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Alarming high-end clothing inspired by ‘A Clockwork Orange’


A coat with an image of Malcom McDowell as Alex DeLarge in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (a bargain at $1,380).
 
Recently we shared with you the wildly overpriced, hideous Captain Beefheart designer silk shirt that nobody asked for. Now, direct from the “nobody asked for this shit” department comes a line of high-priced coats containing disturbing visuals from Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange.

Because nothing says high fashion like a giant tormented image of Alex DeLarge (played by Malcolm McDowell) with his eyes being held open by sharp metal clamps on a coat, here’s a little background. In the scene, DeLarge is going through the horrific, but fictional Ludovico’s Technique, a kind of aversion therapy during which he was forced to watch extremely graphic Nazi imagery. But wait! It gets worse. Kubrick was well known for getting his actors to push themselves to the point of no return. For instance, actress Shelly Duvall shared in an interview in 1980 with Roger Ebert that her character in The Shining, Wendy Torrance, “cried twelve hours a day, all day long,” concluding she spent thirteen months on location essentially in tears. And that’s just one account of Duvall’s difficult experience with Stanley Kubrick. Getting back to the image on the jacket above, the shocking scene was shot in ten excruciating minutes during which McDowell’s corneas were repeatedly scratched. McDowell broke it down in an interview in 2014 like this:

“I didn’t feel at the time, my eyes were anesthetized. In the car going home, I don’t know if you’ve ever scratched your corneas, but you don’t want to do it. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced pain like that before. It was horrible. Like being cut with razor blades.”


Before I go any further, I should say the coat in question is 100% polyester, and it’s the least expensive of the four coats being sold by Moscow-based conceptual clothier (?) SVMOSCOW. If tortured Alex DeLarge isn’t your bag, SVMOSCOW also has a coat featuring an aggressive-looking DeLarge in his Droogs getup, including his massive white codpiece. But honestly, aside from the price tag aligning with a specific demographic, I’m pretty sure if I spotted someone sporting one, they would likely know fuck nor all about what it was based on. To be fair, lots of heavy metal fans can’t name more than one song by the band whose t-shirt they are currently wearing. So the next time you see someone wearing an Iron Maiden shirt, ask them to name their favorite Maiden jam. If they tell you it’s “Run to the Hills,” its a lie. Of course, if these spendy duds are your thing, you can break payments into monthly installments that look like a car payment. See the rest of the worst of the collection below.
 

A variant of the jacket at the top of the post which retails for $2,775.
 

A long coat featuring McDowell as Alex in his Droogs gear, $1,955.
 

Another long coat with an image of Alex DeLarge, $2,135.
 

The official NSFW trailer for ‘A Clockwork Orange.’

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Marquee Buffoon: Japanese fashion line features iconic images of Tom Verlaine and Television
‘Funeral Parade of Roses’: Edgy 1969 Japanese drama that inspired Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’
Bad motherf*ckers: Action figures from ‘Pulp Fiction,’ ‘The Shining,’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and more
Oliver Reed as a prototype Alex from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ in ‘These are the Damned’
Behind-the-scenes of ‘A Clockwork Orange’: Stanley Kubrick and his Droogie buddies

Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.28.2019
08:51 am
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Stanley Kubrick auction includes a rare cut of ‘The Shining’ & other covetable Kubrick collectibles
03.22.2018
08:41 am
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A military-style jacket worn by Stanley Kubrick on the set of ‘Full Metal Jacket’ up for auction
 
An upcoming auction run by Italian house Aste Bolaffi will be offering up an extensive collection of cinematic artifacts which have been held privately by Stanley Kubrick’s long-time assistant, Emilio D’Alessandro. D’Alessandro spent nearly three decades working for Kubrick as his chauffeur, estate manager and all around man Friday. Once a talented race car driver, D’Alessandro met Kubrick in 1971 and would bond with the director over their mutual love of Mercedes automobiles. In fact, D’Alessandro was the only member of Kubrick’s inner circle who was allowed to drive his prized Unimog—an all-wheel-drive Mercedes truck which Kubrick procured from a farmer while he was filming Barry Lyndon.

