History Film / OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:Charles Cheswick drowns in a swimming pool]] in the novel but survives the movie. According to WordOfGod, [[spoiler:Cheswick]] was spared to make [[spoiler:Billy Bibbit's]] death more shocking.

* DemotedToExtra: Doctor Spivey has a lot fewer scenes in the adaptation, and his whole character arc is removed wholesale. [[spoiler:In the novel, he spearheads the reformation of the hospital after Ratched is gone.]]

* OutOfFocus: The nine remaining men on the ward (the General who is endlessly dancing, the bald catatonic guy, etc). The most screen-time they get is the scene where Randle tries to convince them to cast a deciding vote to watch the World Series.

* OneBookAuthor: Real-life example. Nurse Pilbow is played by Mimi Sarkisian in her only credited screen role, although she was also in the play.[[note]] She also makes an {{uncredited|role}} appearance in ''Film/TheRightStuff'', again playing a nurse as a likely ActorAllusion. [[/note]]

* OrderliesAreCreeps: Downplayed; in the novel, the orderlies are sadists who viciously beat and even sexually abuse the patients. In the film, most of the orderlies generally get along fine with the patients, talking with them and even playing basketball in the yard. However, they are also ultimately willing to go along with Ratched's orders without protest, and Washington in particular seems to take sadistic pleasure in tormenting [=McMurphy=]. It's not clear whether he does this because Mac is a trouble-maker or because Washington is cruel towards many of the other patients as well.

* OrderliesAreCreeps: Downplayed; in the novel, the orderlies are sadists who beat and even sexually abuse the patients. In the film, most of the orderlies generally get along fine with the patients, talking with them and even playing basketball in the yard. However, they are also ultimately willing to go along with Ratched's orders without protest, and Washington in particular seems to take sadistic pleasure in tormenting [=McMurphy=]. It's not clear whether he does this because Mac is a trouble-maker or because Washington is cruel towards many of the other patients as well.

* OneBookAuthor: Real-life example. Nurse Pilbow is played by Mimi Sarkisian in her only screen role, although she was also in the play.

* OneBookAuthor: Nurse Pilbow is played by Mimi Sarkisian. This is her only screen role, although she was also in the play.

* OneBookAuthor: Nurse Pilbow is played by Mimi Sarkisian. This is her only movie, but she was also in the play.

''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' is a 1975 comedy-drama film co-produced by Creator/MichaelDouglas, directed by Creator/MilosForman, and starring Creator/JackNicholson and Creator/LouiseFletcher. Based [[Literature/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest the 1962 novel]] by Creator/KenKesey, it mostly follows the original plot, albeit with a number of deviations that allow it to work better on the big screen.

* The background patients on the ward, some of whom [[DisabledCharacterDisabledActor were real patients of the hospital the movie was shot at]].

* ElectricTorture: The hospital permits Ratched to administer electroshock therapy this way, giving it without anesthesia to patients who don't actually need it.

* AdaptationalSexuality: In the novel, Harding was as heavily implied to be gay as was possible in 1960s literature, depicted as effeminate, forced into the asylum for unnamed sexual acts, and getting a long speech about the ridiculousness of the society that condemned him. In the movie, the other inmates tease him by implying that he is homosexual, but he's far from effeminate and is said to have a wife. If he is meant to be gay in the film, he's likely deep in the closet.

It is one of only three films to sweep the "Big Five" major [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Academy Awards]]--Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. (The others are ''Film/ItHappenedOneNight'' and ''Film/SilenceOfTheLambs''). Like the latter of these, it now has a TV series prequel: ''{{Series/Ratched}}''.

-->'''[=McMurphy=]:''' This is Dr. Cheswick, Dr. Taber, Dr. Frederickson, Dr. Scanlon, the famous Dr. Scanlon, [[ButtMonkey Mr. Harding]], Dr. Bibbit, Dr. Martini, and Dr. Sefelt...Oh, I'm Dr. [=McMurphy=], R. P. [=McMurphy=].

** At an early point in the movie, [=McMurphy=] boasts that he is going to break out of the mental hospital by lifting a water fountain and chucking it through a window. The inmates don't believe him, so he bets them money he can do it. He fails, but he shames the inmates by saying eh at least tried unlike everyone else. The water fountain's a symbol for [=McMurphy=]'s undying sense of freedom. He never believes that anything is impossible. He will never stop trying to live life his way, and that's exactly why the folks at the hospital eventually give him a lobotomy. Then later on in a deeply symbolic moment, Chief Bromden kills [=McMurphy=] and then lifts the same water fountain that [=McMurphy=] failed to lift earlier in the movie. Lifting the fountain is supposed to be impossible, but Chief reminds us that anything is possible for those who refuse to give in to authority.

* TotallyEighteen: This is part of the reason why [=McMurphy=] is locked up; he had sex with an underage girl that (he says) claimed she was eighteen.

-->'''[=McMurphy=]:''' She was fifteen years old goin' on thirty-five, Doc, and she [[TotallyEighteen told me she was eighteen]]. She was very willing, you know what I mean? I practically had to take to sewin' my pants shut.

* AmbiguousDisorder: It is not explicitly stated what mental conditions any of the inmates have.

* OrderliesAreCreeps: Downplayed; in the novel, the orderlies are sadists who beat and even sexually abuse the patients. In the film, most of the orderlies generally get along fine with the patients, talking with them and even playing basketball in the yard. However, they are also ultimately willing to go along with Ratched's orders without protest, and Washington in particular seems to take sadistic pleasure in tormenting [=McMurphy=]. It's not clear whether he does this because Mac is a trouble-maker or because Washington is cruel towards many of the patients as well.

* OrderliesAreCreeps: Partially subverted; the orderlies generally get along fine with the patients, talking with them and even playing basketball in the yard. However, they are also ultimately willing to go along with Ratched's orders without protest.

* AdaptionalVillainy: In the book, the Japanese nurse in the Disturbed Ward turns out to be surprisingly sympathetic towards the patients, treating [=McMurphy=] and Bromden after their fight with Ratched's orderlies, is critical of the more barbaric elements in the mental hospitals, and confirms nurses like Ratched are "a little sick themselves"; she even notes she'd prefer keeping patients in her ward to keep them away from Ratched, if she were capable of doing so. In the film, while she's not a villain, she's reduced to another cog in the hospital's machine, and administers [=McMurphy's=] [[spoiler: electroshock treatment.]]

-->-- '''Randall Patrick [=McMurphy=]'''

-->-- '''[=McMurphy=]'''