ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

1975

Director .... .. .. .... ..... ......... .................. ........ .......... ..... .... ... ... Milo~ Forman
Producers ..... ... ........... .. . ..... .... ........... .. Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas
Screenplay .. ..... ............. .......... .. ........ Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman
(based on the novel by Ken Kesey)
Music ..... ........... .. ...... ..... .. ... .... ... .. .. .. .. ....................... ...... Jack Nitzsche
Director of Photography ............ ........ ... .. .. .................... Haskell Wexler
(additional photography by Bill Butler)

Cast

R.P. McMurphy ..................... ... ......... ..... ......... ............... Jack Nicholson
Nurse Ratched .... .. .. ...................... .... ........................... Louise Flet cher
Harding . .. . .... . .... . ... .. ..... ........ . ... .... .. .. . .... .. ...... . ... .. .. . ...... William Red fi eld
Chief Bromden ............................ ......... .. ........ ..... .... ... ..... . Will Sampson
Billy Bibbit .. ........... .. .................... .. ........ .. ......................... Brad Dourif
Candy .... .. ... .. ... ... .... .. .... .. ... .. .. .. ... ...... ... .... .. .. .. ... ......... .. ..... Marya Small
Turkle ........ ... .................. .................... ...................... Scatman Crothers
Martini ......... .... .. ................... .. ..... .... ............... .. ............ ·Danny De Vito
Sefelt .................... ......... .... .. .... .. .. ....... ... ................... .. ........ William Duell
Cheswick .... .. ... ... ...... ...... .. .. .. ....... .. ... ...... .. .. .... .. .. .. .. ...... Sydney Lassick
Taber .............. .. .................................. .................... . Christopher Lloyd
Frederickson .. ... .. . . .. .. . .. ... .... .. .. ..... ..... .. .. ... .. .. ..... .. . . .. .. Vincent Schiavelli

Running time : 129 minutes

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

I. Exterior. Countryside. Dawn. It is 1963. In the distance , a car with its headlamps on moves al ong. T he
CREDITS are superimposed .

2. Interior. Dormitory , mental hospital. • (Dawn.) Inmates sleep .

3 . Interior. Corridor and nurse 's station. (Day.) Nurse MILDRED RATCHED arrives ; she greets the black
orderlies (Washington, Warren , and Miller).

4 . Interior. Nurse's station. (Day .) Nurse Ratched greets her assistant, Nurse Pilbow.

5. Interior. Seclusion Room. (Day.) Washington releases Pete Bancini, who has been strapped to his bed.

6. Interior. Nurses station and day room. (Day.) As languorous music plays, Nurse Pilbow dispenses medi-
cation to the men: BRUCE FREDERICKSON, JIM SEFELT, ChiefBROMDEN, and others.

7 . Exterior. Mental hospital. (Day .) Handcuffed , thirty-eight-year~ld RANDLE PATRICK McMURPHY

8. Interior. Foyer, mental hospital. (Day.) McMurphy's handcuffs are removed, and he joyously kisses one
of the policemen who brought him in.

9. Interior. Corridor, ward. (Day.) Accompanied by Warren and Miller, McMurphy is conducted to the day
room .

*Unless otherwise indicated, the action occurs in this mental hospital. Nurse Ratched's all-male ward consists of
a corridor (entered through a locked gate) that leads to the nurse's station, the Seclusion Room, the day room ,
and the dormitory - all in close proximity to one another.

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 0. Interior. Nurse's station. (Day .) Nurse Pilbow helps Nurse Ratched inventory McMurphy's belongings.
2.
I. Interior. Day room. (Day.) McMurphy manically greets Chief Bromden, ostensibly a mute. He playfully
disrupts the pinochle game of DALE HARDING, CHARLES (CHARLIE) CHESWICK, and BILLY
BIBB IT by wooing away MARTINI, and then Billy, with a deck of playing cards with sexy pictures.
2.
2. Interior. Director's office, mental hospital. Day. Near the end of a lengthy interview with his new
patient, Dr. John Spivey says that McMurphy - who has had at least five arrests for assault and entered
prison on a statutory rape conviction - has been suspected of feigning mental illness to get out of work .
2·
During his stay in the hospital, he is to be evaluated."l'm here to cooperate," McMurphy says; "we ought
to get to the bottom of, uh, R.P. McMurphy ."
2
I 3. Interior. Day room. Day. Nurse Ratched begins Group Meeting by inviting comments on Hardin's sus-
picion of his wife's infidelity . Scanlon, Bibbit, Martini, and Cheswick, though called upon, choose not to
comment . MAX TABER's attack on Harding spreads into a more generalized derision, antagonism , and 2
chaos . Nurse Ratched remains placid, impassive.
2
14. Exterior. Yard, mental hospital. Day. From behind the high fence, McMurphy observes the non-re-
stricted patients boarding the bus into town . He attempts to teach Bromden to toss a basketball into a
basket. Nurse Ratched watches from an upstairs window. 2
I~ Interior. Day room. Night . McMurphy is dealing blackjack, with the players betting cigarettes. He tries 3
:o hear a baseball game (being broadcast from somewhere off-screen), but Nurse Ratched's music (6) is
too loud.