Among the treasures saved by D’Alessandro are items related to Kubrick’s many films including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, and of course The Shining. This brings me to what is perhaps the most compelling piece of Kubrick’s film history included in the auction—a longer cut of the film featuring additional scenes with Shelly Duvall and Danny Lloyd. If you’re up on your Kubrick trivia, you can understand the importance of this cut of the film as Kubrick was well-known for destroying things he didn’t want to be reused in the future—such as any footage from The Shining that was hanging around once filming wrapped. Kubrick also had props and sets used for 2001 destroyed to prevent them from being recycled for use in another film. Another cool piece D’Alessandro held on to was one of the burgundy corduroy jackets worn by Jack Nicholson in The Shining. According to folklore, Nicholson was adamant that his character Jack Torrance wear the jacket in the film and requested Oscar-winning costume designer and Kubrick collaborator Milena Canonero create a few for him. The starting price for the jacket is a cool $10K while bidding for the long cut of the film starts at a mere three-thousand bucks.

I’ve posted some of the cooler items up for grabs at the Aste Bolaffi auction (which starts on March 27th) that would instantly elevate any movie memorabilia collection to a much higher level, below.
 

A reel from the long cut of ‘The Shining.’
 

A pair of ink stamps used by the production management of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and a film container.
 

A vinyl LP of the film soundtrack.
 

Rugs owned by D’Alessandro that were used in the Colorado Lounge in ‘The Shining.’
 
Much more after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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03.22.2018
08:41 am
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Laser-cut jewelry based on ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ Siouxsie Sioux’s ‘eyes’ & other pop culture icons
06.19.2017
09:36 am
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A laser-cut image of actor Malcolm McDowell from ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ A triangular cameo and necklace by Fable & Fury.
 
Based in Seattle, Fable & Fury’s often gonzo wearable offerings run the gamut from necklaces with cameos of David Lynch and Vampirella to devilishly stylish takes on famous verbiage from Stanley Kubrick’s violent mindfuck, A Clockwork Orange. One such homage—derived from Anthony Burgess’ 1971 novel on which the film was based—includes the word “Devotchka” attached to a chain. The word, which means “young woman” is a part of the colorful fictional slang “Nadsat” created by Burgess himself which Kubrick incorporated into the film. Another great homage to the film by Fable & Fury designer Jennifer is her grim nod to “Alex DeLarge” (memorably played by actor Malcolm McDowell) and his prison number “655321” done in gleaming stainless steel. Nice.

Fable & Fury has been cranking out their bad-ass statement pieces for almost a decade and many of Jennifer’s pieces sell out quickly. The vast majority of the necklaces I’ve posted below run from $21 bucks to $32 or so depending on the style and material, and most are currently in stock at Fable & Fury’s online store.
 

 

 

Another clever reference to ‘A Clockwork Orange.’
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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06.19.2017
09:36 am
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Stunning airbrushed images & other lurid artwork created for ‘A Clockwork Orange’
04.27.2017
01:02 pm
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An airbrushed painting created by illustrator Philip Castle for ‘A Clockwork Orange.’
 
Illustrator and artist Philip Castle’s catalog is impressive, but of particular interest are three rather remarkable contributions. His artwork from both A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket as well as the sad, singular teardrop-like image dripping from David Bowie’s clavicle on the cover of 1973’s Aladdin Sane are all collectively indelible. If the accomplished Brit had done nothing else beyond this fantastic trifecta of artistic expression he would still be as praiseworthy today. (He’s also done the posters for Paul McCartney’s “Wings Over the Word” tour, Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks and the cover of Pulp’s His ‘N’Hers album.)

That said, I must admit that I had never seen most of Castle’s airbrushed pieces for A Clockwork Orange until just recently, and there’s something to be said for the way Castle uses his airbrushing technique to make images from the film appear even more sordid than when they are onscreen. The story of how Kubrick and Castle got together is slightly surreal when you consider the odds of how it occurred: soon after graduating from art school, Castle sent in an ad to a newspaper soliciting his availability as an illustrator. Kubrick’s publicist responded to the ad and requested that the young artist pay a visit to the great director at his home outside of London in order to discuss engaging his services for A Clockwork Orange. Castle would get the honor of designing the original poster created for the film featuring the unforgettably sinister image of actor Malcolm McDowell as the diabolical “Alex DeLarge” reaching out to slit your throat with his mouth poised in a predatory grin.

