcolm McDowell) with one eye decorated with a false eyelash staring directly at the camera, followed by the pull-back view of him lounging with his 'droogie' friends in a milk bar with white furniture of nude women - accompanied by the voice-over beginning with: "There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs..."
  • the delinquent gang's stylized "ultra-violence" rampages including the fight scene in an old theatre with a rival gang of five, led by Billyboy (Richard Connaught), while they were in the midst of raping a buxom victim or 'devotchka' (Shirley Jaffe) on an empty opera house stage, all synchronized with music from Rossini's The Thieving Magpie
  • the scene at novelist Mr. Alexander's (Patrick Magee) futuristic home when the droogs wore masks and delivered brutal kicks to the old man's body during the rape of his wife - rhythmically punctuated with the lyrics of Singin' In The Rain (1952)
Singin' in the Rain: Rape
  • the persistent use of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Alex's ecstasy: "Oh bliss, bliss and heaven..."
  • the sped-up, slapstick orgy scene accompanied by the William Tell Overture in Alex's bedroom with two teenage girls that he had just met at a record store
  • the scene of Alex's brutalization of the 'Catlady' (Miriam Karlin) with an enormous penis sculpture/weapon
  • Alex's "aversion therapy" brainwashing against sex and violence with his eyes painfully held open
Testing of Aversion Therapy Against Sex and Violence
  • the scene with an almost-nude woman to demonstrate the effectiveness of his behavioral modification
  • the use of unique doublespeak slang-dialogue throughout
  • Alex's final closeup and line: "I was cured all right" accompanied by his fantasy of frolicking in slow-motion on piles of white snow while making love to (or raping?) a nude woman (Katya Wyeth), while two rows of Victorian Londoners sedately applauded
  • Gene Kelly's original rendition of Singin' in the Rain heard during the end credits

Alex

Korova Milk Bar

Opera House Stage Assault

Sped-Up Orgy

Penis-Sculpture Assault of Cat-Lady

"I was cured all right"

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