DVD Reviews

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Blu-ray Review

By Jeff Swindoll Sep 14, 2010, 15:53 GMT

A nice rest in a state mental hospital beats a stretch in the pen, right? Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a free-spirited con with lightning in his veins and glib on his tongue, fakes insanity and moves in with what he calls the "nuts." Immediately, his contagious sense of disorder runs up against numbing routine. No way should guys pickled on sedatives shuffle around in bathrobes when the World Series ...more

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a powerful novel that in turn was made into a powerful film.  It would be the first film since It Happened One Night (1934) to win all five of the major Oscars - a feat that would not be repeated until Silence of the Lambs (1991). 

It may seem like WB is going for a cash grab re-releasing Cuckoo in a new edition, but they actually included items you’ll want to upgrade for.

Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) thinks he’s pulled a fast one on the system.  He was going to be incarcerated on a prison farm, but he tricked them into transferring him to a mental institution for evaluation.  So instead of doing hard labor he’s going to rest and relax. 

So he’s in high spirits when entering the institution and meets the functional patients, the nervous Billy (Brad Dourif), the childlike Martini (Danny Devito), meek Charlie (Sydney Lassick), simmering Max (Christopher Lloyd), high-strung Harding (William Redfield), and the massive, mute, Indian “Chief” (Will Sampson). 

McMurphy wastes no time in inserting himself into the system and jockeying for control.  That control is currently held by the malevolent Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) who doesn’t take kindly to McMurphy’s intrusion.  McMurphy is horrified to learn that, of the functional patients, that he, Chief and Taber are the ones whose freedom relies on the word of Nurse Ratched. 

The rest are voluntarily committed and can leave whenever they please.  So McMurphy hatches a plot to break out of the hospital.  McMurphy’s outbursts and threats to her authority has Nurse Ratched coiling like a serpent and awaiting the right moment to strike and bring down her wrath on him.  

Author Ken Kesey earned some extra money by offering himself as a patient to test experimental drugs.  When he was done being a guinea pig, he eventually found himself employed in the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital.  Both experiences would lead to his 1962 novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (typed up on the night shift at Menlo Park when his superiors thought he was typing up his reports not writing a novel).   

The novel was adapted as a play in 1963 and Kirk Douglas would star in a 1964 Broadway version of the play.  Douglas saw the potential for the book to be adapted for the screen so he bought the rights.  He tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get the movie made.  The rights were to expire in a year’s time so he gave them to son Michael Douglas to attempt. 

The younger Douglas approached Saul Zaentz and the rest is screen history since they made the film in 1975 starring Jack Nicholson.  The film would go on to make even more history winning the “big five” Academy Awards – best picture, best actor (Nicholson), best director (Milos Forman, who Kirk also had contact with but customs screwed it up), best actress (Fletcher, a chilling performance), and adapted screenplay (Laurence Hauben and Bo Goldman). 

It was further nominated for four more that it didn’t win.  The film would certainly make Nicholson’s McMurphy into an anti-authoritarian figure.  For all of Kirk’s bad luck, once the film got made it was a charmed project.  It has been on Blu-ray before in a digibook release, but this new anniversary edition adds some really cool items and a few odd ones.  

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Next is presented in a wonderful 1080p high definition transfer (1.85:1).  It’s very film-like, but it does have a sterility that feels like a hospital setting. 

That previous Blu-ray had the following: commentary by director Milos Forman and producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz (also from the laserdisc), eight deleted scenes (13 minutes), and the theatrical trailer (2 minutes).  Both the deleted scenes and trailer are in standard definition.  That original Pioneer Special Edition laserdisc featured a making of called Completely Cuckoo. 

For whatever reason, the DVD edition and other Blu-ray edition edited it down.  This new anniversary edition presents it at the original 87 minutes and is in standard definition.  It’s a wonderful documentary and it’s great to have it whole again. 

New to the set (and the only thing in high definition) is the new 31 minute “Asylum: An Empty Next” that discusses how our current society deals with mental illness, including newly minted interviews with Michael Douglas and the 94 year-old Dean Brooks who ran the Oregon State Hospital where the movie was shot and who appears in the film as the director of the hospital. 

It’s all housed in an oversized box that also contains poster reproductions, a patient file with glossy photos of Nicholson, etc., a 52 page hardback book (my Pioneer laserdisc is housed in a coffee-table book that this smaller one partially replicates), and a set of playing cards that has the cast on it (sadly, the porno deck that McMurphy has in the film is not replicated, that would’ve fit more in with the film but I’m sure WB got cold feet).  

Some folks were grousing when it was announced this set was coming thinking that it would just be a redo of the previous Blu-ray.  However, Warner has provided a quality product (though a commemorative card set in a movie about mental illness seems odd) that only adds to the film. 

It’s excellent that the documentary is once again at its full length; add to it that it’s a fascinating documentary.  The film is a classic and highly regarded so purchase without qualms… just get Nurse Ratched’s permission unless you want to get on her bad side.  

Visit the DVD database for more information. The film is also available for the FIRST TIME for Download on iTunes with EXTRAS including all-new interviews with Michael Douglas and Deleted Scenes (starring Jack Nicholson). You can download it at http://bit.ly/WBDD_Cuckoo.