In one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she don't know whether to shit or wind her wristwatch.

No 105 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Director – Milos Forman

The first thing that strikes me about this film is the sheer number of exciting young actor’s and awesome cameos which appear in it. Look at them all:

Very exciting.

Can I just say that young Danny DeVito looks a bit like a squashed Matt Le Blanc? Or is that insulting to everyone in the world?

Can I also say how weird it is to see Christopher Lloyd playing a bit of a tough nut – rather than the goggle eyed freaks he usually portrays.

Now…. I know that Nurse Ratched is supposed to be bad. I know she is supposed to be viewed as the oppressive dictator of the psychiatric ward – and I’m not ashamed to say that most of my knowledge is down to the excellent Spaced parody.

However…. Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy is a prick. He is a pain in the neck and a shit stirrer. So… yes… Nurse Ratched may be quite harsh and overly cruel, and yes…Louise Fletcher plays Ratched with glorious cold eyes. However, for the most of the film her actions seem ultimately sound, if somewhat harsh.

The only time that this changes is if you follow poor stuttering Billy. McMurphy deserves to be picked on – after all, he is asking for it by pushing the establishment – and whilst his end is very cruel, it is nowhere near as tragic as Billy’s.

See his shy and coy conversations with McMurphy’s friend Candy as it leads to one of the most joyous preludes to sex I’ve seen on film.

It is the cold hard way that Ratched uses one calculated phrase and snatches Billy’s new found post coital confidence and smashes him back down a stuttering repercussions.

This simple act is Nurse Ratched at her heartless worst, and the repercussions of that simple sentence which provides the film’s true bleakness. And whilst Billy never inspires the Chief’s glorious final scene in the same way that McMurphy does – Billy is the important character.

Whilst Jack Nicholson may be the star…. This isn’t McMurphy’s story.

This is the story of Billy and the Chief.