Flash-forward more than 45-years later and the spectacularly violent, controversial film has lost none of its skin-crawling appeal. However, back when it hit the big screen for the first time it was demonized in the UK after a few violent crimes were committed allegedly in the spirit of events depicted in the film. Kubrick passionately defended Clockwork but eventually pulled the trigger himself and removed it from distribution in Britain which would stay in place until Kubrick passed away in 1999.

Here’s more from the master filmmaker with his spot-on thoughts on the age-old relationship between violence and art:

“There has always been violence in art. There is violence in the Bible, violence in Homer, violence in Shakespeare, and many psychiatrists believe that it serves as a catharsis rather than a model. I think the question of whether there has been an increase in screen violence and, if so, what effect this has had, is to a very great extent a media-defined issue. I know there are well-intentioned people who sincerely believe that films and TV contribute to violence, but almost all of the official studies of this question have concluded that there is no evidence to support this view. At the same time, I think the media tend to exploit the issue because it allows them to display and discuss the so-called harmful things from a lofty position of moral superiority. But the people who commit violent crime are not ordinary people who are transformed into vicious thugs by the wrong diet of films or TV. Rather, it is a fact that violent crime is invariably committed by people with a long record of anti-social behaviour, or by the unexpected blossoming of a psychopath who is described afterward as having been ‘...such a nice, quiet boy,’ but whose entire life, it is later realized, has been leading him inexorably to the terrible moment, and who would have found the final ostensible reason for his action if not in one thing then in another.”

Naturally, this did not bode well for anyone associated with the film in the UK and there is at least one historical account of an attempted rogue showing of A Clockwork Orange by a group of UK movie-club junkies who were summarily sued for even trying to show the film at their gatherings in the 1990s. Castle would work with Kubrick again for 1987’s Full Metal Jacket and the artist still owns a gift sent to him by Kubrick—the infamous “I AM BECOME DEATH” helmet (worn by actor Adam Baldwin who played “Animal Mother” in FMJ) which Castle conceptualized. I’ve included some of Castle’s early sketches for Clockwork, a variety of airbrush art and a few movie posters that the artist created for the film below. And if you haven’t already guessed, they are all pretty much NSFW.
 

A French movie poster for ‘A Clockwork Orange’ featuring Philip Castle’s artwork.
 

More UK print artwork for ‘A Clockwork Orange’ from Castle.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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04.27.2017
01:02 pm
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‘The Shining,’ A Clockwork Orange,’ ‘Scarface’ & more become Ottoman miniature style works of art


A scene from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ in the style of an “Ottoman miniature” painting by artist Murat Palta.
 
Artist Murat Palta has created a fantastic series of works in which he juxtaposes a famous scene from a well-known film with the style of an “Ottoman miniature” painting. The results may alter a viewer’s perception of said films as Palta’s subjects wear expressionless faces in his paintings—despite (for the most part) being stuck in the midst of all kinds of fictional chaos and mayhem.

Hailing from Turkey, Palta’s first cinematic/Ottoman mashup from 2011 combined characters and scenes from Star Wars and received so much attention that he decided to take on a few other memorable movie scenes. Such as the bloodbath at the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill, Jack Nicholson’s door-smashing mental breakdown in The Shining and a scene from A Clockwork Orange where the Droogs and Alex DeLarge (played by Malcolm McDowell) put the boot in on a homeless man just for, ahem, kicks.

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re going to dig Palta’s paintings as much as I did. You can also view them in more detail over at Palta’s “Classic Movies in Minature Style” page on Behance. That said, some might be considered slightly NSFW.
 

‘Alien.’
 

A closer look at the famous “chestburster” scene in ‘Alien’ from the painting above.
 

‘Scarface.’
 
