Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! Today is dedicated to the classic, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest! This was a wonderful film filled with laughs, shocks, and lots of tragedy. So, don’t try lifting the water fountain, don’t split your cigarette’s in half, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Many of the extras in the film were genuine mental patients.
• Will Sampson (Chief) was a Park Ranger who worked in Oregon near where the film was shot. He was approached for the part because he was the only Native American the casting department could find who accurately matched the character’s incredible height.

• Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched) intentionally found ways to make her character both human and unsympathetic. To her, Nurse Ratched actually did care about her patients, and she truly felt that she was doing what was best for them, but she was mainly misguided and drunk on her own power.
• Instead of accepting a salary for being in the film, Jack Nicholson (McMurphy) opted for a percentage of the profits, which paid very well after the film grossed over $120 million.

• During filming, one of the crew members running cables accidentally left a window on the second story open and one of the actual mental patients climbed through the bars and fell to the ground, injuring himself.
• Sometimes, the film’s director, Milos Forman would roll the cameras when the cast members didn’t know it. He did it because he wanted to capture more real moments between them.

• One patient who was hired had a stutter all his life. He was so inspired by his responsibilities while working, that his stutter ended up permanently resolved.
• Louise Fletcher didn’t like that she had to remain so cold-hearted while the other cast members got to goof around and have fun on set. She was so upset, that when production was almost over, she removed her dress and stood only in her underwear to show the other cast members that she wasn’t really a cold-hearted monster.

• Dean R. Brooks (Dr. Spivey) was a psychiatrist and director of the state hospital where the film was made. He was the one who diagnosed William Redfield (Harding) with leukemia. Redfield died of leukemia just 18 months after appearing in this film.
• While filming the fishing scene, Jack Nicholson was the only cast member who didn’t get seasick. To their misery, the whole scene took a week to shoot. To this day, Danny DeVito (Martini) gets queasy just thinking about it.

• Louise Fletcher was so disturbed by her own performance that she couldn’t watch the film for years.
• Many of the cast members stayed in character even when the cameras weren’t rolling. When Jack Nicholson first arrived on set, he was disturbed by how realistic the rest of the cast was. At one point, he ran outside and asked, “do they ever break character?”

• Louise Fletcher auditioned repeatedly over the course of six months. Milos Forman told her each time that she just wasn’t approaching the part correctly, but he kept calling her back. She ended up getting signed just a week before filming began.
• In the script, McMurphy leaps on a guard and kisses him when he first arrives at the hospital. The guard’s reaction wasn’t strong enough for Milos Forman, so he told Jack Nicholson to jump on the other guard instead. He got just the right reaction from the second guard who didn’t know Nicholson was going to do that. In some versions of the film, you can see him even punching Nicholson.

• Kirk Douglas owned the rights to the story and planned on starring in the film himself. However, by the time the film was finally being made, Douglas was deemed too old for the role.
• The final scene was shot in one take, and the party scene took 4 nights to film.

• Sydney Lassick (Cheswick) got so into his role, that he even had the producers concerned.
• The whole film was shot in sequence, except for the fishing scene which was filmed last.

• In order to film at the hospital, production had to pay $250 a day.
• In a deleted scene, it was confirmed that Ellis (Michael Berryman) had a lobotomy and that’s why he was withdrawn throughout the film.

• While watching the final scene between McMurphy and Chief, Sydney Lassick became so overwhelmed that he had an emotional outburst and he had to be temporarily removed from the set.
• Milos Forman intentionally wanted a star in the lead role surrounded by a cast of unknown actors. He felt that this made it more likely that they’d adopt him as their leader.

• Mel Lambert (Harbor Master) was actually a car salesman who lived in the area where the film was being shot. He was the one who suggested Will Sampson for the role of Chief.
• Louise Fletcher confirmed that Nurse Ratched’s 1940s hairstyle symbolized how uptight she was. It was also intentionally made to resemble Devil horns to show how wicked she was.

• One of the reasons Sydney Lassick got the part of Cheswick was that he wore a rope as a belt at his audition.
• Danny DeVito was the first person to be cast in the film.

• Jack Nicholson improvised the Native American war dance. Nothing like that was in the script.
• For the scene where McMurphy tried to lift the water fountain, Jack Nicholson genuinely tried to lift it, and he had scrapes on his arms from the attempt.

• Louise Fletcher was originally supposed to be in the film Nashville while Lily Tomlin was going to be Nurse Ratched. They ended up switching the roles of course.
• Milos Forman cast most of the actors by putting them in group therapy auditions.

• Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher witnessed an actual electroconvulsive therapy session being performed on a patient.
• In the novel, Nurse Ratched’s first name is never revealed. She was given the name Mildred in this film. Louise Fletcher was the one who picked the name.

• Jack Nicholson first arrived on set with a large bushy beard because he believed his character needed it.
• Milos Forman had his heart set on Burt Reynolds playing McMurphy, and Reynolds even expressed interest in starring in the film. The studio, however, wanted a more critically acclaimed actor and they chose Jack Nicholson. Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, and Steve McQueen were also considered for the part.

• According to one of the film’s producers, Michael Douglas, everyone was looking forward to the party scene. It’d been a tough, long picture and they really needed a break.
• Milos Forman lived at the Oregon State Hospital for four weeks before shooting began there. He spent most of the time just observing.

• Shelley Duvall was considered for the role of Candy before it went to Mews Small.
• Jack Nicholson improvised the scene where McMurphy climbed onto Bancini’s (Josip Elic) shoulders. He told Elic, “If I fall, I close this picture down for a week.” Elic replied, “If I fall, I close this picture down for two weeks.”

• Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Colleen Dewhurst, Jane Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Angela Lansbury, Jeanne Moreau, Shirley MacLaine, and Geraldine Page were all offered the role of Nurse Ratched.
• James Caan was offered the role of McMurphy but he turned it down. He later stated, “I thought, because I’m a genius, it wasn’t visual enough. It’s not a movie. Who wants to look at four institution walls?” He stated his regret, saying, “Milos Forman made it great. Jack was great in it. I made a flat-out, f***ing mistake.”

• Robert Forster was considered for the role of Martini.
• Bud Cort was considered for the part of Billy Bibbit before it went to Brad Dourif.

• Milos Forman initially didn’t want to include the fishing scene in the film. He thought it would be more effective if the whole film took place inside the hospital so Chief’s escape in the end would be more impactful and dramatic.
• 20th Century Fox was interested in distributing the film. They wanted to finance the entire production on the condition that the ending was rewritten to where McMurphy lives. One of the producers, Saul Zaentz opted to take the film to another studio instead.

• In the novel, Cheswick drowns in the swimming pool and dies.
• Anjelica Huston was Jack Nicholson’s girlfriend at the time, and she makes an appearance in the fishing scene when the boat was returning to the pier.