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A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dark satirical science fiction film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. The film concerns Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), a charismatic, psychopathic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and ultra-violence. He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian друг, “friend”, “buddy”). The film tells the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured, contemporary adolescent argot comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.

This cinematic adaptation was produced, directed, and written by Stanley Kubrick. It features disturbing, violent images, to facilitate social commentary about psychiatry, youth gangs, and other contemporary social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian, future Britain. A Clockwork Orange features a soundtrack comprising mostly classical music selections and Moog synthesizer compositions by Wendy Carlos. A notable exception is “Singin’ in the Rain”, chosen because it was a song whose lyrics actor Malcolm McDowell knew.The now-iconic poster of A Clockwork Orange, and its images, were created by designer Bill Gold. The film also holds the record in the Guinness World Records for being the first movie in media history using the Dolby Sound system.

Set in London, England in the near-future and narrated by Alex DeLarge, the film opens on Alex and his friends, "the droogs"; Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie (James Marcus), and Dim (Warren Clarke), partaking of mescaline-spiked milk at the Korova Milk Bar prior to an evening of "the old ultra-violence". They proceed to beat up an elderly vagrant under a motorway and interrupt an attempted gang rape of a woman in an abandoned theatre by a rival gang of camouflage wearing Walts led by Billyboy (Richard Connaught). They subsequently get in a brawl with their rivals. Upon hearing the sounds of police sirens, Alex and his gang flees, stealing a car and driving into the countryside. They then gain entry to the home of Mr. Alexander, a writer, under false pretenses and assault him while violently raping his wife (Adrienne Corri), all while Alex sings Singing' in the Rain. When they return to the milk bar, Alex chides Dim when he interrupts a female patron while she sings a selection of Beethoven, a composer Alex admires.

The next day, Alex skips school and has an encounter with social worker Mr. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris). Deltoid is exasperated with Alex and talks about all his hard work with him. Deltoid is the one person who easily sees through Alex' lies. After picking up and having sex with two girls from a record shop, Alex regroups with his droogs in his building lobby who now challenge his authority: with Georgie insisting the gang be run in a "new way" that entails less power for Alex and more ambitious crimes. As they walk along a canal, Alex attacks his droogs in order to re-establish his leadership.



That night, the gang attempts to invade the home of a woman (Miriam Karlin) who lives alone with her cats and runs a health farm. In the process, she gets into a fight with Alex, and Alex mortally bludgeons her with a phallus-shaped statue. As they flee the scene, Dim smashes a milk bottle across Alex's face, temporarily blinding him and leaving him to be found by the police. During his interrogation, Alex is told by Mr. Deltoid that he is now a murderer, because the woman died from her injuries. To add insult to injury, Deltoid simply spits on Alex in sheer disgust.

After a trial, Alex is convicted of the murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. He arrives from the courthouse where he is strip-searched and given a prison number which he must memorize. Two years later, Alex becomes friends with the prison chaplain and takes a keen interest in the Bible, but primarily in the more violent characters. When the Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp) arrives at the prison looking for volunteers for the Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals, Alex eagerly steps forward, much to the disgust of Chief Officer Barnes (Michael Bates). At the Ludovico facility, Alex is placed in a straitjacket and forced to watch films containing scenes of extreme violence while being given drugs to induce reactions of revulsion. The films include one of real scenes in Nazi Germany, which includes a soundtrack of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Alex realises this will likely condition him against Beethoven's music and makes an agonised though unsuccessful attempt to have the treatment end prematurely before the conditioning sets in. Alex is forced to watch two of these violent films a day. Two weeks later, after the treatment is finished, Alex's reformed behaviour is demonstrated for the audience. He is unable to respond back to an Irish actor (John Clive) shouting insults and picking a fight with him, and a feeling of sickness attacks him when he is presented with a young naked woman who sexually arouses him. The Minister declares Alex to be cured, but the chaplain asserts that Alex no longer has any free will.

Alex is let free from prison two years after his sentencing. He returns home only to find that his parents have rented out his room to a lodger named Joe (Clive Francis), leaving him on his own. On the street, Alex comes across the same vagrant he had assaulted before the treatment, who calls in his friends and they attack Alex. Two policemen arrive to break up the fight, but Alex discovers the policemen to be his former droogs, Dim and Georgie. They drag Alex out to the countryside, where they brutally assault and half-drown him in a vat of water before leaving him for dead.

Battered and bruised, Alex wanders to the home of Mr. Alexander, who does not recognize him from two years prior, due to Alex’ wearing a mask at the time. Mr. Alexander is revealed to have been crippled by the attack two years earlier and now lives with a personal bodyguard, manservant, and physical trainer named Julian (David Prowse). Mr. Alexander takes Alex into his home, aware that he had undergone the Ludovico treatment due to the story published in all of the country's newspapers. Mr. Alexander tends to Alex's wounds, but the memories of his assault return when Alex sings "Singin' in the Rain" while he is taking a bath. Mr. Alexander drugs Alex, locks him in the upper floor of his home and plays Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at full volume through a powerful stereo on the floor below, knowing that the Ludovico treatment will cause immense pain to Alex. In order to escape the torture, Alex becomes suicidal and throws himself out of the room's window.

Alex recovers consciousness days later to find himself in traction, with dreams about doctors messing around inside his head. Through a series of psychological tests, Alex finds that he no longer has a revulsion to violence. The Minister of the Interior comes to Alex and apologises for subjecting him to the treatment, and informs him that Mr. Alexander has been "put away". The Minister then offers Alex an important government job and, as a show of goodwill, has a stereo wheeled to his bedside playing Beethoven's Ninth. Alex then realises that instead of an adverse reaction to the music, he sees images of sexual pleasure. He then states (in a sarcastic and menacing voice-over) "I was cured, all right!"