More minatures after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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04.10.2017
08:46 am
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Real Horrorshow: The short-lived ‘Clockwork Orange’-themed punk band Molodoy


 
I’m pleased to have a reason to call attention to the Sheffield Tape Archive, an absolutely unbeatable resource helping to preserve an essential part of our collective musical heritage. As they describe it, the archive’s purpose is to house “a series of archive recordings from around 1980 onwards: sheffield bands, demos, concerts and rarities.”

One of the more intriguing acts featured in the Sheffield Tape Archive existed only very briefly, never put out an album, and their only live dates were before 1980. They were called Molodoy, and they had a terrific gimmick: The entire band was an extended homage to the joint artistic labors of Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick, the latter of course having most memorably adapted the former’s unsettling bestseller A Clockwork Orange. Not much is known about this band today, but I’m willing to bet that one rejected name for the band was Alex and the Droogs.

The group’s singer, Garry Warburton, unmistakably played the role of Alex, complete with facepaint incorporating the book’s signature gear/eye motif (as you can see above) that also references the extravagant eyelash makeup worn by Malcolm McDowell in the movie.
 

 
The name, Molodoy, comes from the book, which is told in an invention of Burgess’ called “Nadsat,” a type of youth slang that is replete with Russian-derived colloquialisms—the best-known term is “horrorshow,” which is a reformulation of khorosho, the Russian word for “good.” The term molodoy, meaning “young,” pops up early in Burgess’ novel:
 

I nudged him hard, saying: “Come, my gloopy bastard as thou art. Think thou not on them. There’ll be life like down here most likely, with some getting knifed and others doing the knifing. And now, with the nochy still molodoy, let us be on our way, O my brothers.”

 
Molodoy unfortunately didn’t leave much trace behind. I was able to find an account of a Cabaret Voltaire gig at Sheffield’s Limit Club from the summer of 1978 at which Molodoy also played. The writer, whose name I was not able to ascertain, seems to have found them more than a little intimidating:
 

Molodoy follow. This is the band the skinheads have come to see. The singer is dressed in full Clockwork Orange droog uniform: black bowler hat, eye make-up, white shirt and trousers, black boots and braces. Real horrowshow.

“This one’s called ‘Children Of The Third Reich’”.

The lyrics flirt with fascism. The music is taut, dense and sexless. He’s watchable in a detestable kind of way. The skins push each other around, there is argy, but thankfully no bargy. The rest of us look on, mute. We are either young, liberal-minded types who think everyone is entitled to their own point of view, or we are collectively shit scared of getting a 14 eye oxblood Dr. Martens boot to the head. Molodoy continue to thrash and thrum, we the audience opt to keep schtum.

 
To perform in a rock group dressed as a Droog in 70s Britain was to, obviously, assume the mantle not just of “ultra-violence,” but of sexual violence as well. After Fleet Street blamed the film for inspiring a gang rape in which the attackers sang “Singin’ in the Rain” as “Singin’ in the Rape” and A Clockwork Orange was linked to several sensational murders, Kubrick’s film was withdrawn from distribution in 1973 at the director’s request. No wonder the bootboys came out in force for Molodoy.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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03.23.2017
12:27 pm
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Behind-the-scenes photos of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’
02.11.2016
12:55 pm
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“I’m going out with my droogs to the cinny to shove a pooshka into the grahzny bratchny.”

A roundup of some behind-the-scenes photos from the set of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, 1971. Like Cure videos and cute cat memes, there is a seemingly bottomless well of Kubrick memorabilia on the Internet. His films will still be discussed, debated—and still WATCHED—500 years from now.

“Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.”


 

 
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More after the jump…
 

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.11.2016
12:55 pm
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‘A Clockwork Orange’ trading cards
01.06.2016
02:40 pm
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The late, great Blogspot site Bubblegum Fink bit the dust several years ago, but we can ensure that the Fink’s creativity lives on for future generations to appreciate. Last spring I brought you a set of fake trading cards that might possibly have been manufactured in an alternate universe for The Wicker Man. Today we have an similarly impossible set of trading cards for children to enjoy outlining the decidedly adult plot points of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange

The Fink’s comments on this set, in part:

A Clockwork Orange is another set of trading cards, like The Wicker Man, that never could have existed at the time the film was released. But now, I would rush out to buy a box. Wouldn’t you? I’m happy with the card design, but less so with the Clockwork Orange font which I wish had been a little sharper. To do it over again, I’d just get rid of it. Of course, the cards represent a sort of edited-for-television version of the film, and it’s also the shortest set I’ve done at only 33 cards.