I 6. Interior. Nurse's station. (Night.) When McMurphy enters to tum down the volume, Nurse Ratch ed
politely but firmly ejects him from the room. At the window, he asks her to tum down the music , but
she refuses . When he demurs about taking his medication, she offers to give it to him in a maner other
than oral. He seems to swallow his medication.

17 . Interior. Day room . (Night.} Harding ridicules McMurphy about his stand against Nurse Ratched. Aft er
spitting his pill (I 6) at Harding, McMurphy predicts that he will wear down the ward nurse in a week.

18 . Interior. Day room. Day. During Group Meeting, McMurphy asks to change the work schedul e to
accommodate the men's watching the World Series. Nurse Ratched puts McMurphy's proposal to a vote ;
with only Cheswick and Taber supporting him, McMurphy loses.

I 9 . Interior. Tub room. (Night.} During a game of Monopoly, Taber and Harding quarrel- until McMurphy
turns the water on them. McMurphy announces that he is going downtown to watch the World Series in
a bar ; he'll bust out by throwing the hydrotherapy console through the window. Several men bet him
that he cannot lift the console from its moorings - and he cannot. "But I tried, didn't I, goddamn it ,"
he says as he walks out; "at least I did that."

20 . Interior. Lounge. Day. Washington and Warren listen to the second game of the World Series.

2 I . Interior. Day room and nurse's station. (Day.) In Group Meeting, Nurse Ratched focusses on Bibbit, his
relationships with women (including his mother), and his attempted suicides. Cheswick suggests that
Bibbit, visibly shaken, shouldn't be forced to talk. It's therapy, Nurse Ratched replies. Cheswick then
propo~s another vote on watching the baseball game. This time, nine men support the Series, but
Ratched tells McMurphy that with eighteen men in the ward, he lacks a majority. Incredulous, McMur-
phy asks if Nurse Ratched refers to "the poor son of a bitches" who "don't even know what we're talk-
ing about." She obviously does. McMurphy hastily canvases the bum-outs to find one more vote, but by
the time he gets Bromden to raise his hand, Nurse Ratched has adjourned the m~eting- an is immovable.
In her office, Nurse Ratched turns on the music. Seated before the mute television set, the sullen McMur-
phy begins to improvise a play-by-play of an imagined game and works the inmates into a joyous frenzy .
Stop it, Ratched calls from the loud speaker; stop it immediately .

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22. Interior. Director's office. Day. McMurphy complains to Dr. Spivey that Nurse Ratched is not "honest."
Turning to the discussion at hand, Spivey tells McMurphy ·that for the past four weeks, the staff has
discovered no signs of mental illness in McMurphy.

23. Exterior. Yard, mental hospital. Day. Seeing the waiting bus, McMurphy has Bromden hoist him over
'1 the fence. He runs into the bus and when all the passengers are seated, drives away, leaving behind the
bewildered driver.

24. Interior. Bus, moving. (Day.) McMurphy drives.

25 . Exterior. Grounds, mental hospital. (Day.) The bus leaves .

26 . Exterior/Interior. Bus, moving. (Day.) With McMurphy at the wheel, the bus drives through the town .

27 . Exterior. Trailer court, town. (Day.) McMurphy fetches CANDY.

28 . Interior/Exterior. Bus, moving. (Day.) Candy, somewhat wary, greets the men aboard McMurphy's
hijacked bus.

29 . Exterior. Road. (Day.) The bus rides toward the harbor.

30. Exterior. Harbor. (Day.) The men leave the bus and board a large fishing boat. As McMurphy is dis-
tributing life jackets, the harbor master questions them; McMurphy introduces the inmates as "doctors"
at the mental hospital and hustles them aboard. They hastily leave for the open sea.

31 . Exterior. Boat, moving. (Day.) In open waters, McMurphy gives Cheswick the wheel and the others some
fishing poles . McMurphy leads Candy into the cabin below deck. The men leave their fishing to observe
McMurphy; Cheswick abandons the wheel. When he realizes what has happened, McMurphy charges out
of the cabin, restores orde-r, and eventually helps Martini hook a gigantic fish .

32 . Exterior. Harbor. (Day.) While a helicopter hovers above, the stolen boat returns home . Martini proudly
displays his catch to observers and hospital officials on the wharf.

33 . Interior. Director's office, mental hospital. Day. The assembled psychiatrists agree that although McMur-
phy is not mentally ill, he is dangerous; Nurse Ratched, however, recommends that they keep him : "I
think we can help him ."

34 . Exterior. Yard, mental hospital. Day. At a basketball game between the orderlies and the inmates,
Bromden becomes his team's leading scorer.

35 . Interior. Swimming pool, mental hospital. Day. Taunted by Washington, McMurphy remarks that he has
only sixty-eight more days to serve . You stay "until we Jet you go," Washington says.

