One of the key movies of the 1970s, when exciting, groundbreaking, personal films were still being made in Hollywood, Milos Forman's "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" emphasized the humanistic story at the heart of Ken Kesey's more hallucinogenic novel. Jack Nicholson was born to play the part of Randle Patrick McMurphy, the rebellious inmate of a psychiatric hospital who fights back against the authorities' cold attitudes of institutional superiority, as personified by Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). It's the classic antiestablishment tale of one man asserting his individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist system--and it works on every level. Forman populates his film with memorably eccentric faces, and gets such freshly detailed and spontaneous work from his ensemble that the picture sometimes feels like a documentary. Unlike a lot of films pitched at the "youth culture" of the 1970s, "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" really hasn't dated a bit, because the qualities of human nature that Forman captures--playfulness, courage, inspiration, pride, stubbornness--are universal and timeless. The film swept the Academy Awards for 1976, winning in all the major categories (picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay) for the first time since Frank Capra's "It Happened One Night" in 1931.
Jack Nicholson | Randle Patrick McMurphy |
Louise Fletcher | Nurse Mildred Ratched |
William Redfield | Harding |
Will Sampson | Chief Bromden |
Danny DeVito | Martini |
Michael Berryman | Ellis (tall bald patient) |
Christopher Lloyd | Taber |
Peter Brocco | Col. Matterson |
Bill Butler | Cinematographer |
Dean R. Brooks | Dr. John Spivey |
William A. Fraker | Cinematographer |
Alonzo Brown | Miller |
Haskell Wexler | Cinematographer |
Scatman Crothers | Orderly Turkle |
Mwako Cumbuka | Attendant Warren |
William Duell | Jim Sefelt |
Josip Elic | Bancini |
Lan Fendors | Nurse Itsu |
Nathan George | Attendant Washington |
Ken Kenny | Beans Garfield |
Sydney Lassick | Charley Cheswick |
Brad Dourif | Billy Bibbit |
Vincent Schiavelli | Fredrickson |
Mimi Sarkisian | Nurse Pilbow |
Mews Small | Candy |
Louisa Moritz | Rose |
Dwight Marfield | Ellsworth |
Ted Markland | Hap Arlich |
Philip Roth | Woolsey (as Phil Roth) |
Delos V. Smith Jr. | Scanlon |
Tin Welch | Ruckley |
Mel Lambert | Harbor Master |
Kay Lee | Night Supervisor |
Jack Nitzsche | Composer |
Paul Sylbert | Production Designer |
Edwin O'Donovan | Art Director |