My favorite part is the PG, hamfisted, one might even say clueless captions (“Surprise Visit,” “Work of Art,” “Apology”).
 

 

 

 

 

 
Many, many more cards after the jump…...

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.06.2016
02:40 pm
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Bad motherf*ckers: Action figures from ‘Pulp Fiction,’ ‘The Shining,’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and more

Alex Clockwork Orange figure by Rainman
Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange
 
Here’s what I know about sculptor and artist Rainman, the man responsible for the sinister as fuck action-figure of Alex from A Clockwork Orange (pictured above), and many others that are about to blow your mind. Rainman is a rather secretive cat, but according to his his Facebook page he’s based in Korea and currently works for video game giant CAPCOM (the makers of the 1987 video game Street Fighter). He studied animation at Kyungsung University, a private school in Busan, South Korea. Rainman is an accomplished painter and in 2013 he released a 500-page book called Not Afraid, which featured his conceptual artwork. He also likes Dr. Dre.

That’s pretty much all I know about this incredibly talented man.
 
Alex from A Clockwork Orange by Rainman
 
As I often post about unique action figures here on DM, I knew when I found Rainman’s creations I had struck gold. That is because Rainman’s collection includes some of the most bad-ass members of cinematic history. Like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, Alex from A Clockwork Orange (who comes with a glass of milk and other “accessories”), Tyler Durden from Fight Club, Jack Torrance from The Shining and many, many others. In some cases, Rainman will put together what I can only describe as “play sets” for his figures. For example, one collection of figures from The Shining not only included Jack and his trusty, door-busting ax, but also Danny Torrance along with a replica of his little blue bike, the Grady Twins, and a small version of the infamous carpet from the hallways of the Overlook Hotel.

Let’s have at look at Jack and his pals, shall we?
 
Jack Torrance from The Shining figure by Rainman
 
Danny Torrance and his bike figure by Rainman
 
Danny Torrance and the Grady Twins figures by Rainman
 
Danny Torrance (for scale) figure by Rainman
 
While Rainman’s articulated sculptures are breathtakingly life-like, I am equally impressed by the “secret items” that he often includes with his various figures, such as a miniature version of the last book Vincent Vega ever read, Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise (included with his sculpt of John Travolta from Pulp Fiction), Jules’ “Bad Motherfucker” wallet, a teeny-tiny version of the “TIME: Man of the Year” mirror from The Big Lebowski (that comes with his “Dude” figure), and the skanky blue bathrobe that comes along with his “Fighter 1999” figure (aka, Tyler Durden from Fight Club).
 
Miniature sculpt of Modesty Blaise by Rainman
Miniature version of Modesty Blaise
 
More after the jump…
 

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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07.08.2015
02:11 pm
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Real Horrorshow!: Malcolm McDowell and Anthony Burgess discuss Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’

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Ken Russell was among the many directors originally touted to direct A Clockwork Orange before Stanley Kubrick. Russell was considered stylistically sympathetic to bring Anthony Burgess’s source novel to cinematic life—he had documented youth gangs as a photographer in the 1950s and made a series of highly influential drama-documentaries and films that had inspired not only Stanley Kubrick but also Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson and later Derek Jarman. I wonder what Russell’s version of A Clockwork Orange would have been like? Perhaps more flamboyant, more seedy, more of the end-of the-pier, more human than Kubrick’s aesthetically pleasing but cold and sterile vision. And though the great and the good lobbied to have Mick Jagger play Alex, I wonder if Russell would have opted for his favorite actor Oliver Reed? Oh, what japes they’d have had. Instead Kubrick chose Malcolm McDowell because of his unforgettable and iconic performance as Mick Travis in Lindsay Anderson’s If…
 
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Casting at first sight: director Lindsay Anderson was understandably smitten by McDowell’s beauty, talented and attitude when he cast him as Mick Travis in ‘If…’ The performance that led to his role as Alex in Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange.’.
 