36. Interior. Day room and nurse's station. Day. At Group Meeting, McMurphy chastises Harding : you knew
that by irritating Nurse Ratched I was only extending my stay. To McMurphy's astonishment, Nurse
Ratched says that except for McMurphy, Bromden, Taber, and some of the chronics, everyone in the
ward is voluntary, not committed. The stability of the session begins to erode when Cheswick cries for
his own cigarettes. Cigarettes had to be rationed, Nurse Ratched explains, when McMurphy won all of
them .as weU as money in his tub room casino. A lighted cigarette accidentally burns Taber, causes him
to yelp, and sets off Cheswick again. At the peak of the disturbance, McMurphy smashes his fist through
Nurse Ratched's window to retrieve Cheswick's cigarettes. Washington and McMurphy fight, Bromden
joins in, and Nurse Ratched sounds the general alarm.

37. Interior. Corridor, treatment room. Day. Bromden, Cheswick, and McMurphy are brought in for Electro
Shock Therapy (EST). Screaming, Cheswick is carried to the treatment room. Bromden, heretofore
mute, speaks to McMurphy. "You fooled 'em all," McMurphy exults. Then, conspiratorily, McMurphy
says, "Let's get out of here." McMurphy's turn for treatment comes.

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38. Interior. Treatment room. (Day.) Laid on the table, McMurphy nervously jokes with the attendants.
They remove his shoes, dab conductant on his temples, and insert in his mouth a device to keep him
from biting his tongue.; then they give him EST. His face turns red, his face and body jerk .

39. Interior. Day room. Day. During Group Meeting, McMurphy returns, zombie-like. But suddenly his grin
spreads, his eyes light up, and he announces: R.P. McMurphy's back in action.

40 . Interior. Day room and nurse's station. Night. When Nurse Ratched leaves for the evening, TURK LE is
in charge.

41. Interior. Nurse's station. (Night.) McMurphy sneaks in to call Candy: It's on for tonight, he says ; bring
a car and some booze .

42. Interior. Dormitory. (Night.) McMurphy silences a snorer. [lntercut: At the nurse's station, Turkle
thinks that the hears something.] McMurphy tries to persuade Bromden to escape with him, but th e
Chief says that he cannot. Later, McMurphy points to Candy and her friend Rose just outside the win-
dow and padlocked screen; with money, booze, and the promise of sex, McMurphy bribes Turkle to ad-
mit the women .

43. Interior. Tub room . (Night.} Leaving Turkle to entertain Rose, McMurphy and Candy exit.

· 4. lnten·or. Day room, dormitory, and nurse's station. (Night) Manning the loud speaker, McMurphy bids
the sleeping inmates to come receive their medication: this time, it's liquor, and a party begins.

45 . Interior. Nurse's station. (Night.} Suddenly, the night supervisor approaches . Turkle herds the celebrants
into Nurse Ratched's office to hide. While Turkle talks with the supervisor, Candy sticks out her head .
The supervisor, suspecting nothing more than Turkle's entertaining a woman, orders Turkle to conduct
her out. When the supervisor leaves, Turkle throws the inmates out of the office that they have de-
molished.

46. Interior. Day room and dormitory . (Night.} The wild Christmas party continues . Martini decorates "The
General" like a Christmas tree ; Cheswick dispenses liquor from an enema tube . Others dance and drink .

4 7. Interior. Day room. dormitory . and nurse's station. (Night.} The party has grown quieter. Bib bit dances
with Candy. McMurphy pilfers the key to the padlocked screen from Turkle, who has passed out . He tells
each of the men goodbye . Sometime, Billy says at his farewell, I'd like a date with Candy. Now, McMur-
phy insists . McMurphy closets him with Candy in the Seclusion Room and herds the others away from
the door. The party has wound down. Seated, McMurphy awaits Billy and Candy.

48. Interior. Day room, dormitory, and nurse's station. Day. McMurphy and the others have fallen asleep,
in various places and positions. The ward room is in complete disarray, Turkle has passed out in the
office, and Bibbit sleeps snuggled next to Candy. Nurse Ratched enters. When she begins to humiliate
Billy, to threaten to tell his mother what he has done, he blames McMurphy. Nurse Ratched directs
Washington to take Billy to Dr. Spivey's office; Billy cries no. As Washington stops McMurphy's attemp-
ted escape, Nurse Pilbow screams: Bibbit has slit his throat. McMurphy forces Ratched to the ground and
begins to strangle her to death. Washington pulls him off. Fade out.

49 . Interior. Day room and nurse's station. Day. Harding, Martini, Cheswick, and Taber play blackjack . As
Sefelt enters - passing Nurse Ratched, who wears an orthopedic collar- the men begin to speculate on
what has become of McMurphy .

50. Interior. Dormitory. Night . McMurphy is returned to his bed. Bromden approaches him, ready to escape,
but McMurphy has apparently been lobotomized. Bromden embraces him, lays him down, and firmly
uses a pillow to smother him to death.

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51. Interior. Tub room. (Night.) Bromden lifts the hydrotherapy. console from its moorings.

52 . Exterior, interior. Dormitory. (Night.) Bromden throws·the console through the window and jumps out
behind it . Taber lets out a whoop of victory, awakening the others.

53. Exterior. Road. (Night.) Bromden runs off. Fade out.

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