McDowell had the blue-eyed, blonde beauty of a fallen angel—he would have been the perfect choice to play Lucifer for Kenneth Anger. McDowell was born in 1943 into a lower middle class family in Leeds, he was never the working class lout as some tabloids like to pretend but a privately educated son to a family who ran a small guest house. He was clever, smart, idealistic, and decided he wanted to be an actor. After school, he found found work as a stage manager on the Isle of Wight before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company. McDowell embraced the cultural rebellion of the 1960s and hated the dominance of the established theatrical institutions, as he once explained to writer Michael Bracewell:

‘The RSC? Horrendous. Middle-class theatre crap…actorly acting with lots of shouting—after [Laurence] Olivier—and soul-searching performances…I mean I saw some great performances—Ian Richardson and Paul Scofield—but it was like being ordered around and told what to do by a bunch of little shitheads. I auditioned for the RSC by reading the Prologue from Henry VIII, for the very good reason that nobody knew it. It begins, “I come no more to make you laugh”, which was ironic, because humour has always been a great mainstay of my arsenal. I mean, A Clockwork Orange was essentially a comic performance. I used to loot my style from Eric Morecambe.’

 
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Eric Morecambe (with umbrella and bowler) and Ernie Wise.
 
Eric Morecambe was the comic half to the much-beloved double-act Morecambe and Wise, who dominated British television screens in the 1960s and 1970s, which brings a different interpretation to his performance as Alex—one that would have been ideal for Ken Russell.

‘I’ve always had to live down A Clockwork Orange wherever I go, because ever since then, with the exception of O, Lucky Man!, which I made with Lindsay [Anderson] immediately afterwards, I’ve always been cast as the heavy. It used to irritate the shit out of me, and then I just got bored with it, you know? I just wanted to get on, maybe make a few comedies or do something else, but there was Alex…I know that I’ve said some mean things about Kubrick in the past, but thinking back to the actual shooting of that film and trying to forget all the baggage of what happened afterwards, it was an incredibly stimulating experience, even though I got to the point where I hated the film because of the reaction.’

This runs contra to McDowell’s enthusiasm as expounded in this interview about A Clockwork Orange he gave with author Anthony Burgess in 1972, but this was still early days and McDowell had not been hamstrung by his move to Hollywood, where he ended-up making movies for the lowest common denominator. McDowell is an exceptionally talented actor and no matter how dire the film he always gives a powerfully memorable performance.
 
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The book and its Beethoven-loving author, Anthony Burgess.
 
Anthony Burgess came to hate Kubrick’s film too, which was ironic as the movie made Burgess a bigger star than his writing up to that point had achieved. Burgess is a writer’s writer, a polymath who claimed he would rather be known for his musical compositions than his books. Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange in 1962, after being mistakenly told he had not long to live. To ensure he left money for his wife, Burgess wrote a series of novels in quick succession, one of which was A Clockwork Orange. It was moderately successful on publication, a cult book, that became a bestseller after Kubrick’s movie. Burgess claimed he took the title from an old East London saying, “As queer as a clockwork orange,” which may or may not be true, as there appears to be no known record of this phrase. Whatever its derivation, it perfectly captured the book’s theme of a hideous artificial will imposed on natural behavior.
 
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McDowell and Kubrick on set during filming.
 
After Kubrick’s film version of A Clockwork Orange was released in Britain in 1971, it was ironically linked to a series of violent crimes. The first was the murder of a tramp by a 16-year-old youth; the second involved another 16-year-old who, while dressed in the film’s distinctive gang uniform, stabbed a younger boy; the third was the brutal and horrific gang rape of a Dutch girl by a group of youths from Lancashire, as they sang “Singing in the Rain”.

Sentencing the 16-year-old for assaulting a child, a judge described the attack part of a “horrible trend” prompted by “this wretched film”. Following death threats and warnings from the police over revenge attacks, Kubrick asked Warner Brothers to pull the film from its UK release. For a very long time, through the 1980s and 1990s, the nearest place Brits could see A Clockwork Orange was Paris. It was only after Kubrick’s death in 1999 was his ban lifted and the film re-released in the UK.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
Anthony Burgess and the Top Secret Code contained in ‘A Clockwork Orange’
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.04.2015
11:05 am
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Kubrick veteran Peter Sellers HATED ‘A Clockwork Orange’


 
In the June 25, 1972 issue of the Chicago Tribune there appears a profile of Peter Sellers written by the paper’s film critic Gene Siskel. The article focuses on some serious health problems Sellers had recently undergone, specifically “eight heart attacks in one day.” Sellers seemed to be recovering well, in part due to a newfound interest in yoga.

The article does not mention what triggered those “eight heart attacks in one day.”  According to Wikipedia, on the night of April 5, 1964, prior to having sex with his wife Britt Ekland, Sellers took amyl nitrites as a sexual stimulant in his search for “the ultimate orgasm” and suffered a series of eight heart attacks over the course of three hours as a result. This unfortunate medical outcome forced Sellers to withdraw from the filming of Billy Wilder’s Kiss Me, Stupid; he was replaced by Ray Walston.
 

 
Knowing that Sellers was likely the world’s most famous actorly collaborator of Stanley Kubrick’s, having appeared to spectacular effect in Dr. Strangelove and Lolita, Siskel naturally inquired as to Sellers’ opinion of A Clockwork Orange, which had been out for a few months and had sparked intense discussion over the role of violence in the movies.

Much to Siskel’s surprise, it turns out that Sellers’ opinion of the movie was unequivocal: he hated it.

Sellers: I hated ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ I thought it was the biggest load of crap I’ve ever seen for years. Amoral. I think because of the violence around today it’s lamentable that a director of Stanley Kubrick’s distinction and ability should lend himself to such a subject. I’m not saying that you can’t pick up that book [the Anthony Burgess novel upon which the film is based], read it, and put it down. But to make it as a film, with all the violence we have in the world today – to add to it, to put it on show – I just don’t understand where Stanley is at.

Siskel: Are you saying that it will influence people to commit violence that they would otherwise not commit?

Sellers: I think it adds to it.

 
Most fascinating (and in a way, hilarious) is a passage later in the profile, which comes when Siskel is trying to get Sellers to admit that it’s okay for movies to handle violence as a subject. Sellers interrupts: “I must tell you first of all that I’m a yogi. I am against violence completely. Hare ommm. So you now know why. So there’s really no point in asking any more questions about it.”
 
Via A Stanley Kubrick Tumblr
 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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02.19.2015
09:34 am
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Scenes from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ recreated using Grand Theft Auto V


 
A pretty impressive homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 masterpiece A Clockwork Orange hosted by Grand Theft Auto Online on YouTube. It took more than a dozen people to recreate some of the most iconic scenes from the movie using Grand Theft Auto V. Now I’ve played GTA a few times myself—this was years ago, btw—and I can’t figure out for the life of me just how they were able to recreate a few of these scenes. Incredible work!


 
With thanks to Edward Ludvigsen!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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01.13.2015
02:07 pm
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Illustrations from the new edition of ‘A Clockwork Orange’
09.23.2014
05:04 pm
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Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange achieved its iconographic status through the lens of Stanley Kubrick—something you could argue is both a blessing and a curse when you remember that almost anytime you hear, “Oh I love A Clockwork Orange,” you can bet they’re invariably talking about the movie. That kind of legacy can be difficult to escape, but these illustrations from the Folio’s Society’s new edition of the book add a pretty fresh look—it’s dingier and more isolated than Kubrick’s vision, lacking the circus-like atmosphere, but maintaining the violent dystopian madness the film captured so well.

Watch the video to hear the illustrator talk process—he abstained from watching the movie while working, but still gives Kubrick a nod. The new edition will come in a gorgeous hardback and include the once-omitted 21st chapter and an expanded glossary of “Nadsat” researched from Burgess’s handwritten notes and letters to his editors.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Via Juxtapoz

Posted by Amber Frost
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09.23.2014
05:04 pm
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Famous friends of Mick Jagger thought he should play the lead in ‘A Clockwork Orange’
09.27.2013
05:20 pm
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In early 1968, Hollywood producer Si Litvinoff was trying to find a director for Terry Southern’s screenplay adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novella, A Clockwork Orange. He sent the script around to the likes of John Boorman, Roman Polanski, Tinto Brass, Ken Russell, Nicolas Roeg and John Schlesinger with cover letters suggesting that The Beatles were interested in doing the soundtrack and that Mick Jagger or David Hemmings would be good for the lead Droog “Alex,” the role that went to Malcolm McDowell in Stanley Kubrick’s film.

At one point Jagger actually owned the rights to the Burgess novella—he bought them for about $500 at time when Anthony Burgess was apparently flat broke—and then later sold them at a nice profit to Litvinoff.

When the news reached the Stones camp that Hemmings was the favorite for the role, not Mick, Marianne Faithfull, all of The Beatles, Candy director Christian Marquand, artist Peter Blake and several others sent a note to Terry Southern:

DEAR MR SOUTHERN, WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, DO HEREBY PROTEST WITH EXTREME VEHEMENCE AS WELL AS SHATTERED ILLUSIONS (IN YOU) THE PREFERENCE OF DAVID HEMMINGS ABOVE ****** MICK JAGGER ****** IN THE ROLE OF ALEX IN ‘THE CLOCKWORK ORANGE’...

Read the entire story at Letters of Note.
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.27.2013
05:20 pm
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Anthony Burgess and the Top Secret Code in ‘A Clockwork Orange’

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Death often inspires the most remarkable hyperbole. At the memorial service for Anthony Burgess in 1994, novelist William Boyd eulogized the author of A Clockwork Orange as “a genius,” “a prodigy, a daunting and awesome one,” who “would compose a string quartet in the ten minutes he allowed himself between finishing a novel and writing a monograph on James Joyce,” whose “polymorphous abilities are genuinely amazing.”

High praise indeed. Yet, Mr. Boyd wasn’t finished, Mr. Burgess, he said, was “one of our great comic novelists.” Boyd gave, by way of example, that off-used line from one of the Enderby novels. This was the line with which Burgess proved (allegedly for a bet) he could write a sentence where the word “onions” appears three times.

‘Then—instead of expensive mouthwash—he had breathed on Enderby—bafflingly—(for no banquet would serve, because of the redolence of onions, onions) onions.’

Hardly a knee-slapper, rather the kind of literary snobbishness that epitomizes Burgess, and by association Mr. Boyd.

Burgess was low comedy. He was for the cheap fart jokes, like Dudley Moore when competing against the loquacious comic invention of Peter Cook on Derek and Clive, or like the trademark raspberry (“Bronx Cheer”) used by Goon Harry Secombe when confronted with the manic genius of Spike Milligan.

Burgess’s idea of comedy was to have a dog called the n-word (The Doctor is Sick), or a “hero” poet (Enderby) writing his verse (blast) on the toilet; or where Shakespeare is cuckolded by his brother and catches the clap from his “Dark Lady” (Nothing Like the Sun)

Though I like Burgess, I would hardly call his work comic. Too often his books present an author more interested in flashing his learnedness to an audience, rather than his imagination—which is why his books lack emotional resonance, and his characters rarely have an interior life.

Burgess always wanted to be seen as smarter than everyone—when readers pointed out to the master the mistakes in his magnum opus Earthly Powers, Burgess claimed he had deliberately included these errors to see who would discover them, which is like ye olde Thelwell cartoon of the riding instructor who when thrown by his horse, asked his pupils, “Which one of you spotted my deliberate mistake?”

Perhaps aware of this lack, Burgess was usually quick to take offense—watch any interview and he types himself as the victim, the Catholic in a oppressive-Protestant society, a northerner in a London-centric world, a student from a red-brick university rather than the hallowed groves of Cambridge or Oxford. Burgess is Jimmy Porter, full of petty grievances against the world. Which all makes for an interesting character, and author, but not a great one.

Burgess’s best known novel is A Clockwork Orange, which became an international success once it had been filmed by Stanley Kubrick. Burgess came to hate it and told Playboy in 1971, of all his books it was the one he liked least. But without A Clockwork Orange would anyone have taken an interest in Burgess?
 

 
The secret code contained in Burgess’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.21.2013
07:00 pm
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